Utah and Vermont

[Skill and Chance]

What would it take for one of them to vote for the "wrong" party in a presidential election within the next decade?  Here are the best semi-plausible scenarios I can come up with:

Republican Vermont: The Republican candidate is a pure libertarian, to the point of openly supporting gay marriage rights at the federal level and the Democratic candidate is a populist-leaning southerner.

Democratic Utah:  Release of an October surprise videotape of the Republican candidate denouncing the Mormon religion as a satanic cult.

Maybe the answer is having Douglas (R-VT) or Matheson (D-UT) as the nominee?  I could see it closing to 55-45 with one of them at the top of the ticket, but I don't think they could actually deliver their states to their parties without some other extenuating circumstances.   

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Massachusetts is a better example than Vermont, IMO.

[Skill and Chance]

Massachusetts is a better example than Vermont, IMO.

I'd have to disagree.  Look at Obama's approval as a liberal/conservative indicator. It's still over 60%(!) in Vermont and is hovering in the low 50's in Massachusetts.

[Nichlemn]

Massachusetts is a better example than Vermont, IMO.

I'd have to disagree.  Look at Obama's approval as a liberal/conservative indicator. It's still over 60%(!) in Vermont and is hovering in the low 50's in Massachusetts.

A swing that put either in contention would not be uniform, however. It's possible that Vermont has a lot more "Rockefeller Republican" types that approve of Obama but would be reasonably open to voting for an unorthodox GOP nominee.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Massachusetts is a better example than Vermont, IMO.

I'd have to disagree.  Look at Obama's approval as a liberal/conservative indicator. It's still over 60%(!) in Vermont and is hovering in the low 50's in Massachusetts.

Yes, but that's quite possibly due to Obama himself, and not Vermont being more/less Democratic than Massachusetts. Don't forget that Obama was always better off in Vermont than in Massachusetts; I doubt that most other Democrats are like that.

[Skill and Chance]

Massachusetts is a better example than Vermont, IMO.

I'd have to disagree.  Look at Obama's approval as a liberal/conservative indicator. It's still over 60%(!) in Vermont and is hovering in the low 50's in Massachusetts.

Yes, but that's quite possibly due to Obama himself, and not Vermont being more/less Democratic than Massachusetts. Don't forget that Obama was always better off in Vermont than in Massachusetts; I doubt that most other Democrats are like that.

I could see a plausible scenario for a red Massachusetts in 2012: Mitt Romney + >14% unemployment.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Massachusetts is a better example than Vermont, IMO.

I'd have to disagree.  Look at Obama's approval as a liberal/conservative indicator. It's still over 60%(!) in Vermont and is hovering in the low 50's in Massachusetts.

Yes, but that's quite possibly due to Obama himself, and not Vermont being more/less Democratic than Massachusetts. Don't forget that Obama was always better off in Vermont than in Massachusetts; I doubt that most other Democrats are like that.

I could see a plausible scenario for a red Massachusetts in 2012: Mitt Romney + >14% unemployment.

Oh, Romney will certainly make Massachusetts (forum) red.

Anyway, Mitt Romney actually hurts the Republicans' chances in Massachusetts; he left the state in 2006 with a 65% disapproval rating, and he would have done worse there in 2008 than McCain.

[tpfkaw]

Massachusetts is a better example than Vermont, IMO.

Massachusetts is Democratic, but not necessarily as liberal as a state like Vermont.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Massachusetts is a better example than Vermont, IMO.

Massachusetts is Democratic, but not necessarily as liberal as a state like Vermont.

No, my point was exactly that Massachusetts is the most liberal state.

(I'm sure some will disagree, but I think that way about Massachusetts, and that was the point that I was trying to make.)

[Nichlemn]

Republicans are stronger at the state level in Vermont than Massachusetts (though still well behind the Democrats). It's difficult to work out how much this can be attributed to vestigial hold-overs from Vermont's former status as a solidly Republican state, or to Obama's 2008 strength being something of an aberration that overstates Vermont's Democratic lean.

[leatherface]

Vermont by my reckoning is trending more liberal and Democrat, while Massachusetts could begin to trend more conservative and Republican in the next few election cycles, look at Scott Brown, if he holds the Senate seat in the 2012 cycle then you know 2010 wasn't a fluke

[sg0508]

Salt Lake City is becoming more liberal, the most populated part of UT.  McCain's support was near 60% there in 2008 and this year, the Senate race may end up with less than a 15 pt margin.  Watch UT carefully over the next 20 years.

[tpfkaw]

If the GOP ever nominated a pro-choicer, Utah would likely go third party.

[Robert California]

Vermont by my reckoning is trending more liberal and Democrat, while Massachusetts could begin to trend more conservative and Republican in the next few election cycles, look at Scott Brown, if he holds the Senate seat in the 2012 cycle then you know 2010 wasn't a fluke

The question I think is, if he can be re-elected in 2018. If he can, it'll be very interesting to see where he goes personally, and where Massachusetts goes. I think that if he can be re-elected in 2018, then he can become sort of an establishment unto himself like Ted Kennedy was, as in "he can't get voted out of office, he's Ted Kennedy!". It'll be very interesting if Scott Brown becomes as re-electable as Ted Kennedy was.

[5280]

Salt Lake City is becoming more liberal, the most populated part of UT.  McCain's support was near 60% there in 2008 and this year, the Senate race may end up with less than a 15 pt margin.  Watch UT carefully over the next 20 years.

Couldn't you say the entire US politics will change in 20 years? Who knows what CA will be like by then, probably in the pacific ocean.

[Niemeyerite]

Utah could flip if the republican nominee was a pro-choicer catholic who hated mormons and who supports gay marriage, and the democrat nominee was a pro-life conservadem. but it would still be very, very close.

Vemont won't vote republican in the XXI century.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Coincidentally, these were the only two states which voted for Taft in 1912.

[Nichlemn]

If the Democratic nominated a Mormon, how well would he or she do? How well does Harry Reid do among Mormons in Nevada relative to non-Mormon Democratic candidates?

[RichmondFalls]

How well does Harry Reid do among Mormons in Nevada relative to non-Mormon Democratic candidates?

The flagship Mormon area in Nevada is desolate Lincoln County, where Reid polled 23 percent against Angle. Statewide, he won by 26 points in 2004, and still got only 37 percent in Lincoln. Compare that to a 23-point Democratic victory for AG in 2006, where the (non-Mormon)Democrat got 43 percent in Lincoln. Go figure. Not sure what to read out of this, other than Harry Reid is not a beloved figure among Nevada Mormons.

There have been cases where Mormon Democrats do unusually well among Mormons, though. e.g., the 1994 race for Idaho Governor, which pitted a Native American Mormon Democrat against a non-Mormon Republican. A clear majority of Mormons still voted Republican, but in far lesser numbers than usual... EchoHawk got 47 percent in hyper-Republican Madison County, home of BYU-Idaho, for example.