Falling GOP vote in the Midwest

[pbrower2a]

The Midwest used to have lots of moderate Republicans, the sorts who liked Ike and whose favorite Republican was Nelson Rockefeller. Those are secularist, erudite voters who have little use for bigotry and superstition. They are liberal on social issues other than crime. They don't want a governmental behemoth. They are the sorts of people who told their children not to use a certain word that rhymes with trigger. They went along with LBJ on civil rights and voting rights.

Ronald Reagan could keep them voting for him... but once the Southern Strategy took place they found themselves incompatible with ignorant, bigoted people who showed contempt for education.

Treating as the Midwest the states fully or partially in the Northwestern Territory and Iowa for political reasons (IL, IN, IA, MI, MN, OH, WI) we can ask the question "When did this state last vote for the Republican in a close election?

Minnesota hasn't been more R than the US as a whole in a Presidential election since 1952, and then barely, and then only because Adlai Stevenson did respectably only in the South. It was the best second-state for McGovern and the best state for Mondale in 49-state blowouts. It is the definitive non-swing state. The one Republican nominee for President who won it twice (Eisenhower) wasn't much more conservative on economics than Stevenson. It hasn't been decidedly more R than the US as a whole in its Presidential voting since 1920.

In the very close 1976 election, Carter and Ford split the six states evenly. Ford won Michigan and Illinois for the last time in a close election, and Indiana -- which almost never goes for a Democratic nominee -- and Iowa. But Carter did win Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Maybe Ford lost Ohio because of being on the Michigan football team, which is practically unforgivable in Ohio.  Carter won three of the seven states, and no Democrat is likely to win the Presidency with so few as three of these states.

That said, 1976 is practically ancient history for the contemporary voting of the states.   

From 1980 to 1996 there were no really-close Presidential elections. In 1980 and 1984 Ronald Reagan won them all except for Minnesota. The elder Bush won four of the seven in 1988, which has typically been enough for a Republican.  Clinton won all but one of the seven in 1992 and 1996 (Indiana was the glaring exception both times).

2000? Gore won five of the seven -- in view of the South completely abandoning Gore, five out of seven was not enough. But that was the closest Presidential election ever. Kerry got four of the seven and lost.  Wisconsin and Iowa could have gone either way. 2008 was an Obama blowout landslide in 2/3 of American states and a McCain blowout in the other third -- and Obama got all seven states in the region.   

The last time in which the states went for the Republican in a close election were:

MN -- effectively, antiquity
WI -- 1960
IL, MI -- 1976
IA, OH -- 2004
IN -- 2012

Simply counting them and seeing how the election goes might tell  us something.Elections in winner got more than 350 electoral votes are in boldface:

2012 -- R-1, D-6  Obama wins
2008 -- all D, Obama wins
2004 -- R-3, D-4 Dubya wins
2000 -- R-2, D-5 Dubya wins
1996 -- R-1, D-6 Clinton wins
1992 -- R-1, D-6 Clinton wins
1988 -- R-4, D-3 G H W Bush wins
1984 -- D-1, R-6 Reagan wins
1980 -- D-1, R-6 Reagan wins
1976 -- D-3, R-4 Carter wins
1972 -- all R, Nixon wins
1968 -- D-2, R-5, Nixon wins
1964 -- all D, LBJ wins
1960 -- D-3, R-4, Kennedy wins
1956 -- all R, Eisenhower wins
1952 -- all R, Eisenhower wins 
1948 -- R-2, D-5, Truman wins
1944 -- R-4, D-3, FDR wins
1940 -- R-3, D-4, FDR wins   
1936 -- all D, FDR wins 


The region seems to be drifting D.