Scenario A (what, as an economic liberal, I prefer) would eventually lead to something like this:
Scenario B (culture war elections bore me):
Green = obvious strong DEM until state financial crisis event becomes a powerful wild card.
Pink = easiest GOP pick-offs
Light red = possible shift to swing
*The “south” tends to break up into 3 regions I like to call Deep South, Tidewater, and Greater-Appalachia.
Democrats will generally need to break one off to win the presidency.
So, we will see new versions of Clinton, Edwards, and Carter respectively and correspondingly.
We are trending toward this. How long it will take to get there or how long the trend will last, I don't know, things change, but this is the current direction.