What state(s) will see the largest shifts in the next 4 electoral cycles?

[Skill and Chance]

Possibilities that haven't been discussed yet:

Large GOP shift:

Maine- it just sticks out like a sore thumb demographically, more so than any of the Trump-voting Rust Belt states that get heavily discussed here

Rhode Island- see Maine, also the state legislature is just full of conservadems, almost to the degree WV was 10 years ago

Indiana- demographically favorable, loves trade restrictions, sort of dovish on foreign policy, could plausibly be the most Republican state in the country in 2032


Large Dem shift:

Alaska- Anchorage and Juneau, plus the native areas, plus potential energy industry revolt over GOP protectionism down the line

Oklahoma- much more socially conservative, but has large cities and majority-minority areas that would be voting Dem just about anywhere else, depends heavily on commodities industries that will be ticked off about tariffs, and there's the state/local situation over tax cuts and inadequate education funding.  This is a very underrated long run possibility for Democrats, IMO.  I could see it only voting for the Republican candidate by 8 in 2032.

Kansas- see Oklahoma, the only thing holding Dems back from a breakthrough is the economic boom

Nebraska- basically Kansas, but with a better urban/rural ratio for the GOP, however EV-by-CD will encourage Dem presence and investment in Omaha going forward.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if NE-02 is in line with or left of the nation in 2020.

Basically, I see a lot of potential for the 19th century manufacturing (GOP) vs. raw materials (Dem) economic divide to reemerge now that protectionism is back in vogue.

[Skill and Chance]

Oklahoma- much more socially conservative, but has large cities and majority-minority areas that would be voting Dem just about anywhere else, depends heavily on commodities industries that will be ticked off about tariffs, and there's the state/local situation over tax cuts and inadequate education funding.  This is a very underrated long run possibility for Democrats, IMO.  I could see it only voting for the Republican candidate by 8 in 2032.

Kansas- see Oklahoma, the only thing holding Dems back from a breakthrough is the economic boom

Nebraska- basically Kansas, but with a better urban/rural ratio for the GOP, however EV-by-CD will encourage Dem presence and investment in Omaha going forward.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if NE-02 is in line with or left of the nation in 2020.

As a general observation, it seems like a lot of Plains states could easily become Colorado-ized with enough young liberals migrating to any given state (since these states are so small to begin with) + Plains Democrats being a fairly progressive base of support already.

Montana could be the next Colorado in this regard. It seems to have everything white hipsters loved about Colorado circa 2000-2008 for the 2020’s/30’s.

I'm less confident in which way Montana goes.  There's the growing hipster/left wing college white influence in the larger cities (e.g. Gallatin being a Romney-Clinton county), but there's also plenty of ancestral organized labor areas (e.g. Silver Bow and Deer Lodge) that have stayed a lot more Dem than they probably should be in this era, and would probably zoom right if the hipster Dem faction became dominant.  It's also ~90% white statewide. 

[Skill and Chance]

Oklahoma- much more socially conservative, but has large cities and majority-minority areas that would be voting Dem just about anywhere else, depends heavily on commodities industries that will be ticked off about tariffs, and there's the state/local situation over tax cuts and inadequate education funding.  This is a very underrated long run possibility for Democrats, IMO.  I could see it only voting for the Republican candidate by 8 in 2032.

Kansas- see Oklahoma, the only thing holding Dems back from a breakthrough is the economic boom

Nebraska- basically Kansas, but with a better urban/rural ratio for the GOP, however EV-by-CD will encourage Dem presence and investment in Omaha going forward.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if NE-02 is in line with or left of the nation in 2020.

As a general observation, it seems like a lot of Plains states could easily become Colorado-ized with enough young liberals migrating to any given state (since these states are so small to begin with) + Plains Democrats being a fairly progressive base of support already.

Montana could be the next Colorado in this regard. It seems to have everything white hipsters loved about Colorado circa 2000-2008 for the 2020’s/30’s.

I'm less confident in which way Montana goes.  There's the growing hipster/left wing college white influence in the larger cities (e.g. Gallatin being a Romney-Clinton county), but there's also plenty of ancestral organized labor areas (e.g. Silver Bow and Deer Lodge) that have stayed a lot more Dem than they probably should be in this era, and would probably zoom right if the hipster Dem faction became dominant.  It's also ~90% white statewide. 

I highly doubt there’s too much more of the organized labor vote that went for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the GOP to milk. Donald Trump has shifted the Party platform someways but he’s overall governed like a generic Republican on the issues. The current round of tariffs isn’t too dissimilar to President Bush imposing steel tariffs for me to think that this’ll have major impacts politically.

Organized labor isn’t a long term constituency for the Republican Party. And the phasing out of nonrenwables by the year 2032 is gonna be have some pretty big shifts in these newly held Republican areas.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount that.  I see a couple of different possibilities here, only one of which has tariffs/trade as a decisive issue:

1. Economy weakens severely or major foreign policy crisis this year, big Dem wave flips 50+ House seats and the Senate in 2018- Bernie wing of the party is ascendant as a bunch of rural Trump districts flip.  2020 resembles 1932 or 1980.  The Midwest comes home and a Connor Lamb type wins by double digits running on single payer and a jobs guarantee/basic income, but running as a moderate on cultural/environmental issues. The Democratic future is populist with a renewed socially conservative wing.  The college grad vote in 2016 was a one-time thing like the Southern vote for Carter in 1976.

2.  Economy stays strong for many years, Republicans hold onto everything into 2022 and maybe beyond.  Rural areas and manufacturing towns are eventually as Republican as cities are Democratic.  Republicans build up a ~60 seat senate majority and Democrats are at a major PV disadvantage at all levels.  It will basically be the 1920's again, but without the presidential PV landslides.  College grads feel more and more out of the American mainstream with each passing year and eventually start voting like a minority group (note that several racial/religious minority groups with above average incomes are ~70% Dem today).  This finally pulls Texas and Georgia (but not the Deep South as a whole), along many of the Plains/Mountain West/Mormon states out from under Republicans, probably all at once in a 2022 or 2026 midterm wave.  Feeling they are at a permanent disadvantage, the next Democratic government makes structural changes to our electoral system that evoke comparisons to Reconstruction.

3.  2018 is an average midterm, Democrats narrowly take the House while Republicans gain a couple of Senate seats on account of the map.  The economy weakens sometime between now and 2020, but it is a normal recession, not a financial crisis.  Trump becomes the Bill Clinton of the right and starts governing more like he campaigned now that congress isn't keeping him in line.  Trump makes several economically populist deals with the Democratic House and between his heft with Republican primary voters and the overrepresentation of rural states, he is able to force them through the Senate.  A Tim Ryan type protectionist Dem is running the House, while the Senate is effectively a coalition government focused on rural issues.  Trump is easily reelected (wins the PV by at least 5), however Dems not only hold the House but pick up seats.  The parties stop representing coherent ideologies.  Democrats hold their 2016 suburban gains, but find that the ceiling with white college grads is pretty low and most of the ground to be gained is by winning "Only Trump" voters downballot.   2024 is probably too close to call. 

Right now, I am favoring #3, but with a substantial chance of #2 happening instead.   

[Skill and Chance]

I could see Trump winning a split field election in 2020 while losing the PV by a wider margin but I seriously can’t wrap my head around the idea that Trump wins reelection by 5 points or that a two term Trump WH would lend 2024 to being a very close election. Demographics and economics are just simply too much of a headwind for the GOP to accomplish either of these feats. They haven’t won the Presidential PV in 6 out of the last 7 elections.

Bill Clinton was a good navigator and triangulated well. He was incredibly politically savvy in part because he developed these skills from having been the longest serving governor in the country in 1992. I don’t really think Trump and Clinton are that comparable. In fact Trump strikes me much more as a Pierce-Hoover-Carter type figure. Somebody who’s trying to fight back against political, cultural, and economic headwinds rather than move the nation forward.

I'm tired of hearing the demographics argument.  2016 basically looked like the 1920's at every level below the presidential PV and maybe the Senate.

Demographic changes and gains with college grads don't mean much in our electoral system until and unless you are winning statewide in Texas.  I think that could eventually happen for Dems, but don't be surprised if the interim wait is as long as the 1920's shutout.