Elections Shuffler

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Still addicting.

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Came up with a scenario where the GOP wins but the Dems win the popular vote by double-digits. I forgot to export and import.

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I've developed a bit of a fascination with Idaho recently, after learning of the unusual Superintendent of Public Instruction election in 2018, in which the Republican won by only 17489 votes out of 594465 cast, a margin of 3 points.

This is not an AL-2017-type turnout-difference election. In Ada County (Boise), there were 190502 votes cast in the gubernatorial race, in which the county voted D+1, and 186605 cast in the superintendent race, in which the county voted D+19. This was true and extensive ticket-splitting.

So, based on that 2018 map, I created this. It's a hypothetical D victory map in Idaho, created by adding a bit of #trends to that race. This hypothetical Democrat wins by a 0.2 point margin.




It should be noted that the shift was exceptionally strong in the eastern part of the state (most of those counties had their margins copied verbatim from the 2018 results):



So it's clear that Mormons will be an integral part of any future D coalition in Idaho.

It should also be noted that the Republican candidate got the most raw votes by far out of Canyon (Nampa and Caldwell) and Kootenai (suburban Spokane and resort town of Coeur d'Alene). However, these seem like places likely to trend left strongly during the 2020s.

Looking back, that is an interesting map!

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I love this app

I still use the app often myself.

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This shows why Nevada will be no easy feat for Republicans. Even if they improve more in the rurals and flip Washoe, they pretty much need to bring Clark within 8.5% to have a chance at winning the state, and within 6.5% if Washoe keeps voting Democratic by a few points. And that's assuming that rural turnout stays high and Republicans don't lose ground there.

By improving by 10 points or so in rural counties, the Dems could win Washoe by under a point and win Clark by 9 points and the GOP could still eek out a narrow win.

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Minnesota's looking pretty tough for the GOP. The GOP could improve by five points in Hennepin, Ramsey and all the surrounding counties and still lose the state. The GOP really needs to get the rurals in the state to MI and PA levels in order to have a real fighting shot.

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This shows why Nevada will be no easy feat for Republicans. Even if they improve more in the rurals and flip Washoe, they pretty much need to bring Clark within 8.5% to have a chance at winning the state, and within 6.5% if Washoe keeps voting Democratic by a few points. And that's assuming that rural turnout stays high and Republicans don't lose ground there.

By improving by 10 points or so in rural counties, the Dems could win Washoe by under a point and win Clark by 9 points and the GOP could still eek out a narrow win.

A 10-point improvement throughout the rurals is also a very heavy lift, especially in counties where Republicans are already over 80%. It just shows that the path is very narrow, and many things have to go just right for them.

True but nowhere near impossible. I do suspect Clark County will slowly grow more GOP over time. Trump did improve in the county by a couple points compared to his 2016 margin. 1% in Clark County is equal to about 9,500 votes. If the margin in Clark drops down to exactly six points and nothing else changes, the GOP wins the state by 160 votes.

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Looking at Virginia. Youngkin has two options. He either has to drastically cut some of the GOP losses in NOVA or he must have a monster showing in downstate VA. Do better than Trump by 20+ points in some of the counties down there and win Chesterfield, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake by double digits along with Montgomery and the state bellwether of Radford. No easy task but it's not completely outside the realm of possibility.

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Minnesota's looking pretty tough for the GOP. The GOP could improve by five points in Hennepin, Ramsey and all the surrounding counties and still lose the state. The GOP really needs to get the rurals in the state to WI, MI, PA levels in order to have a real fighting shot.

I agree that rural Pennsylvania is very conservative, and much of rural Michigan is too - but rural Wisconsin isn't that conservative; several counties in the Southwest aren't nearly as Republican as they 'should' be given their demographics and rural character. In fact rural Minneosta (see Western Minnesota for just one example, as well as Colin Peterson's 2020 defeat) is arguably a lot more conservative than rural Wisconsin (excluding, obviously, the counties of Cook - which actually swung leftward from 2012 to 2020 - St. Louis, Carlton and Lake). In fact, of the 20 Mondale counties in Minnesota, just five voted against Trump in 2020 (Hennepin, Ramsey, St. Louis, Carlton and Lake Counties). Northern WI is pretty conservative (but similar to Northeast MN there are a few Democratic redoubts, in Douglas, Bayfield and Ashland Counties), but Southwest Wisconsin has a lot of room for GOP support to expand (although one could argue the same is true for Southern Minnesota).

I changed the bolded to just MI and PA.

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This won't happen in real life but you can get a Democratic win in FL even with losing every Trump 2016 county+Hillsborough and Miami-Dade simply by doubling the 2020 margins in every other Clinton county.