State vote relative to the national average in each year

[Nym90]

2004

2000

1996

1992

1988

1984

1980

1976

1972

1968

As usual, more to come.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Sorry - I haven't had much sleep can you stretch out the expl'n a little.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Danke... My brain is on meltdown, lol

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Danke... My brain is on meltdown, lol

Well you are an Aussie (I've got a prisonship-load of Australian relatives, so I can say that )

[Nym90]

1964

1960

1956

1952

1948

1944

1940

1936

1932

1928

[nclib]

Longest streak of being above the national average for one party:

Democratic

PA since 1952
MN since 1956
MA, NY, RI since 1960

Republican

IN, KS, WY since at least 1928
NE since 1936
ID, ND since 1940

[Nym90]

1924

1920

1916

1912

1908

1904

1900

1896

1892

[nclib]

Longest streak of being above the national average for one party:

Republican

IN, KS, WY since at least 1928
NE since 1936
ID, ND since 1940

KS since 1920
IN, WY since 1928
NE since 1936
ID, ND since 1940

[Mr. Morden]

I'm still amazed by the extent to which the political map back in the early part of the 20th century was a complete reversal of what it is now.  The 1916 map was basically the mirror image of the 2000/2004 map.

The thing that interests me most is the regional trends.  At present, you have this situation where every single Northeastern state is at least somewhat to the left of the national average, while every single Southern state is at least somewhat to the right of the national average.  While the Midwest and West are more divided, though even there you have subregions voting as a block (like the West Coast vs. the Rocky Mountain West).

These maps show that there have certainly been times in the last century when there was less regional cohesion and things were more scrambled.  However, the South has tended to vote as a block more often than any other region.  Also interestingly, there have been many times in the past where, while the South was voting one way and the Northeast the other, Maryland would go with the South and West Virginia would go with the Northeast.  But that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.  Oh, and the Midwest seems to be the most divided region, with Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin never going all in the same direction at once, EXCEPT during the 1940s, when they were all more Republican than the nation as a whole.

[Nym90]

Added 1892. I'll do the others eventually, but it's a bit more time consuming due to not having an Electoral College Calculator available for those years.

[Mr. Morden]

Are you sure you got North Dakota in 1892 right?  According to the Atlas, Cleveland got 0 votes there....although the electors ended up getting split three ways.

[Nym90]

Are you sure you got North Dakota in 1892 right?  According to the Atlas, Cleveland got 0 votes there....although the electors ended up getting split three ways.

Good point, thanks. I fixed it.

The Electoral College Calculator really is wrong for that year, then. It defaults to North Dakota for Cleveland (granted, there is no provision for split electoral votes in the Calculator, but still, Weaver won the popular vote in ND).

I just took what the calculator defaulted to and then changed the states that went for the winning candidate by less than their national margin and put those states with the second place candidate within that state (hence why LaFollette and Roosevelt gained states in 1924 and 1912). Basically it's a scenario in which the candidate who won the national popular vote loses the same percentage in every state to the second place candidate in that state as the margin of their national victory. Inelegant in some cases, I realize, but the best idea I could come up with for how to do it.