trends during 2010s...a look at next decade

[DemocratsVictory2008]

During the 2000s, I think these trends were clear, this is from 2000-2009. This includes state and presidential elections

In favor of Dems: CO, VA, NH, NM, NV, MT (still lean GOP at pres. level but not 25 point blowouts anymore), WA, VT

In favor of GOP: AR, KY, OK, WV, LA, AL, TN, Northern FL

iI'm curious what people think the next decade will look like..I'll predict:

In favor of Dems: AZ, TX (still a republican state but margins will decrease), NC 

In favor of GOP: OH, MO, IA...GOP will also gain in state races in AR, WV, AL, MS, KY

Likely to stay similar: PA, FL (Dems could gain slightly), GA

[pbrower2a]

As I see it, the gigantic margins by which states voted R or D in 2008 are likely to approach some mean. Election 2008 looks like the maximum for state-by-state polarization of the vote. Geographic mobility is high in hard times, which will likely homogenize some state populations. By 2020 states are likely to be won by 5% margins or so instead of 15-20% margins.


One factor is up to one Party: whether it will go into a death spiral. Going too far to the Right or Left is bad for survival of a major Party. America has never had a significant Far Left (that is, Socialist or Communist) Party capable of winning electoral votes or winning a Congressional seat. The Right, as shown by the States' Rights and American Independent Parties, became significant Parties and went into near-oblivion as they became more ideologically pure... and uninviting to moderates. Moderates decide elections. Should the GOP become an Extreme Right Party, then it will become a marginal party. Conservatism will not die; it will have to either find some other entity (Reform?) or split from the unwieldy Big Tent. Sure, the GOP was able to survive a succession of four bad Presidential elections for it (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 1948) -- but the GOP didn't verge on fascism.

   

[pogo stick]

Obama wins all 50. The Age Wave is Just way to powerful for thein-breeders, and rednecks and racists to overcome.


Obama 2012 ! Cuz I'm a hack.

TM of pbrower2a

[nhmagic]

Well, I don't know how much is going to change.  It all depends on how far left Obama governs in the next four years.  I do know one trend that is long term and will cause the democrats to lose their bases in the north.  Blacks are moving back to the south.  It will probably make both the south more competitive and places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts (in some places, not overall), Connecticut (in some places, not overall) and New York (in some places, not overall) more competitive.  One good example is the New Jersey governor's race.  Now, I think that race was mainly a local phenomenon, but there's something to be said about Christie, who is more conservative than Christie Todd Whitman, won by more than Whitman did.  

It also depends on hispanics.  If Marco Rubio wins the Florida senate seat and ever moves into a national position where he is able to run for president, he will take a ton of hispanics with him.  That could make for interesting scenarios in California, and could hold the rest of the west and sunbelt.

[pbrower2a]

Obama wins all 50. The Age Wave is Just way to powerful for thein-breeders, and rednecks and racists to overcome.


Obama 2012 ! Cuz I'm a hack.

TM of pbrower2a

You don't understand the effect of the Age Wave, and how small an effect it has. Bigger things will be in play, like whether Obama is an effective President or a disaster.

I have been very tame in discussing Southern politics. The surprising behavior of North Carolina forces me to avoid discussing stereotypes. If health care reform is good for poor southern whites, then those poor southern whites will vote for him in 2012 as decisively as they rejected him in 2008. Health care reform is going to the Senate, where it is likely to pass.

Jewish Conservative, your ancestors in the shtetl had a word for your type:


SCHMUCK!

[Mechaman]

Obama wins all 50. The Age Wave is Just way to powerful for thein-breeders, and rednecks and racists to overcome.


Obama 2012 ! Cuz I'm a hack.

TM of pbrower2a

You don't understand the effect of the Age Wave, and how small an effect it has. Bigger things will be in play, like whether Obama is an effective President or a disaster.

Straight from the horses mouth.

[pbrower2a]

Well, I don't know how much is going to change.  It all depends on how far left Obama governs in the next four years.  I do know one trend that is long term and will cause the democrats to lose their bases in the north.  Blacks are moving back to the south.  It will probably make both the south more competitive and places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts (in some places, not overall), Connecticut (in some places, not overall) and New York (in some places, not overall) more competitive.  One good example is the New Jersey governor's race.  Now, I think that race was mainly a local phenomenon, but there's something to be said about Christie, who is more conservative than Christie Todd Whitman, won by more than Whitman did.  

It also depends on hispanics.  If Marco Rubio wins the Florida senate seat and ever moves into a national position where he is able to run for president, he will take a ton of hispanics with him.  That could make for interesting scenarios in California, and could hold the rest of the west and sunbelt.

Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, and Puerto Ricans do not vote for each other because they are Hispanics any more than white people voted in lockstep for John McCain because he is white. Marco Rubio can swing Florida, one of few swing states with large Cuban-American populations. In Texas, he would likely do better as a conservative among Anglo whites than among (Mexican-American) Hispanics.   

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Well, I don't know how much is going to change.  It all depends on how far left Obama governs in the next four years.  I do know one trend that is long term and will cause the democrats to lose their bases in the north.  Blacks are moving back to the south.  It will probably make both the south more competitive and places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts (in some places, not overall), Connecticut (in some places, not overall) and New York (in some places, not overall) more competitive.  One good example is the New Jersey governor's race.  Now, I think that race was mainly a local phenomenon, but there's something to be said about Christie, who is more conservative than Christie Todd Whitman, won by more than Whitman did.  

It also depends on hispanics.  If Marco Rubio wins the Florida senate seat and ever moves into a national position where he is able to run for president, he will take a ton of hispanics with him.  That could make for interesting scenarios in California, and could hold the rest of the west and sunbelt.

Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, and Puerto Ricans do not vote for each other because they are Hispanics any more than white people voted in lockstep for John McCain because he is white. Marco Rubio can swing Florida, one of few swing states with large Cuban-American populations. In Texas, he would likely do better as a conservative among Anglo whites than among (Mexican-American) Hispanics.   

Pathetic comparison. It is a fact that non-white minority groups do vote as relatively large blocs based on racial identity politics. Comparing that to whites voting for McCain is ridiculous and PC.

Rubio would improve Republican support among more than just Cubans in Florida. Or do you think Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor just to appeal to Puerto Ricans?

[nhmagic]

Well, I don't know how much is going to change.  It all depends on how far left Obama governs in the next four years.  I do know one trend that is long term and will cause the democrats to lose their bases in the north.  Blacks are moving back to the south.  It will probably make both the south more competitive and places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts (in some places, not overall), Connecticut (in some places, not overall) and New York (in some places, not overall) more competitive.  One good example is the New Jersey governor's race.  Now, I think that race was mainly a local phenomenon, but there's something to be said about Christie, who is more conservative than Christie Todd Whitman, won by more than Whitman did.  

It also depends on hispanics.  If Marco Rubio wins the Florida senate seat and ever moves into a national position where he is able to run for president, he will take a ton of hispanics with him.  That could make for interesting scenarios in California, and could hold the rest of the west and sunbelt.

Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, and Puerto Ricans do not vote for each other because they are Hispanics any more than white people voted in lockstep for John McCain because he is white. Marco Rubio can swing Florida, one of few swing states with large Cuban-American populations. In Texas, he would likely do better as a conservative among Anglo whites than among (Mexican-American) Hispanics.   

Pathetic comparison. It is a fact that non-white minority groups do vote as relatively large blocs based on racial identity politics. Comparing that to whites voting for McCain is ridiculous and PC.

Rubio would improve Republican support among more than just Cubans in Florida. Or do you think Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor just to appeal to Puerto Ricans?

p2: So are you agreeing with my non-hispanic assessment though?  You didn't mention the black component.
Libertas: Thanks for the defense.

[pbrower2a]

Well, I don't know how much is going to change.  It all depends on how far left Obama governs in the next four years.  I do know one trend that is long term and will cause the democrats to lose their bases in the north.  Blacks are moving back to the south.  It will probably make both the south more competitive and places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts (in some places, not overall), Connecticut (in some places, not overall) and New York (in some places, not overall) more competitive.  One good example is the New Jersey governor's race.  Now, I think that race was mainly a local phenomenon, but there's something to be said about Christie, who is more conservative than Christie Todd Whitman, won by more than Whitman did.  

It also depends on hispanics.  If Marco Rubio wins the Florida senate seat and ever moves into a national position where he is able to run for president, he will take a ton of hispanics with him.  That could make for interesting scenarios in California, and could hold the rest of the west and sunbelt.

Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, and Puerto Ricans do not vote for each other because they are Hispanics any more than white people voted in lockstep for John McCain because he is white. Marco Rubio can swing Florida, one of few swing states with large Cuban-American populations. In Texas, he would likely do better as a conservative among Anglo whites than among (Mexican-American) Hispanics.   

Pathetic comparison. It is a fact that non-white minority groups do vote as relatively large blocs based on racial identity politics. Comparing that to whites voting for McCain is ridiculous and PC.

Rubio would improve Republican support among more than just Cubans in Florida. Or do you think Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor just to appeal to Puerto Ricans?

Rubio would?

In any event we are talking about 2016 at the very earliest. Take the precedent that Barack Obama has a 68% chance of winning re-election, and beginning in 2016 almost everything is up in the air. 

I mentioned that white people did not vote for John McCain just because he is white. What was it -- 40% of the white vote in Kentucky went to Obama? Let us remember that the "white" population includes people as disparate as Finnish-Americans, Irish-Americans, Hungarian-Americans, Greek-Americans, and Jewish-Americans. "Hispanic" is no more a monolith than is "white". Let's remember that Barack Obama's African heritage is very different from that of most American blacks not in being part white, but instead in being from British colonial Africa instead of from the heritage of enslavement and severe oppression. 

If President Obama has changed anything in American political life, it is the assumption that a President must have the unstated qualification that he must be of early American stock. No previous President has been connected to any wave of immigration later than flight from the Irish Potato Famine. We have yet to see a President who fits any of these descriptions of ancestry:

Jewish
Polish
Italian
Greek
Russian
Scandinavian
Arab
South Asian
Southeast Asian
East Asian

... these are ethnic groups who do better than the average in America in educational and economic achievement.   It may be true that WASPs of New England origin have done as well as some of these in economics and education and are over-represented in the Presidency, but all in all Barack Obama has ripped away one of the usual assumptions involving the Presidency. We barely got one Irish-Catholic President.

We need also remember that we have had some high-achieving African-Americans who have proved themselves above average as US Senators (Edward Brooke), big-city mayors (Thomas Bradley) and state Governors (Douglas Wilder). It could well be that sheer numbers create a significant talent pool for first-rate political figures.

Don't get me wrong; if Marco Rubio is a first-rate political figure (yet to be shown, as he has yet to be elected), then Barack Obama has made it far more likely that he will be elected President in 2016 or later. It's much the same for Bobby Jindal, too. But one huge barrier remains for anyone running for President in 2012 irrespective of ethnicity, religion, or gender: that if Barack Obama is average to above-average in achievement as President, then he has a lock on re-election.