Will we ever see a true landslide ever again?

[MIKESOWELL]

I'm asking this because it seems that in our lifetime that the country is just too polarized for this to occur. In my opinion a true landslide is at least 70 percent of the Electoral College and a ten point spread in the popular vote. Maybe some have stricter guidelines, maybe some are less so. Be that as it may, I just can't see this happening except in extreme and highly unlikely scenarios. What would it take?

[Sir Mohamed]

Only if a strong 3rd party runs and takes enough votes to sink one side to about 40% of the vote. Otherwise, Dem ceiling is about 53-45% and about 370 EVs.


Maps like these are not impossible:

✓ Republican: 355 EVs.; 50%
Democratic: 183 EVs.; 40%
3rd party (left wing): 0 EVs.; 10%

✓ Democratic: 413 EVs.; 51%
Republican: 119 EVs.; 40%
3rd party (right wing): 6 EVs.; 7%

[Orser67]

I'd bet on it happening again in the next 50 years. Using a 10-point popular vote victory as the cut-off for a "true landslide", there were 7 straight non-landslide elections between 1876 and 1900, before Roosevelt won in what was undoubtedly a landslide in 1904. We've actually already passed the record for most consecutive non-landslides (we're at 8), but I still think that Roosevelt's 1904 landslide shows that realignments can happen and can lead to major victories, even when it seems polarization has made a landslide impossible. Another example I would bring up is the realignment of the 1930s: Roosevelt won two gigantic landslides (plus two comfortable victories) even though he was the first Democrat since the Civil War to win a majority of both the popular vote and the electoral vote.

[Hammy]

Yes, given the GOP is removing voters from the rolls every chance they get.

[Non Swing Voter]

I could see this happened in 2024 or 2028 simply because the electorate is getting way more diverse and college educated and the GOP is doing absolutely nothing to reach out to those voters. 

What the 2018 and 2019 elections have taught me is how remarkably stable the electorate is along demographic lines.  All of the Hillary districts going to Dems, etc.  There is a slice of the electorate in the middle (maybe 10%) that is persuadable, so I think with a growing demographic advantage plus a middle of the road candidate, a Democrat could easily get 70% of the electoral votes (winning NY, CA, FL, TX, IL) in ten years or so.

[AN63093]

A true landslide would require a realignment, so really what you're asking is when the next realignment will happen- a Q that has been asked ad infinitum on this forum, and a question I've written pages and pages on already, so forgive me if I keep my answer shorter this time.  One natural trigger for a realignment could be when the boomers completely leave us.  That would suggest coalitions would change, but that wouldn't necessarily lead to less polarization.

A lot of millennials are hoping that will happen, but consider- if the '16 trends are extrapolated, we could just as easily enter a period of intense racial polarization, where the whites have one party (the GOP would naturally suggest itself), minorities another.. white areas of the country vote one way, and minority areas another.. maybe the Midwest/Northeast flips R and the South/West flips D (which by the way, is already happening).

It is the height of naivete to think that if just all the old, cranky religious gun nut dudes would go ahead and die already, everyone could come together and sing kumbaya and all the old divisions would just disappear and we'd finally be One Nation Under Climate Science, but this year's Dem primary should be instructive as to why that won't happen.  Even when the electorate is limited to a younger and less white base, it's not as if consensus magically appears- whites (especially white women) have one candidate, blacks another, and hispanics yet a third.. rich and poor have their different candidates, educated and non-educated.  Some of the squabbling between the Warren, Sanders, Biden, etc., camps that I've seen online is just as intense as D v R.

If the future of the country is increased Balkanization, which I fear is the case (and unfortunately maybe inevitable for a country the size of the US), that would suggest the conditions continue to be unlikely for a de-polarized electorate.  NC Yankee posted a good map a while back.. not gonna bother trying to find it right now, but believe it or not, there is one state in the US where millennials are actually more conservative than boomers, and it's not in the Deep South (they are more liberal than boomers there, even in AL, MS, etc.).  It's Maine.  Maine also happens to be the Whitest state in the US, at over 94%.

Now if that's a harbinger, it's one that is going to make a lot of millennials uncomfortable to think about, because the implications are that we are not entering the utopia that they all hoped would happen when the boomers kick it.  But as one gets older one realizes that what you hope will happen and what is likely to happen are often (if not usually) two different things and you learn to make peace with that.  BTW I am a millennial (albeit an older one, almost gen X), so this is not an old guy "Get off my lawn!" routine but rather just a frank appraisal of where we're at.

[Agonized-Statism]

I could see this happened in 2024 or 2028 simply because the electorate is getting way more diverse and college educated and the GOP is doing absolutely nothing to reach out to those voters.  

What the 2018 and 2019 elections have taught me is how remarkably stable the electorate is along demographic lines.  All of the Hillary districts going to Dems, etc.  There is a slice of the electorate in the middle (maybe 10%) that is persuadable, so I think with a growing demographic advantage plus a middle of the road candidate, a Democrat could easily get 70% of the electoral votes (winning NY, CA, FL, TX, IL) in ten years or so.

My theory is that we have been in the dreaded GOP wilderness since 2008- Trump is an aberration. That's not a bad thing necessarily, I'm just saying he's not attached to a broader movement that can be separated from him and continue without him.

He won more on a platform of his own and used the party as a vehicle to launch it, and won because of just enough turnout in key locations. But he's a false start. Even if he gets reelected, there's only one Trump, and he doesn't have much of an ideology to replicate in practice. It's not like Bush, where you can run another neocon, or Roosevelt, where you can run another New Dealer, because he's not purely populist. Actually, we haven't seen much of that from him at all. Only in rhetoric. The Tea Party and populism are among the things that have filled the void since the neocons stopped winning. Populism will be hard to sell without Trump and in a less white America that's had its trade issues more or less settled by the time he's out, so it's clear that philosophy will adapt or die post-Trump. Will be interested to see what demographically viable ideology becomes the party's platform eventually. Sort of like how Democrats can't just win on "stop Trump stop Trump stop Trump", Republicans can't win on just reacting with "the Democrats are so insane". Where's the wall? Where's all those jobs from China? Why are we still in the Middle East? What's this new NAFTA-lite? Where's the post-partisanship we were promised? How about those tax cuts for the rich- a clear dividing line in the Trump movement. Some are "abolish the fed" Paulites who think that move helped the globalists, others say it was good because it made "muh """commies"""" cry.

Again, without Trump in the equation, it falls apart. And what he believes in is up for debate, so there's going to be some inter-party disputes. I have my doubts populism will become the GOP position because it can't survive on the map without its leading character to bail it out with personality.

[MarkD]

I am both hoping and expecting to see a map similar to this next year.

✓ Democratic: 413 EVs.; 51%
Republican: 119 EVs.; 40%
3rd party (right wing): 6 EVs.; 7%

[Libertas Vel Mors]

I am both hoping and expecting to see a map similar to this next year.

✓ Democratic: 413 EVs.; 51%
Republican: 119 EVs.; 40%
3rd party (right wing): 6 EVs.; 7%

lol ok

[brucejoel99]

I am both hoping and expecting to see a map similar to this next year.

✓ Democratic: 413 EVs.; 51%
Republican: 119 EVs.; 40%
3rd party (right wing): 6 EVs.; 7%

lol ok

I mean, yeah, it's certainly unlikely as of now, but anything could happen.

[sg0508]

I agree with a realignment, and one of the parties to essentially be nomads (i.e. no real base or geographical base).  See the Democrats in the 70s into the mid-80s.  Late in the 80s, it became more evident that the west coast, midwest and northeast were going to house the Democrats.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

A 2024 landslide win for the Democrats is likely if Trump wins reelection imo.

[Orwell]

Yes it will be a landslide for President Olowakandi's reelection and Vice President Bill Walkers election 4 years later.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

If Trump could win a 305 landslide,  Bernie can certainly win a landslide against Trump; consequently, it wont be a landslide, of A typical map, it can be a 1976 map, with some blue state voting red and red states voting blue

[BigVic]

Bill Clinton won two victories over 370 votes and Obama in ‘08 is the last candidate to receive more than 350 votes in the EC.

The late George Bush in 1988 was the last candidate to win more than 400 electoral votes. Ronald Reagan won with 489 and 525 EV’s.

A landslide is highly unlikely unless a 3rd party runs and splits the vote.

[TML]

Remember that the mid-1870s to early-1900s were also a time period where there were no true landslide elections. If you asked people back then if they thought there would be another true landslide election in the future, chances are many of them would also have answered no.

[Agonized-Statism]

Better question is, when will we see a true landslide again?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Yes, 2020

[pbrower2a]

Landslide elections indicate one of three things:

1. the "tiredness" of the public with one Party's stay in the Presidency (1920, 1952, 1992)
2. a failed Presidency preceding a putative reformer (1932, 1980, arguably 2008)
3. an incumbent allegedly moderate defeating an opponent easily characterized as a dangerous extremist (1964, 1972, arguably 1904 and 1928)
4. political inertia in which the incumbent runs against a weak challenger (1924, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1984) following an electoral landslide
5. (Mercifully we have never had this) a rigged election. 

The first is completely irrelevant this time: it requires at least two terms of the same Party in the Presidency. It would have been relevant had Hillary Clinton been elected President. The third is also irrelevant, because Donald Trump is no moderate.

It is #2 (Trump barely got elected and has offended a huge chunk of the America electorate), #4 (should the Democrats nominate a real turkey who cannot build a viable coalition fast enough), or #5 (God forbid! -- but Trump is the sort who can kill democracy)   

[pbrower2a]

When all is said and done, I think that the Obama and Eisenhower Presidencies are going to look like good analogues. Both Presidents are chilly rationalists. Both are practically scandal-free administrations. Both started with a troublesome war that both found their way out of. Neither did much to 'grow' the strength of their Parties in either House of Congress. To compare ISIS to Fidel Castro is completely unfair to Fidel Castro, a gentleman by contrast to ISIS.

The definitive moderate Republican may have been Dwight Eisenhower, and I have heard plenty of Democrats praise the Eisenhower Presidency. He went along with Supreme Court rulings that outlawed segregationist practices, stayed clear of the McCarthy bandwagon, and let McCarthy implode.

 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four 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
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red. [/quote]

The electric eel is loose! What?  Republican Eisenhower and Democrat Obama? They did win much the same states in their elections (Obama not getting the High Plains states or the Intermountain West aside from Colorado and New Mexico). OK, the political culture of America in 2008 and 2012 is far closer to that of the 1950s than partisan identity would indicate -- it is just that the partisan match to the political cultures of the states are mostly opposite in partisan identity.

So what changed in in American politics between 1952 and 2012? Let's start by saying what did not change. Eisenhower cultivated the Mormon vote for the GOP to get it to start identifying with conservative politics. Trump has some chance of blowing that. Ranch country is as strongly R now as it was in 1952, I do not want to go into the details on how ranch-area and farm-area politics differ; Iowa has voted D in all but two Presidential elections beginning in 1988, and Kansas has voted R in every Presidential election since 1968. Demographic realities have given California, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico large Hispanic minorities, and such now favors Democrats in statewide elections.

But note well: Eisenhower and Obama did very well with well-educated people, winning decisive majorities among both. Stevenson, McCain, and Romney did well with not-so-well-educated people -- and such makes a big difference. People with much trust in formal education as a necessity for the Good Life voted for Ike -- and Obama -- at least as the states suggest. The states with the lowest standards of formal education went for Stevenson (D) but against Obama (D). Ike won three states usually tough for Republicans even in good or great years, winning the states (Massachusetts and Minnesota) that were the sole states that hapless McGovern and Mondale won in 49-state landslides for a Republican, and Rhode Island, the only Northern state other than Massachusetts to vote against Herbert Hoover in 1928. Ike won all three twice, and no Republican has won all three once in any other election since 1924.    

OK, what about the Hispanics? Sure, many are poor, and recent immigrants might be ill-educated people who hold onto cr@ppy jobs. They insist that their kids do well in school so that they don't become a permanent under-class in America. In the 1950's such people would have gone for Ike. Today they hold Trump in contempt for an anti-intellectualism that reaches far beyond the usual wayward professor to the K-12 teacher. Note well that the Catholic Church has no use for the young-earth creationism that so many Protestant fundamentalists endorse. "Believe it or burn!"

.....

The ideal antithesis of Trump is an Eisenhower (if one is a conservative Never-Trumper) or Obama (if one is a moderate liberal) The two are more similar than one might expect. Obama elections are closer to those of Eisenhower than to anyone else -- even other Democrats. The political cultures of the states are essentially as they were in the 1950's, with biggest changes in demographics (the biggest one: the rapid growth of the Hispanic populations as shares of the electorate). Blacks have not gained as a share of the electorate, and Asians are heavily concentrated in states that are 'sure things' in recent years. Technology has changed, but that has more effect upon journalism than upon economic reality aside from the disappearance of many industrial jobs. (But industrial workers of an earlier era are getting warehouse and delivery jobs instead. If they are not involved in pressing records or assembling televisions they are handling them in a warehouse or delivering them to customers.   

The main change between the 1950's and now is that the Democratic and Republican Parties have largely switched constituencies. Eisenhower won the college-educated vote -- big -- and so did Obama. The constituencies for "Eisenhower" and "Rockefeller" Republicans, conservatives in style and personal life but progressive on civil liberties and the environment, have gone Democratic. Meanwhile the whites of the Mountain and Deep South have gone largely Republican. Asian-Americans have gone from Republican (concern about Communism) to Democratic (concern about the anti-intellectualism within the Republican Party).

OK, Republicans still have the plutocrats and executives and still have a hold over ranchers and Mormons as did Eisenhower. Democrats still have a strong hold over Jews, Mexican-Americans, and blacks.

MY OPINION:

I see Donald Trump as a political failure at the least, unable to add fresh support to the votes from  the constituencies that he needed for a bare election. Generational change in the electorate as younger votes who are much more Democratic than Republican supplant older voters who are slightly more Republican than Democratic die off. President Trump will need new support to win re-election in 2020 just to offset an electorate becoming more Democratic. Most people already recognize that Trump's economic agenda demands great suffering on behalf of existing elites of ownership and management. The Trump economy is a raw deal -- prosperity only for a few for which we are all expected to be grateful.

It's hard to measure political failure at this stage, as we have never had a President with such pervasive corruption as this one. Americans have shown tolerance of political corruption only in local machine politics, but not at the state level and not even at the level of the congressional district. Scandal is political ruin, but it is hard to measure it against an economic collapse that Trump has not yet inflicted upon us (and might not).

It will all be clear in mid-November of this year, and everything will seem inevitable.