Raw Votes 2000 vs 2020

[iceman]

STATE                             2000               2020            % CHANGE

ALABAMA                     1,666,272     2,323,282     39.43%
ALASKA                        285,560           359,530    25.90%
ARIZONA                     1,532,016         3,387,326        121.10%
ARKANSAS                921,781     1,219,069    32.25%
CALIFORNIA           10,965,856        17,465,024    59.27%
COLORADO             1,741,368     3,256,649    87.02%
CONNECTICUT             1,459,525     1,824,273    24.99%
DELAWARE                327,622       504,346    53.94%
DC                                201,894       344,356    70.56%
FLORIDA                     5,963,110       11,067,456    85.60%
GEORGIA                    2,596,804     4,998,482    92.49%
HAWAII                       367,951        574,469    56.13%
IDAHO                       501,621        868,337    73.11%
ILLINOIS                    4,742,123          6,019,374    26.93%
INDIANA                    2,199,302     3,033,142    37.91%
IOWA                    1,315,563     1,690,871    28.53%
KANSAS                    1,072,218     1,333,513    24.37%
KENTUCKY            1,544,187     2,136,768    38.37%
LOUISIANA            1,765,656     2,148,062    21.66%
MAINE                       651,817        819,461    25.72%
MARYLAND            2,025,480     3,018,943    49.05%
MASSACHUSETTS    2,702,984     3,631,402    34.35%
MICHIGAN            4,232,501     5,539,302    30.88%
MINNESOTA            2,438,685     3,277,171    34.38%
MISSISSIPPI               994,184     1,314,594    32.23%
MISSOURI                    2,359,892     3,012,436    27.65%
MONTANA                       410,997        603,674    46.88%
NEBRASKA               697,019        951,712         36.54%
NEVADA                       608,970     1,405,376        130.78%
NEW HAMPSHIRE       569,081        806,182         41.25%
NEW JERSEY            3,187,226     4,561,477    43.12%
NEW MEXICO               598,605        923,965    54.35%
NEW YORK*            6,821,999     8,228,416    20.62%
NORTH CAROLINA    2,911,262     5,524,804    89.77%
NORTH DAKOTA               288,256        361,819    25.52%
OHIO                    4,705,457     5,922,202    25.86%
OKLAHOMA            1,234,229     1,560,699    26.45%
OREGON                    1,533,968     2,374,322    54.78%
PENNSYLVANIA            4,913,119     6,915,283    40.75%
RHODE ISLAND               409,112        517,757    26.56%
SOUTH CAROLINA    1,382,717     2,513,329    81.77%
SOUTH DAKOTA               316,269        422,609    33.62%
TENNESSEE             2,076,181     3,045,401    46.68%
TEXAS                     6,407,637       11,315,056    76.59%
UTAH                       770,754     1,488,289    93.10%
VERMONT                       294,308        367,428    24.84%
VIRGINIA                     2,739,447     4,460,524    62.83%
WASHINGTON             2,487,433     4,087,631    64.33%
WEST VIRGINIA       648,124       794,652    22.61%
WISCONSIN             2,598,607     3,298,041    26.92%
WYOMING                        218,351       276,765    26.75%

*not yet done counting.

[ultraviolet]

Wow. That’s kinda incredible, especially AZ and NV

[iceman]

see what 20 years can do...

a few notes:

* Biden got more votes in California 2020 than the total votes in California in 2000.
* Though clearly losing population, West Virginia's votes increased by 22.61% in a 20-year period.
* The biggest gainers in percentage were clearly the Mountain states of Nevada, Colorado, Arizona and Utah. New Mexico is a bit of an underperformer.
* By percentage, New York seems to have increased the least (though not for long as totals may exceed 8.6 Million in 2020). Next would be Louisiana at 21.66%
* 2000 was a low turnout year vs 2020 which is a high turnout year, but the alliances of most states were pretty much the same.
* Biden and Trump got each more votes in Arizona 2020 than the total for Arizona in 2000.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

NEVADA                130.78%
ARIZONA               121.10%
UTAH                     93.10%
GEORGIA               92.49%
NORTH CAROLINA  89.77%
COLORADO            87.02%
FLORIDA                85.60%
SOUTH CAROLINA  81.77%
TEXAS                   76.59%
IDAHO                   73.11%
DC                        70.56%
WASHINGTON        64.33%
VIRGINIA               62.83%
CALIFORNIA           59.27%
HAWAII                 56.13%
OREGON                54.78%
DELAWARE             53.94%

WOW!!!!

[ProgressiveModerate]

No wonder NV and AZ have become so unrecognizable.

[Non Swing Voter]

NEVADA                130.78%
ARIZONA               121.10%
UTAH                     93.10%
GEORGIA               92.49%
NORTH CAROLINA  89.77%
COLORADO            87.02%
FLORIDA                85.60%
SOUTH CAROLINA  81.77%
TEXAS                   76.59%
IDAHO                   73.11%
DC                        70.56%
WASHINGTON        64.33%
VIRGINIA               62.83%
CALIFORNIA           59.27%
HAWAII                 56.13%
OREGON                54.78%
DELAWARE             53.94%

WOW!!!!

almost all trending D. 

Meanwhile the GOP is killing it in West Virginia and Arkansas.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Adjusted this list for population growth. Basically, this would be the % increase in raw votes if no population growth happened, assuming no turnout differentials between natives and transplants. Interestingly, the sunbelt still shows the biggest surges.

State	Population Adjusted Net Vote Increase (%)
Arizona	70.40%
Georgia	65.03%
North Carolina	62.57%
Nevada	59.97%
South Carolina	58.60%
Colorado	57.53%
Florida	56.17%
District of Columbia	54.07%
Utah	52.54%
Virginia	49.90%
California	49.40%
Texas	46.68%
Hawaii	46.66%
New Mexico	46.05%
Washington	45.55%
Idaho	45.25%
Maryland	42.11%
Oregon	42.03%
Delaware	40.85%
New Jersey	40.72%
Pennsylvania	39.02%
Montana	38.22%
Tennessee	37.33%
New Hampshire	37.11%
Alabama	35.39%
Kentucky	34.33%
Indiana	33.85%
Nebraska	31.78%
Massachusetts	31.41%
Mississippi	30.74%
Michigan	30.73%
Minnesota	29.35%
Arkansas	28.10%
South Dakota	27.84%
Illinois	26.38%
Iowa	26.30%
Rhode Island	26.28%
Ohio	25.09%
Missouri	24.97%
Wisconsin	24.62%
Maine	24.32%
Vermont	24.22%
Connecticut	23.82%
West Virginia	22.81%
Oklahoma	22.57%
Kansas	22.33%
Wyoming	22.15%
Alaska	21.58%
Louisiana	20.79%
North Dakota	20.76%
New York	20.10%

[iceman]

No wonder NV and AZ have become so unrecognizable.

FWIW, turnout in NV and AZ was pretty dismal from 2000-2016. It was only this year that it skyrocketed.

[pbrower2a]

This may be related to the electoral participation of the Millennial generation born almost exclusively in the 1980's and 1990's, which used to be light... and now isn't. A generation that used to see politics as someone else's game may have come to recognize its importance.

Now... is 2020 an anomaly or a new normal?

Nate Silver isn't the only baseball analyst whose statistical theories can be associated with political reality such as voting. He developed the concept of signature significance, suggesting that certain behaviors indicate a change in performance of a player or a team. One player that he used as an example was future Hall of Fame shortstop Alan Trammell, who had been a good-fielding, light-hitting middle-infielder. These players often wear down as hitters from mediocrity as the season progresses, hitting about .250 early in the season and .200 late in the season. Such players typically have short careers. Trammell had established himself as about a .250 hitter with slight power (about 7 home runs a year), but one year he hit .320 with 10 home runs after the All-Star break. Light-hitting middle-infielders just do not do that, so Trammell had become a different sort of hitter, someone who was going to hit over .300 several times and usually above .270 with about 20 home runs a year. He was still a good defensive shortstop, so the Tigers were not going to move him to left field or right field.

Now for a team: suppose that you have a team that has had these seasons:

58-104
56-106
64-98
61-101

That  of course is awful. This is a team that has been nuked, losing its talented players but keeping the ones that it can't trade off who have become mediocre or worse. It is churning other teams' cast-offs and minor-league talent that is short of the sort that a winning team has. It used to be good, but it hasn't been drafting well, and what little talent that it had that was good it traded away for past-prime role-players who helped them in playoff runs part of a lost era... and they are through. So the team ends up with middle infielders who are poor hitters who can't field, pitchers whose fastballs are just slow enough to be hit regularly, a catcher good for 70 games a season instead of 130, a centerfielder who used to catch a lot of fly balls that he doesn't catch anymore... which explains part of why what look like good pitchers have high ERA's.

So you take a really bad team of recent years like the Detroit Cocker Spaniels, and for a two week stretch the team goes 7-3. Does that mean much? Not really. It was 27-40 before that stretch, and those ten games don't make much of a difference.  So a couple of hitters got hot for two weeks, the Cocker Spaniels faced some other bad teams and are about to face the Yankees and Indians again, and when they go back to normal, the Cocker Spaniels will have another 4-6 stretch... who cares? But 9-1? Bad teams don't go 9-1. Most likely, one of the pitchers has gained some control with an odd pitch, one of the players that one got in trading a star who still has value is striking out much less by letting Ball Four pass by him, or the kid that you brought up from Double-A ball because he was hitting .330 with some power has established that he isn't going back to the minors. The Cocker Spaniels are becoming more tiger-like. People like me quit calling them the "Cocker Spaniels".

OK... you probably don't care much about Michigan-area sports unless you are from Michigan or  northwestern Ohio, especially since the MLB, NFL, NHL, and NBA teams stink, and the Schembeckler era is long over at U-of-M.   This said, if you live in Michigan you pay more attention to politics because it can decide whether you get the goodies or you get to refine the art of making the best out of bad reality. The Michigan economy has been about as putrid as the Michigan sports teams are now, so Michigan is not the place to live if you have depressive tendencies. So what does the honors graduate of the University of Michigan grad say to the University of Arizona grad passing through Michigan?

"Do you want fries with your (proprietary name of some 'special' hamburger)?" That's not a disparagement of U-of-M, which is a fine university. That's a disparagement of the Michigan economy.

OK.  The rap on the Millennial generation has been its apathy about politics. Is 2020 a one-time change or a portent of things to come? It is possible to see that voters of 2020 came out to vote against Donald Trump, who offends the sensibilities of America's current young adults. If 2020 is a one-off election, then perhaps the high participation rate reflects mass disdain for a political figure who insults so many sensibilities and offers so little in return. Against the assumption that it is all about Donald Trump is that voter participation in the 2018 midterm election was unusually high, too.

But there's more. The Millennial generation has been slow to achieve high offices in public life. It's not competence; it is that older politicians are extending their careers or even starting careers (Donald Trump) rather late. All that keeps such pols as Ted Kennedy and John McCain from the Senate is terminal cancer that killed them.

The Millennial generation is developing credibility and competence, and it is approaching the age at which their youngest reach the House in large numbers and start appearing as Senators, Governors, and Cabinet officers. Its style may be bland, but that may be just what young voters want -- and what voters in their 40's want as the 2020's want. Even if devoutly religious they stay clear of the Religious Right that offers them nothing (except in the Great Plains states and the rural South). They prefer rational discourse to shock-jock rhetoric that one associates with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, the latter two better at riling emotions than offering solutions. Donald Trump's political rhetoric far better resembles that of Rush Limbaugh than of Abraham Lincoln.

The voting habit, once started, does not end until one is typically too senile to vote. I see major change in voting behavior, but whether such is real or not will show in 2022. Millennial voters may have voted for one of the blandest politicians ever, someone likely to cross into the octogenarian zone where such people as Pelosi, McConnell, Feinstein, and Grassley are now.