Was the civil war map already expected in the early 2000?

[buritobr]

In the presidential elections of 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012, the map looked like the civil war map with switched parties. However, if we observe the margins, and not only the winners of the states, we can observe that the north-south polarization was not so big in 2000 as it was in 2004, 2008 and 2012. George W Bush had narrow victories in Tennessee and Arkansas, and Al Gore had narrow victories in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa. In 1996, it didn't look like that the map would become the civil war map, since Clinton's margin in Louisiana was bigger than his margin in Wisconsin.
Could we have expected a map like this in 2000?

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

I actually would have expected something like that in 2000, but with Florida going R and Virginia or Georgia going D.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I don't consider 2000's to be a Civil War map. The main reason being that the Western territories were mostly all part of the union. I would also point out that WV being Democrat doesn't make it less of a Civil War, since WV was unionist.

Also 2000 marked the time the GOP started making gains in unionist or perhaps better yet, less pro-Confederacy areas. Appalachia was largely unionist, those counties within the various states often had the lowest support for secession.

So to the extent that the map took on a partial resemblance to the Civil War, has to be taken in the context that such was already in the process of degrading.

That is why I like to compare the shifting map to plate movement on the Earth surface (just as I like to compare the parties to evolutionary biology).