Why Republicans have an Electoral College problem

[hopper]

Well at least you can't accuse the Republicans of only supporting the anti-democratic side of every debate about the structural features of our representative system solely out of self-interest. This is one case where one man, one vote would actually help them and they still oppose it. I guess they're more principled than I thought.

No. They're just too dumb to understand their own self interest. The EC made Bush win, therefore the EC is good for Repulicans. They can't understand any arguement more nuanced than that.

Romney could have lost the popular vote by a couple points and he still would have the lost EC probably.

[hopper]

Well the Dem trend in CO, NC, and VA are what's killing Republicans and of course you have to win Ohio. The last President to win the election without Ohio was JFK in 1960. I don't think NV is off the board for the Republicans. I read on Latino Decisions the more NV Latino's educated in terms of schooling and income(the more money they make) the more R they vote.

Florida trending Republican is shocking.

Of the Republican trending states that are now in the Dem Column only PA is within near  reach.

Ohio, Wisconsin, Idaho, New Hampshire, DC, and Nebraska all moved with the national average from 2000-2012. The electorate swung 3-4 points Dem from 2000-2012.

[hopper]

Well the Dem trend in CO, NC, and VA are what's killing Republicans and of course you have to win Ohio. The last President to win the election without Ohio was JFK in 1960. I don't think NV is off the board for the Republicans. I read on Latino Decisions the more NV Latino's educated in terms of schooling and income(the more money they make) the more R they vote.

Florida trending Republican is shocking.

Of the Republican trending states that are now in the Dem Column only PA is within near  reach.

Ohio, Wisconsin, Idaho, New Hampshire, DC, and Nebraska all moved with the national average from 2000-2012. The electorate swung 3-4 points Dem from 2000-2012.

I don't think Florida is trending Republican. If one wants to compare state vs. national margins, go ahead. Since 1996, the state has been within five percentage points from the national number. And since 1928, the state has carried for every winner except in the Democratic pickup elections of 1960 and 1992. It was within five percentage points from the national in 1960. It was about 7-or-so more Republican in part because George Bush had an inflated margin with carriage of the state in 1988 and, with being unseated in 1992, he managed to hold by nearly two points in Florida while he lost the U.S. Popular Vote by more than five.

In 2000, Florida was just even with the U.S. Popular Vote. In 2004, it was about 2.50 percentage points more Republican. In 2008, it was about 4.50 points more Republican. In 2012, it was about 3 percentage points more Republican. It's not locked in to being routinely a special number. But it shades at least a couple points more Republican while performing within five percentage points from the national result. This keeps Florida, with having carried in 20 of the last 22 presidential elections, in the bellwether category.

I think that if Hillary is the nominee, the Republicans will have to fight even harder for Florida because she will appeal to more white, old folks there.

Exatly. I don't get why they would even try to win Florida. They should instead try to avoid a landslide loss like in 1936.

They aren't going to lose Alf Landon style.

[hopper]

Three reasons:

1. California
2. New York
3. Illinois

All of these states have trended Dem in the past 20 years because of social issues.

Illinois-Its a Dem state because of Cook County. Without Cook County Romney would have won the state 50-47%.

New York-The GOP loses there because the state is New York City centric. That's where most of the population is in the state. The GOP is mostly competitive in the rest of the state outside of most of the city. Staten Island, Southern Brooklyn, and some of Queens the GOP is still competitive in the city. Manhattan and The Bronx is where they lose big.

California-1.) Yes the GOP not being competitive there has to do with the party becoming increasingly conservative but California has shifted to the left also since the mid 1990's.2.) I do think Prop 187 had a lot to do with the GOP losing support with Hispanics in the state. I do think the damage from Prop 187 will last the party another 10 years. 3.) The state party is starting to rebuild. You have no where else to go but up because most of last session the CA Dems had supermajorities in both state chambers until a Dem State Senate official ran into corruption problems. I do think its a combination of things as you can see I listed as to why the GOP completely lost footing in CA despite controlling the Governorship from 2004-2010.

[hopper]

Yup.

It's the hispanic western states (Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada) + Virginia that are really killing the GOP.  If those states weren't all lean dem now the map would be almost even.  Then on top of that Democrats are now competitive in Florida and North Carolina.  All this while holding their own in the blue states.  The only blue states I see as potential losses in 2016 are Iowa and maybe Wisconsin (longshot).

If Republicans didn't cede over huge electoral regions like the Northeast and West Coast this would also be less striking.

New Mexico-Romney didn't campaign there so it cost him vote  % wise in the state.

Colorado is still a 50/50 purple so its not lean dem state. However the state having a Dem PVI and its Dem trend in the Obama years is troubling for the GOP.

The West Coast-Bush W. didn't even do that had in Oregon and Washington in 2000 and 2004 but since the Obama years those states have pulled toward the Dens more. Bush W. did do better in OR than WA. He even came close to winning OR in 2000 but that was because of Nader pulling votes from Gore.

CA-Like I said before Prop 187 was like Political Suicide. If not for Prop 187 in 1994 the state would look more like CO in Presidential Elections in terms in terms of D-R vote %. The state GOP has done some good things in the last year like getting Falcouner elected(spelling) to be San Diego Mayor and showing some diversity in getting a Korean Woman elected to the State Senate.

[hopper]

The GOP doesnt have a Electoral Vote problem. They have a popular vote problem. Since 1988, they ahve broken the 50% mark only once. Thus when a state is D+2 or D+3 like PA, WI, MI, NH, IA it just looks like they have an EV problem. The real problem is a popular vote problem

Statistically, 1/6 isn't significantly different than 50/50 and by the way Democrats have only broken 50% of the PV in 2 of the last 6 elections.

The Republicans do have an electoral college problem.  In an election where Republicans tie the Democrats in the PV, or even win by a small margin, the Democrats will win the electoral college (basically a reverse 2000 scenario, except the Republican electoral position is worse now than the Democratic position was in 2000).

This is because in the past decade or so, Republicans have been gaining huge numbers of votes in solidly Republican states (particularly the 10% or greater shifts in WV, AR, TN, OK, MO, KY, AL.)  Meanwhile, Democrats have been gaining significant numbers of votes in formerly Republicans states (particularly the 5 - 10% shifts in VA, NC, NV, and CO). 

Contrary to the opinions of many on the board, the midwest isn't trending GOP.  The trends of most midwestern states is small enough to be white noise, but if anything Democrats are gaining in the region.  Sure, you could argue that Pennsylvania's 2 point Republican trend is significant, but then you'd have to admit that Ohio's, New Hampshire's, Iowa's, and Wisconsin's 2 to 3 point Democratic trends are significant as well (needless to say, this is a bad trade for the Republicans overall).

Read Nate Silver on the subject. There is little to no Dem advantage in the EC. And historically advantages dont last long.

Sean Trende covered this as well. Fact is the GOP has not had a good year to run a presidential election since 1988. A good year would be a Dem incumbent in a recession like 1980 or a booming economy like 1972, 1984 or 1988 for the GOP incumbent. 2004 was mediocre economically. If Kerry had won in 2004 and been president during the recession and meltdown in 2008, I promise you that the GOP would have carried so called "Blue Wall States" like PA, MI, WI and NH. Likewise 5-7% growth in 2004, would have produced a Bush 52-55% popular vote win with 350 EVs.

Well you may have a point since Obama was only able to break away in terms of the popular vote from McCain after the stock market crash in September of 2008.