This is the 2052 electoral map. What happened?

[Skill and Chance]

The 2052 United States presidential election. What happened?

Catastrophic sea level rise?

This makes sense, but only if a previous Dem administration successfully built a very long and expensive seawall, as coastal state population share has generally risen.  Also looks like the Mountain West got permanently drier to reverse the current population growth there. 

I would imagine Texas was the closest Dem win and LA/MS/AL the closest GOP wins?

The Senate would be ridiculously Safe R, but Dems would have a clear advantage in the House.

[Skill and Chance]

States with a margin under 10%
Kansas: R+0.5
South Carolina: D+1
Oregon: D+1
Louisiana: R+1
Illinois: R+2
Texas: D+3
Florida: D+3
New Jersey: D+4
Montana: R+4
Utah: R+5
Alaska: D+7
Connecticut: D+8
North Carolina: D+9
Pennsylvania: R+9

OK wow, wasn't expecting that!

Is Oklahoma like only R+12 then?

[Skill and Chance]

The GOP continued to improve with rust belt voters and gained with Latinos, meanwhile Dems continued to improve with highly-educated whites and suburbanites.

CO R and FL D certainly don't fit with that, and TX D is questionable.  I think in this scenario the map would be more like this:



Minnesota is extremely college+ (higher than Washington State), so I doubt it would ever flip under full educational polarization.  Utah is also very college+ (higher than Oregon), so I do think it would flip eventually even with the idiosyncratic Mormons.  There are also several Plains states that are significantly higher college+ than nationwide or than the current Rust Belt swing states that have held out so far for R's, perhaps because of all the agriculture/energy related degrees.

BTW Texas and Florida are both below the nationwide average.