US With British Parties

[afleitch]

One of the difficulties with this sort of thing is that states are often too large a unit to project voting patterns on to. The Liberal Democrats always hold seats based on very localised strengths, but this dissipates on a larger level (see old European election, Scottish and Welsh list results) They would only be able to challenge in the smaller states as a result in the north east and also probably, the Midwest. While they may seem politically suited to say California, they would struggle to win anything statewide.

[afleitch]

One of the difficulties with this sort of thing is that states are often too large a unit to project voting patterns on to. The Liberal Democrats always hold seats based on very localised strengths, but this dissipates on a larger level (see old European election, Scottish and Welsh list results) They would only be able to challenge in the smaller states as a result in the north east and also probably, the Midwest. While they may seem politically suited to say California, they would struggle to win anything statewide.

I always knew California would be a challenge... maybe the biggest challenge! As you may have gathered, I'm doing UK and US style first-past-the-post, but at the state level. I could do individual districts (or constituencies) later, as a way of breaking down the vote.

I disagree that California would be a strong Lib Dem stronghold. For one, the core base of support for the California Democratic Party is the public sector unions, namely the California Teacher's Association, the Prison Guard unions, and the SIEU. In primaries, the union-backed primary always wins, even if the other candidate is more "progressive" on liberal social issues. If anything, the social liberal-environmentalist vote is more up for grabs than the rest of the California Democratic Party - as seen by the Arnold S.'s gubernatorial victories.

I wasn't saying that California would be won by the Lib Dems. Quite the opposite; the party could not mobilise in a state with some 38 million people. If anything California would probably reflect the mood of the nation as a whole and would, at least since the 1970's/1980's back the party that won the who nation. I'd have the Conservatives winning there in 2010.

[afleitch]

To add to what Al was saying, if you are looking at how the USA would vote you have to bear in mind that voting behaviour would be different too. There wouldn't be a wierd obsession with what people do in the bedroom and people would vote on the economy and jobs. Most importantly however, people would vote pretty much the same way they have voted for the past fifty years.

Here's coal seams in the USA (not sure which areas were thoroughly mined however)

http://coalgeology.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/US-Coal-Producing-

A handy tool to use is this;

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/explorer.html

It allows you to see areas of poverty, low income, manufacturing etc to see where Labour would likely be strongest.

There are two particular nuances that complicate things. Firstly race. The UK is lucky to have a handful of constituencies with a minority population of over 30% yet the USA has whole states. If black voting habits were the same then Labour would dominate disproportionately in some states. Secondly there is mobility; people in the US tend to move from state to state. This dilutes some older voting habits.

I had a stab at Pennsylvania in an 'all things being equal' scenario

I looked at past voting habits from the 50's and 60's, areas of coal mining, areas of manufacturing, areas of poverty and educational attainment and also %Catholic and came up with this guesstimate for Pennsylvania (the Lib Dems taking the richest county with the highest % of people with a degree)

[afleitch]

Chester would be strongly Tory, not Lib Dem. Half of it is Philly suburbs/exurbs and half of it is rural farmland like Lancaster/York/Lebanon.

That's part of the reason why I gave the Lib Dems a 'pity county' It's suprisingly the sort of place that the Lib Dems would be able to target and do well in in the UK particularly as it is both wealthy and educated.