Here we can contrast elections

[pbrower2a]

100 years apart, overlay between William Howard Taft and Barack Obama, 1908/2008.

Taft (R) 51.6/321 - Bryan (D) 43.0/162 - Debs (S) 2.8/0
Obama (D) 52.9/365- McCain (R) 45.6/173

Similar percentages of the electoral vote for the winners.

Taft/ McCain blue
Taft/Obama yellow
Bryan/Obama red
Bryan/McCain green

Bryan won all of the former secessionist states, Colorado, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Nevada.  Bryan won seven states by 9% or less; Taft won six states by 9% or less.  Other states were blow-outs.

Clearly different in 1908 from a century later: Alaska, Arizona, Dee Cee,  Hawaii, and New Mexico weren't voting. There was no television or even radio in 1908. Above all, several Southern states did not have free and fair elections (blacks were effectively barred from voting).

Now what if the polarization is on the side of the winner?

FDR (D) 53.4/432 - Dewey (R) 45.9/99  
Obama (D) 52.9/365- McCain (R) 45.6/173

Arizona and New Mexico were voting this time; radio (but not TV) was very much a part of American life. America was well unified in a war going very well in 1944.  Alaska and Hawaii, let alone the District of Columbia, would not vote in 1944. Several states in the South still had no free elections.

FDR/Obama
FDR/McCain
Dewey/McCain
Dewey/Obama

FDR lost only four states by 14% or more, and only three by 5% to 9% (none between 9% to 14%).  His other losses were by 5% or less. He won the other 41 states at the time. Nine were by 5% or less, and another five by 5% to 9%. He won the 22 others by 9% or more.

It is enough to know that Barack Obama won enough states to win with the tipping-point state as Iowa, which he won by 9.54%. He had Reagan-like margins in his wins but Mondale-like losses in many states that he lost. Obama lost fourteen states by 14% or more.

America was terribly rifted in 2008. The 1944 election is a ratification of the successes of one of the most effective Presidents ever. People may disagree on who the greatest, second-greatest, and third-greatest Presidents were, but in some order those are Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. The 2008 election followed a President whose sole success was in getting re-elected.

   

[pbrower2a]

Now, Eisenhower and Clinton:

   

 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Clinton twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Eisenhower twice, Clinton once
yellow-- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Clinton twice
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Clinton never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Clinton once
red -- went Democratic in all four elections (Stevenson twice, Clinton twice).

Elections in which the winner gets between 360 and 460 electoral votes will have some overlap. Regional divides are much deeper between Eisenhower wins and Obama wins than between Eisenhower wins and Clinton wins. More states shifted on the margins in the 1950s and 1990s than in Obama wins.

[pbrower2a]

(Resuscitated with a slight change  for use elsewhere)

Gore, the incumbent VP, inherits the President from a popular President in 2000 -- NOT!

Dole, Dubya twice -- blue
Clinton and Dubya twice-- green (Florida disputed for a month... thus the light shade)
Clinton, Gore, and Kerry -- red
Clinton, Gore, and Dubya -- tan
Clinton, Dubya, and Kerry -- yellow  

No state went from Dole to Gore.

Gore lost fully eleven states that Clinton had won four years earlier... and any one of them could have ensured that the Great Disaster would have not been President.

[pbrower2a]

Updated for 2016:

When the state last voted for the losing nominee:

2016
2012
2004
2000
1992


Ohio hasn't voted for the loser of the Presidential election since 1960.

[pbrower2a]

^^^Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia should all be dark red.

Correction noted, and I changed the color scheme.

[pbrower2a]

This shows a 36-year realignment. After Carter got crushed in his re-election bid Democrats could not win the Presidency again unless they found a new coalition of voters. While Democrats were picking up what could be described as "Rockefeller Republicans" in the North and West they were steadily losing support among southern white blue-collar workers in states in green   

Carter 1976, Obama 2012   

Carter 1976, Obama twice  red
Carter 1976, Obama once pink
Carter 1976, Obama never yellow
Ford 1976, Obama twice white
Ford 1976, Obama once light blue
Ford 1976, Obama never blue

But --
green -- Carter 1976, Bill Clinton twice, Obama never

[pbrower2a]

2000-2016. Five elections.

Red -- Democrats all five times
Pink -- Democrats four times; a Republican once
White -- Democrats three times, Republicans twice
Pale blue -- Republicans three times, Democrats twice
Medium blue -- Republicans four times, a Democrat once
Navy -- Republican five times

[pbrower2a]

Posted in another Forum and perhaps relevant here:

These are the electoral maps that I wish that President Trump contemplate. Red suggests the failure of Al Smith in the 1928 election. Red and white suggest the failure of Herbert Hoover to get re-elected in 1932:

red -- Smith 1928, FDR 1932
white -- Hoover 1928, FDR 1932
blue -- Hoover both years

(Ignore shades)
 

From the landslide that President Trump to which he thought he was entitled because he is so brilliant and wonderful (winning everything but 'unpatriotic' parts of America like DeeCee, Greater Hollywood, some pathetic islands in the Pacific Ocean that the Kenyan fraudulently claimed to be born in, and maybe Ethan Allen's treacherous state and the one that first betrayed George III)... no, I am not showing that fantasy map to the consequences of gross failure of economic stewardship.  The landslide of Hoover in 1928 to the landslide of FDR in 1932 will likely show the biggest shift in popular shift from one President to another and it is likely to stick for a very long time as the largest such shift.     

This could be more relevant if one thinks that the official map is valid. Trump won with a margin of electoral votes more like that of Jimmy Carter.  But Carter would end up with problems that he could not solve, and for which Ronald Reagan offered solutions; also, the states were shifting in their partisan allegiance, but to the detriment of Jimmy Carter. Maybe not the solutions that many Americans would not have liked at the time, but the 1984 election suggested that Reagan did a lot of things right, like lowering many Americans' expectations. Oh, you have a college degree and you hate your job in retail or fast food, but your low pay even worse? There is a solution -- take another such job to supplement your meager earnings, and always remember to show that moronic "Delighted to serve you!" smile! People taking second jobs that they hated as much as their ill-paid first jobs solved lots of economic problems.   

red -- Carter in 1976 and 1980
white -- Carter 1976, Reagan 1980
blue -- Ford in 1976, Reagan in 1980

(Ignore shades).

Just a reminder: it's the next election that matters. It's not that I expect President Trump to be caught with an economic meltdown as bad as that of 1929-1932 or with a diplomatic disaster as severe as the Iranian hostage crisis.  I'm not saying that the President will lose fifteen states that he won in 2016, and for obvious reasons he can't lose 33 that he won in 2016. But two will be enough if one of them is Florida and one of them is Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin and three will be enough if one of them is Pennsylvania and the other two are any pair of Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

It will be a long time before les jeux sont faits.

[pbrower2a]

My projection, 2000-2020. Six elections. Basis for 2020: any state that gives a majority of its total vote for House seats to Democrats in 2018 will vote for a Democratic nominee in 2020. A 2018-style electorate defeats Trump, but not in a landslide.

Gubernatorial elections reflect statewide instead of federal issues, and the biggest issue in 2020 will likely be Donald Trump. Not all states had Senate elections, and in one state (California) only Democrats got votes and in two there were two Senate elections (and Minnesota more than offsets Mississippi).
 

Maroon -- Democrats all six times
Red -- Democrats five times; Republican once
Pink -- Democrats four times; Republican twice
White -- Democrats three times, Republicans three times
Medium blue -- Republicans five times, Democrats once
Navy -- Republican all six times

No state will have voted for Republicans four times and Democrats twice unless perhaps North Carolina, which I project as a Republican-leaning state in 2020 based on its House election in 2018..

[pbrower2a]

Today I pay attention to one region: the part of America that went from Mexican rule to American rule in the 1840s  (Texas annexation and the American annexation of Alta California from Mexico in 1848, and the Gadsden Purchase of 1853. The states now in this territory include the whole of California, Nevada. Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, more than half of Colorado, and small parts of Wyoming (southwestern and south-central area south of the 42nd parallel of latitude),  southwestern Kansas, and the Oklahoma panhandle. I'm not going to concern myself with Kansas. Oklahoma, or Wyoming.

pink -- Truman 1948; Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956    

As late as 1948 every one of these states voted for Harry Truman (if you are looking for a portent of later elections in 1948, then think again: California was Truman's weakest win among those states in 1948). But that would be the second-to-last time in which a Democratic nominee for President would win either Arizona or Utah. In 1952 and 1956 every one of those states would vote for a Democratic nominee for President. (2020 projects as an election in which Trump has much more chance of losing Arizona than of winning it, but that is an extrapolation of a trend and not a set-in-stone reality yet.  I expect to update this in November 2020).

The elections that say the most about a state are the close ones. 1948 had a close result in the national election. It is safe to say that the New Deal era in American politics came to an end in 1952.

Now consider Kennedy versus Nixon in 1960. Kennedy somehow won Texas, Colorado, and Nevada.

 

Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Kennedy 60 pink,
Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Nixon 60 white

We can largely ignore the electoral disaster that was Barry Goldwater.

Texas is the only one of those states that went for a Democratic nominee for President in either 1968 (all of these states went for Nixon in  1972, for Reagan in 1980 and 1984, and for the elder Bush in 1988 -- all landslides for the Republican. But 1968 and 1976 would be the last times in which Texas would vote for the Democratic nominee for President.  If Texas, which has a large part of the state
similar in political and economic culture to Arkansas (Hope, Arkansas is really close to Texas), could never vote for Clinton, then it then had a strong R trend. 

 

Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Kennedy 60, Nixon 68, Ford 76 pink (R in 72/80/84/88 blowouts) white
Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Kennedy 60, HHH 68, Carter 76 red (R in 72/80/84/88 blowouts) red
Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Nixon 60 white, Ford 76 (R in 72/80/84/88 blowouts) pink

What -- no blue yet? Reagan and the elder Bush utterly wipe out the Democratic nominees in the southwestern United States (unless you want to call Hawaii "southwestern"). But in 1992, Bill Clinton wins California, Colorado, and New Mexico. In 1996 he wins California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Texas was close both times, so it goes white, suggesting a long-term party switch. Utah goes deep blue. Two Clinton wins make a state deep red for now.

 

In the closest election in American history, Gore wins only California and New Mexico among these states. Texas and Utah go to dark blue as Dubya wins the state twice.  Of these states, Kerry wins only California. Nevada goes pink, and New Mexico red.

Thus for 1992-2004

all four times D deep red
Clinton twice, Dubya once red
Clinton twice, Dubya twice pink
Clinton once, Dubya twice light blue

These states do not shift between Obama and Trump. Obama and Hillary Clinton win the same states in this group. Texas, Utah, and Arizona went for the Republican nominee all three times. . Arizona goes medium blue this time.  

 

all seven times D deep red
Clinton twice, Dubya once, Obama twice, H. Clinton red
Clinton twice, Dubya twice, Obama twice, H. Clinton pink
Clinton once, Dubya twice, Obama twice, H. Clinton light blue
Clinton once, Dubya twice, Obama never, Trump blue
Republican nominees all seven times, deep blue

[pbrower2a]

PA since 2000 is becoming the new bellwether instead of Ohio, due to its Democratic trend along with black vote in Va. Gephardt could of helped Kerry in IA, NM and OH, in 2004.

Democrats did not realize what serious flaws Kerry had as a candidate. Republicans did.

[pbrower2a]

The Eisenhower - Obama analogy holds up even if we extend our analysis to young voters and minority groups--provided we focus on 1956 rather than 1952. In 1956 Ike was popular among voters under 30 and Black voters, as was, of course, Obama. In 1952 however, at the height of the Red Scare, most of the pro-Eisenhower (or perhaps anti-Stevenson) vote was older and white, like McCain's in 2008.

Eisenhower steered clear of the anti-union and anti-New Deal rhetoric to which Republican nominees were prone from 1936 to 1948. Paradoxically he might have been able to appeal to the sorts of people who voted for Hoover in 1928. The New Deal did not exist in 1928, there was no Social Security, and labor unions were extremely weak in 1928. Ike knew enough not to threaten the valid achievements of FDR and Truman.

If there is any valid lesson over the ages -- never attack the legitimate successes of the other Party. Ike did not promise to crush unions, repeal Social Security, or dismantle the New Deal. Bill Clinton embraced the foreign policy of George H W Bush as did Obama in practice. Trump may have violated this rule after becoming President, and for that I expect him to lose in 2020.

Obamacare may have saved my life.  

[pbrower2a]

1976 v. 2000:

Blue: Ford '76, Bush '00
Red: Carter '76, Gore '00
Yellow: Carter '76, Bush '00
Green: Ford '76, Gore '00

Surrendering the cities for the South worked well for Bush.

But that could be a disaster for the Republicans in the end as Suburbia becomes increasingly urban in nature. Republicans did well in Suburbia so long as Suburbia still had some rural characteristics (not-so-dense housing, few apartments, few job opportunities to attract unemployed people from the core cities, and of course much less ethnic diversity. As small "starter homes" for WWII veterans get torn down for apartment complexes, the vehicle density soars and causes a need for the widening of what were once quiet streets. Likewise, as such infrastructure as water and sewer lines reach their expected useful life, their maintenance and replacement become huge expenses.


One of the ideas behind the suburban housing boom of the post-WWII era was that the people moving into the new homes would be homeowners -- and not renters. Suburbia would have been a failure had it depended upon huge concrete-block flats that give a dreary appearance to the Soviet bloc.  After all, one of the differences between capitalism and (Soviet) 'socialism' was that in America, if people did not have ownership (if through the State) of their places of work they would at least get to own their own living places.
 
Renters are far more likely to support big government to do public services, including education. The proportion of home-owners may be the difference between a poor state (let us say Mississippi) being Republican and a richer state in which most people are tenants (let us say Massachusetts) are heavily Democratic. Rather poor people might own their own homes in Mississippi and see a tax bill. A tenant does not see the tax bill. (Of course, part of the conservative trend of the Mountain and Deep South is that these places attract few foreigners, which ensures that the politics can become white-versus black, and the demographic majority invariably wins in the local or state elections, which is good for some horror stories that I have discussed elsewhere).

[pbrower2a]

This projection of an election that will never so turn out, but might have.

At this point I am not going to speculate on how the states will go in November 2020. Things are changing rapidly for the President; everything is in flux. I do not predict the direction of polling results, as such is premature and silly. But I can speculate on how the Presidential election would have gone had it been held in May 2020 before COVID-19 killed 100,000 Americans and before the widely-held demonstrations against police brutality... and, to be frank, the President bungling the response to those demonstrations. Such may be more relevant to some other norm -- maybe Presidential elections of 2024 or 2028, if not 2020. We are in new, uncharted seas in American politics this year, and the Kraken allegedly stalks the seas for ships to take down... not to mention hurricanes and icebergs.

State polling was relatively stable going into May 2020. That of course is no longer so. Even this suggests that Trump was headed for defeat and needed significant shifts of the electorate to win in 2020 that nobody could predict. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona were consistently going against Trump going into the middle of May. The GOP has yet to fully and permanently undo the hemorrhaging of support  that it lost in the {residential elections involving Obama.   

 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice, Biden*
orange -- Eisenhower twice, Obama never, Biden*
medium red  -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice, Trump 2020
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once, Trump 2020
deep blue -- Republican all four five elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 and 2020 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never, Trump 2020
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never, Trump 2020
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once, Trump 2020

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red.

   

[pbrower2a]

At this point I can "retrodict" (yes, I coined that word for my use here) an election that once had a chance of happening and now seems unlikely. This is how the 2020 election looked in contrast to those of Eisenhower and Obama based on match-ups in the middle of May 2020. Since then the news for President Trump has all been bad due to his bungling of COVID-19 and of mass protests involving dissent at police brutality. Polling was stable in the first part of 2020, but it is not now in early June. I do not see things getting better for the President. Things are spiraling away from his best hopes.

This may be relevant to 2024 or 2028 -- but no longer 2020. It did not look good for Trump this year. Trump was going to lose his three barest wins of 2020, gain nothing that he lost in 2016, and lose Arizona. Anything shaky would be assigned to Trump, but I saw Biden winning 289 electoral votes and the election.

This map is not as neat as that of the original Eisenhower-Obama overlay.

Electoral votes can be ignored, as those are for 2008.    

 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice, Biden 2020
red -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice, Trump 2020
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once, Trump 2020
orange -- Eisenhower twice, Obama never, Biden 2020
deep blue -- Republican all five elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never, Trump 2020
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once, Trump 2020

    

[pbrower2a]

That was a possible 2020 election, one that Trump was likely to lose, but still close.  This is how I might have seen 2020 had it remained close. The Trump effort seems to be in collapse. Nothing goes right, and he is becoming increasingly offensive. For 2020 in contrast to the Eisenhower and Obama elections I showed an election that was possible in 2020 until it no longer was possible.

This could be relevant to a bare Democratic win in 2024... but the candidates for such are not obvious.

Based on polls in the last couple of days, I now see Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio (barely), going to Biden. Iowa and Texas are toss-ups.

Electoral reality is dynamic -- except when it isn't. I'm not making a comparison of the 2020 Presidential election until it has happened; I have simply shown one that was possible until recently.

Originally I compared Obama to Eisenhower, figuring that the two won to a considerable extent the same states even though in different Parties. This suggests not so much that the political cultures have changed as that the partisan loyalties within the two Parties have changed. As a salient feature I showed that some tough states for Republican Presidential candidates since the Ike and before (from 1928 to now) -- Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island, that no Republican nominee for President has won together since 1956 -- voted for Eisenhower twice. Ike must have been an unusually-good fit for those states. Hoover lost two of those states in 1928 in a blowout outside the South; Nixon won everything but Massachusetts and Dee Cee in 1972; Reagan won everything but Minnesota and Dee Cee in 1984.

It is four months and eight days before the 2020 election... and I predict that I will have something to add to this thread about the real Presidential election of 2020. At this point a Biden win could look more like an Eisenhower win than either Obama win.

...I make one prediction on the future: Time Magazine's equivalent of the Man of the Year will be the virus behind COVID-19. 

 

[pbrower2a]

It could be less than a month before I get to show a comparison between the 2020 election and some other election. I post this so that I will be able to find this thread easily when the time comes.

[pbrower2a]

At this point I can "retrodict" (yes, I coined that word for my use here) an election that once had a chance of happening and now seems unlikely. This is how the 2020 election looked in contrast to those of Eisenhower and Obama based on match-ups in the middle of May 2020. Since then the news for President Trump has all been bad due to his bungling of COVID-19 and of mass protests involving dissent at police brutality. Polling was stable in the first part of 2020, but it is not now in early June. I do not see things getting better for the President. Things are spiraling away from his best hopes.

This may be relevant to 2024 or 2028 -- but no longer 2020. It did not look good for Trump this year. Trump was going to lose his three barest wins of 2020, gain nothing that he lost in 2016, and lose Arizona. Anything shaky would be assigned to Trump, but I saw Biden winning 289 electoral votes and the election.

This map is not as neat as that of the original Eisenhower-Obama overlay.

Electoral votes can be ignored, as those are for 2008.   

 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice, Biden 2020
red -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice, Trump 2020
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once, Trump 2020
light orange -- Eisenhower twice, Obama never, Biden 2020
deep blue -- Republican all five elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never, Trump 2020
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once, Trump 2020

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red.

   

Well, well, well. It turns out that that "retrodiction" proved about as accurate as anyone could have expected of the result. Trump really did get more votes in 2020 than in 2016 in total, but not enough to offset new Democratic votes in 2020.  This "retrodiction" is almost as accurate as anyone could have predicted. I got 17 electoral votes 'wrong' (Georgia and NE-02) in this model of an election that I thought that Trump was going to lose in a landslide.

Electoral votes can be ignored, as those are for 2008.   

 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice, Biden 2020
yellow -- Eisenhower twice, Obama once, Biden 2020
red -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice, Trump 2020
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once, Trump 2020
light orange -- Eisenhower twice, Obama never, Biden 2020
medium orange -- Stevenson twice, Obama never, Biden 2020
deep blue -- Republican all five elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never, Trump 2020
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once, Trump 2020

No state voted Democratic all four five times, so no state is in deep red.

[pbrower2a]

Today I pay attention to one region: the part of America that went from Mexican rule to American rule in the 1840s  (Texas annexation and the American annexation of Alta California from Mexico in 1848, and the Gadsden Purchase of 1853. The states now in this territory include the whole of California, Nevada. Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, more than half of Colorado, and small parts of Wyoming (southwestern and south-central area south of the 42nd parallel of latitude),  southwestern Kansas, and the Oklahoma panhandle. I'm not going to concern myself with Kansas. Oklahoma, or Wyoming.

pink -- Truman 1948; Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956    

As late as 1948 every one of these states voted for Harry Truman (if you are looking for a portent of later elections in 1948, then think again: California was Truman's weakest win among those states in 1948). But that would be the second-to-last time in which a Democratic nominee for President would win either Arizona or Utah. In 1952 and 1956 every one of those states would vote for a Democratic nominee for President. (2020 projects as an election in which Trump has much more chance of losing Arizona than of winning it, but that is an extrapolation of a trend and not a set-in-stone reality yet.  I expect to update this in November 2020).

The elections that say the most about a state are the close ones. 1948 had a close result in the national election. It is safe to say that the New Deal era in American politics came to an end in 1952.

Now consider Kennedy versus Nixon in 1960. Kennedy somehow won Texas, Colorado, and Nevada.

 

Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Kennedy 60 pink,
Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Nixon 60 white

We can largely ignore the electoral disaster that was Barry Goldwater.

Texas is the only one of those states that went for a Democratic nominee for President in either 1968 (all of these states went for Nixon in  1972, for Reagan in 1980 and 1984, and for the elder Bush in 1988 -- all landslides for the Republican. But 1968 and 1976 would be the last times in which Texas would vote for the Democratic nominee for President.  If Texas, which has a large part of the state
similar in political and economic culture to Arkansas (Hope, Arkansas is really close to Texas), could never vote for Clinton, then it then had a strong R trend.  

 

Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Kennedy 60, Nixon 68, Ford 76 pink (R in 72/80/84/88 blowouts) white
Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Kennedy 60, HHH 68, Carter 76 red (R in 72/80/84/88 blowouts) red
Truman 48, Ike 52/56, Nixon 60 white, Ford 76 (R in 72/80/84/88 blowouts) pink

What -- no blue yet? Reagan and the elder Bush utterly wipe out the Democratic nominees in the southwestern United States (unless you want to call Hawaii "southwestern"). But in 1992, Bill Clinton wins California, Colorado, and New Mexico. In 1996 he wins California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Texas was close both times, so it goes white, suggesting a long-term party switch. Utah goes deep blue. Two Clinton wins make a state deep red for now.

 

In the closest election in American history, Gore wins only California and New Mexico among these states. Texas and Utah go to dark blue as Dubya wins the state twice.  Of these states, Kerry wins only California. Nevada goes pink, and New Mexico red.

Thus for 1992-2004

all four times D deep red
Clinton twice, Dubya once red
Clinton twice, Dubya twice pink
Clinton once, Dubya twice light blue

These states do not shift between Obama and Trump. Obama and Hillary Clinton win the same states in this group. Texas, Utah, and Arizona went for the Republican nominee all three times. . Arizona goes medium blue this time.  

Update for 2016 and 2020

 

all seven times D deep red
Clinton twice, Dubya once, Obama twice, H. Clinton Trump never red
Clinton twice, Dubya twice, Obama twice, H. Clinton Trump never pink
Clinton once, Dubya twice, Obama twice, H. Clinton Trump never light blue
Clinton once, Dubya twice, Obama never, Trump and Biden blue
Republican nominees all seven eight times, deep blue

[pbrower2a]

Updated for 2020:

When the state last voted for the losing nominee:

2020
2016
2012
2004
2000



Ohio hasn't voted for the loser of the Presidential election since 1960.lost its bellwether status in 2020.

With one twist: voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but hasn't gone D since in a Presidential election. Such states are in green:

[pbrower2a]

Have you ever compared the presidential election of 2000 in New Hampshire to the election of 2016 in the same state? It's remarkable how similar most of the counties voted, with two exceptions, and those two exceptions show the reason the state voted Republican in 2000 but Democratic in 2016.

Statewide, Bush won 48.1% to 46.8% in 2000. But in 2016, Clinton won 46.8% to 46.5%.
Here is how each of the counties voted in the two elections.
       County                      2000                              2016
Belknap County -       55.2% R to 40.0% D       55.1% R to 38.6% D
Carroll  County -     52.8% R to 41.3% D     49.4% R to 43.9% D
Cheshire County -      41.3% R to 52.1% D       40.3% R to 52.7% D
Coos County -            50.2% R to 45.0% D       50.9% R to 42.0% D
Grafton County -      46.7% R to 47.3% D    37.1% R to 55.7% D
Hillsborough County - 48.7% R to 46.8% D       46.7% R to 46.5% D
Merrimack County -    47.2% R to 48.1% D       45.0% R to 48.1% D
Rockingham County -  49.1% R to 45.9% D       49.9% R to 44.1% D
Strafford County -       42.7% R to 51.4% D       42.1% R to 50.6% D
Sullivan County -        49.8% to 44.1% D          47.6% R to 45.0% D

Eight of the counties voted almost exactly the same way in 2016 as they had in 2000, but Carroll and Grafton Counties both shifted much more Democratic - Carroll County shifted 6.0 percentage points more Democratic and Grafton County shifted 18.0 percentage points more Democratic. Without those two counties shifting as great as they did, Trump would have won in 2016 and all of the counties would have voted almost exactly the same way in those two elections.

In general I do not look at county-level voting, although this might be relevant in a state whose demographics are changing. This is definitely a legitimate study. It might explain the demise of a Party in a state. Let's see how that works with... well, Alabama is at the top of the list of states in alphabetical order.

1976:




Carter won 55-42, and he seemed an excellent match (being from rural Georgia) for Alabama, which is one of the most rural states in America. Carter lost Jefferson County, which contains Alabama's only near-giant city (Birmingham). 

2020:

 

Obviously the Democratic Party has long since lost the rural vote unless black. The "Black Belt" remains strongly D, but two counties went from Ford in 1976 to Biden in 2020. One of those counties is Jefferson, which contains Birmingham. But Birmingham isn't anywhere near the size of Atlanta, which is to Georgia almost what Chicago is to Illinois in politics.

[pbrower2a]

If anyone has any doubt that the Presidential Election of 1976 is ancient history for all practical purposes:

Carter 1976, Biden 2020  

Carter 1976, Biden  red
Carter 1976, Trump 2020 yellow
Ford 1976, Biden white
Ford 1976, Trump 2020 blue

[pbrower2a]

As a general rule, I do not predict trends. Who would have thought after the 1996 Presidential election that that would be the last election in which a Democratic nominee would win any one of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, or West Virginia?

Let's take a look at West Virginia. This is how the state looked in 1980... forty years ago...

 

West Virginia voted against Ronald Reagan by 4% in a year in which Reagan won 44 states. Voting on the losing side against a President who gets nearly 500 electoral votes is a strong indication that the state is extremely partisan in its orientation. That is when the United Mine Workers could reliably get out the vote for Democrats on 'labor' issues because high wages in jobs that don't require college degrees and long commutes. Democratic pols didn't have to spend much on public works, education, or even public health (the miners and their families had good insurance thanks to union contracts).

Those jobs are mostly gone. The coal seams are largely worked out, and the coal that can be minded from the surface requires far fewer workers. The United Mine Workers Union can no longer turn out the votes of coal miners and their families.  The state was never rich, but Democrats left the state with few opportunities other than mining... and bad roads, bad schools, and bad public health.

Here's the last election in which a Democratic nominee would win West Virginia:

 

... and 2020:



Back in 1996, if someone showed a map of West Virginia that looked like the last one as a prospect for 2020, you might be asking whether the Democratic Party were dying. It most certainly is.. in West Virginia.

It is West Virginia that has changed, and oh has it changed! 

[pbrower2a]

If anyone has any doubt that the Presidential Election of 1976 is ancient history for all practical purposes:

Carter 1976, Biden 2020  

Carter 1976, Biden  red
Carter 1976, Trump 2020 yellow
Ford 1976, Biden white
Ford 1976, Trump 2020 blue

...The white and yellow states combined have a clear majority of the electoral votes. As for the blue states, except for Iowa (several times) and IN and MT (once each), none have voted Dem since 1964.

Personalities and performance matter; the Favorite Son effect is real; demographic and cultural change happen. I could conceivably recognize Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin going to Donald Trump in 2016 or that Iowa and Ohio both went twice for Obama. More colors to account for such would make a messier map.  

I do not predict trends, but I can discuss those that already exist. I could do some seat-of-the-pants analysis that suggests that Iowa and Ohio are trending R because Iowa lacks the growing suburbs whose populations drift D and that Ohio (but see also Michigan and Pennsylvania) have so many dying cities and little real population growth. It could be that such states are now tending to hemorrhage away D-leaning voters to states (Colorado? Arizona? Texas? Virginia?) tending D. I can use such maps to explain how partisan loyalty can shift.
  

It becomes even more striking when one looks at the state in which Ford had his greatest numerical majority (MI, which voted Republican only once in the last 8 elections) and Carter had his (GA, which has voted Democratic only once in the last 7 elections). Ironically, GA may well vote left of MI in the near future-- but that's another story.

When was the last time that Texas was more D than Ohio? In an election that was not an electoral blowout? 1976. When the best career advice for many Ohioans is to head south on I-75 or southwest on i-71 and trend southwestward from Cincinnati to Texas, then you can see what happens with people who have career choices and mobility.

Trump winning Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by small margins  and winning Iowa and Ohio by what seem freakishly-large margins in 2016  may seem reversible as late as 2024, but I would not bet against such in 2028 or later. States losing their industrial base without gaining a huge number of jobs ib  high technology such as biotech or IT will become more rural, and I can expect Republicans to be more reliable (like Trump) in opening the spigot on farm subsidies. Add to this, poor white people with little skill or mobility are particularly vulnerable to a politicians who exploits ethnic and religious bigotry.  

I just watched videos on the worst places to live in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the pattern is much the same: cities losing their industrial jobs become social nightmares.  

[pbrower2a]

So if I am to look at a state that is in the middle of the alphabet, almost exactly middle in its position of acquiring statehood, and generally close to the national average in voting.... you guessed it, Michigan.

1976, Ford winning. He was the Favorite Son, and either got little effect from such or Michigan would have otherwise gone to Carter by about 5%.



Carter still did well in the UP (there was still much mining). Ford apparently did well in counties from Grand Rapids to Lansing. The Republican proclivity to win in the suburbs remains strong, with Ford winning Oakland and Macomb counties.

1984: Reagan landslide. Mondale won three counties in the Upper Peninsula but only one (Wayne) in the Lower Peninsula.  This is what 59-40 looks like for a Republican in Michigan.



Close to the opposite of the 1984 shellacking of Mondale in Michigan was 2008. Michigan was freakishly good to Obama that year, in part because of an economic meltdown that reminded people of the Great Depression at its start.



It is hard to imagine Michigan going as sharply for Reagan in 1984 or for Obama in 2008... ever.

Now for two very close statewide votes for President: 2016 (slightly more than 10,000 votes)



and 2020 (over 150,000 votes, but less than 3%)



Kent (Grand Rapids), Leelanau (a county that even looks a lot like coastal California except in the winter), and Saginaw Counties suggest the difference.