The New Democratic Majority -- It's Realignment

[Mister Mets]

In 2008 Ohio Iowa Florida Virginia New Mexico Nevada Colorado moved, and all held in 2012, albeit Florida by only 0.88 of a point.

We don't know how political scientists are going to look at the era. Much of it is going to be based on information we don't yet have (IE- whether anything will happen in the future to damage the brand of a political party.)

It is normal for politicians to keep states when running to keep the White House for a second term. In 2000, Bush won eleven states that Dole had lost in 1996. In 2004, he lost New Hampshire to a New England Democrat, but he gained Iowa and New Mexico. And in the next cycle, Obama won the popular vote by seven percent.

It's actually unusual for a presidential candidate to lose support when running to keep the white house for a second term for his party (this tends to be the election in which parties peak.) Obama's an interesting exception in that regard.

[Mister Mets]

m4567 -- you are correct (an unforced GOP error) plus the Democratic Southern Strategy (Carter; outside the CSA states, Ford won).  In 1980-1984-1988, Rs won three in a row.

Mister Mets: Obama 2012 1.86 point pop vote drop from 2008 not much different from McKinley 1900 going up by only 0.62.  None of the states where Obama won a majority in 2008 (i.e., states other than NC, IN, Neb-2) flipped in 2012.

I think the 1900 environment's a bit different as that was part of the sixty years Republicans dominated the White House to an extent that we haven't seen in modern politics.

Since 1928, when there's usually been two strong political parties, the tendency has been for a party to peak and steadily lose support, until the other party peaks and starts to lose support.

Granted, it's possible that we're in a period of Democratic dominance that kicked off in either 1992 or 2008, but we won't know for sure for some time.

Obama's failure to build on his 2008 numbers is historically unusual, and doesn't suggest the amazing strength of the Democratic party. Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon and Bill Clinton won second terms for their parties with bigger numbers, and saw the other party back in power the next time around. It doesn't suggest Republicans are guaranteed to win, but that the party could still be competitive.