What swing state or light blue state has the best long term trends for the GOP?

[Cyrusman]

We are not counting Ohio, Iowa, or Florida as a swing state

[Progressive Pessimist]

Nevada?

[Suburbia]

Nevada, New Hampshire

[Roll Roons]

Maybe Wisconsin? Even then, this cycle showed that the prospect of it going the way of Iowa and Ohio is far from a sure thing.

[Crackerjack McJohnson]

Wisconsin and Michigan.  Hardworkin' men of the wood who love these new kinds of Republicans.  Democrats will have to make up for it by acquiring Montana, Utah, etc.

[S019]

Wisconsin

[OSR stands with Israel]

Maybe Wisconsin? Even then, this cycle showed that the prospect of it going the way of Iowa and Ohio is far from a sure thing.

Keep in mind even for Ohio , it took a while for it to move out of tossup. Kasich barely won in 2010, Obama/Brown won in 2012 and then 2014 was the election when Ohio went hard R and became a Republican State.

[Cyrusman]

Wisconsin and Michigan.  Hardworkin' men of the wood who love these new kinds of Republicans.  Democrats will have to make up for it by acquiring Montana, Utah, etc.

I’m not too sure about MI. Republicans seem to be struggling there after their surprise 2016. These white working class people aren’t voting the way they do in Ohio or even rural PA. Even John James who is arguably the strongest canidate on the MI GOP bench lost two strait senate elections against pretty mediocre Dem incumbents. 

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Wisconsin and Michigan.  Hardworkin' men of the wood who love these new kinds of Republicans.  Democrats will have to make up for it by acquiring Montana, Utah, etc.

I’m not too sure about MI. Republicans seem to be struggling there after their surprise 2016. These white working class people aren’t voting the way they do in Ohio or even rural PA. Even John James who is arguably the strongest canidate on the MI GOP bench lost two strait senate elections against pretty mediocre Dem incumbents. 

And they are more secular and do not like being moralized to about being "baby killers" and "groomers"

[David Hume]

WI and it's not even close. Rural WI voted way to the right of rural MI and MN. Milwaukee is not a mega city like ATL and is declining. Madison is booming but still very small in comparison. 

[DS0816]

• New Hampshire
• Minnesota

[Ferguson97]

Wisconsin and Nevada, that's about it from what I can see.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

• New Hampshire
• Minnesota

LOL @New Hampshire. New Mexico is more likely to flip

[MT Treasurer]

• New Hampshire
• Minnesota

LOL @New Hampshire. New Mexico is more likely to flip

Personally, I think NH is still an unpredictable swing state. I mean, Bush won it in 2000. Sure, he only won it by a point on a night when he won Fairfax County VA by an identical margin and only lost VT by a single-digit margin, but he did win it. Mitt Romney, Scott Brown, Donald Trump, Kelly Ayotte, and Don Bolduc only lost there because they were all bad fits for the state. A good fit will carry the state, just wait and see.

[Vosem]

• New Hampshire
• Minnesota

LOL @New Hampshire. New Mexico is more likely to flip

New Hampshire elected an ultra-conservative trifecta in 2020 and reelected it in 2022. The federal Democrats there are on a pretty long winning streak (the last time the GOP won any kind of federal race there was 2010, though they came very close in 2014/2016), but it's really tough to write off a state that has such popular and right-wing governance for the GOP.

(Also, the weird exception of 1996 when the whole Northeast trended massively left aside, New Hampshire always trends in the direction of the party with an open primary race. The likelihood of it playing less of a role in future Democratic nomination contests, and more of a role in Republican ones, is probably a decent omen for the GOP).

NH/US/NH-lean:
2000: R+1/D+0/R+1
2004: D+1/R+3/D+4
2008: D+9/D+7/D+2
2012: D+5/D+4/D+1
2016: D+0/D+2/R+2
2020: D+8/D+4/D+4

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

NH trended R 3 Presidential elections in a row, 2008, 2012, and 2016. I would not count that state out yet for Republicans. Biden seems to have had a special appeal to NorthEasterners.

[Cyrusman]

• New Hampshire
• Minnesota

LOL @New Hampshire. New Mexico is more likely to flip

Personally, I think NH is still an unpredictable swing state. I mean, Bush won it in 2000. Sure, he only won it by a point on a night when he won Fairfax County VA by an identical margin and only lost VT by a single-digit margin, but he did win it. Mitt Romney, Scott Brown, Donald Trump, Kelly Ayotte, and Don Bolduc only lost there because they were all bad fits for the state. A good fit will carry the state, just wait and see.

How was Mitt Romney a bad fit for NH? To me he is tailor made for that state. Fiscally conservative, socially moderate, and articulate.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

• New Hampshire
• Minnesota

LOL @New Hampshire. New Mexico is more likely to flip

New Hampshire elected an ultra-conservative trifecta in 2020 and reelected it in 2022. The federal Democrats there are on a pretty long winning streak (the last time the GOP won any kind of federal race there was 2010, though they came very close in 2014/2016), but it's really tough to write off a state that has such popular and right-wing governance for the GOP.

(Also, the weird exception of 1996 when the whole Northeast trended massively left aside, New Hampshire always trends in the direction of the party with an open primary race. The likelihood of it playing less of a role in future Democratic nomination contests, and more of a role in Republican ones, is probably a decent omen for the GOP).

NH/US/NH-lean:
2000: R+1/D+0/R+1
2004: D+1/R+3/D+4
2008: D+9/D+7/D+2
2012: D+5/D+4/D+1
2016: D+0/D+2/R+2
2020: D+8/D+4/D+4

Because state politics are different. If NH President is competitive, democrats have already lost

[Fancyarcher]

• New Hampshire
• Minnesota

LOL @New Hampshire. New Mexico is more likely to flip

New Hampshire elected an ultra-conservative trifecta in 2020 and reelected it in 2022. The federal Democrats there are on a pretty long winning streak (the last time the GOP won any kind of federal race there was 2010, though they came very close in 2014/2016), but it's really tough to write off a state that has such popular and right-wing governance for the GOP.

Actually the only reason the GOP really hung on in 2022 in the New Hampshire House / and especially the Senate was because of some nasty gerrymandering.

They actually lost the house vote in 2022, and nearly lost the house itself, despite it being a "neutral year".

[DS0816]

• New Hampshire
• Minnesota

LOL @New Hampshire. New Mexico is more likely to flip

Since 1992, the average number of carried states by presidential-election winners has been 29. Winning Republicans have averaged 30 carried states. Winning Democrats have averaged 28 carried states.

Let’s compare New Mexico and New Hampshire starting with Barack Obama’s 2008 Democratic pickup of the presidency which included, as an applicable pickup state, New Mexico.

I will list both states for where they slotted.


2008
• Winning Party: Democratic (pickup), with 28 carried states
• New Mexico (pickup state): No. 16 (Democrats); No. 35 (Republicans)
• New Hampshire: No. 21 (Democrats); No. 30 (Republicans)

2012
• Winning Party: Democratic, with 26 carried states
• New Mexico: No. 15 (Democrats); No. 36 (Republicans)
• New Hampshire: No. 21 (Democrats); No. 30 (Republicans)

2016
• Winning Party: Republican (pickup), with 30 carried states
• New Mexico: No. 14 (Democrats); No. 37 (Republicans)
• New Hampshire: No. 20 (Democrats); No. 31 (Republicans)

2020
• Winning Party: Democratic (pickup), with 25 carried states
• New Mexico: No. 15 (Democrats; No. 36 (Republicans)
• New Hampshire: No. 18 (Democrats); No. 33 (Republicans)

[Vosem]

• New Hampshire
• Minnesota

LOL @New Hampshire. New Mexico is more likely to flip

New Hampshire elected an ultra-conservative trifecta in 2020 and reelected it in 2022. The federal Democrats there are on a pretty long winning streak (the last time the GOP won any kind of federal race there was 2010, though they came very close in 2014/2016), but it's really tough to write off a state that has such popular and right-wing governance for the GOP.

(Also, the weird exception of 1996 when the whole Northeast trended massively left aside, New Hampshire always trends in the direction of the party with an open primary race. The likelihood of it playing less of a role in future Democratic nomination contests, and more of a role in Republican ones, is probably a decent omen for the GOP).

NH/US/NH-lean:
2000: R+1/D+0/R+1
2004: D+1/R+3/D+4
2008: D+9/D+7/D+2
2012: D+5/D+4/D+1
2016: D+0/D+2/R+2
2020: D+8/D+4/D+4

Because state politics are different. If NH President is competitive, democrats have already lost

I'm really not sure this is true; in all of 2008/2012/2016 NH was really similar (less than a point leftwards) compared to the national decisive state. What distinguishes New Hampshire from every other state mentioned in this thread is that it has a popular Republican trifecta; it's one of two Biden states where that's true, and the other is Georgia, whose long-term trends seem obviously dire for the GOP. (A different way to put it is that NH trending Republican would be a really positive sign for the GOP, because it suggests that they can win over blue voters when they are exposed to Republican policies). NH doesn't have a huge in-migration of liberal voters (if anything, there are reasons to think in-migration tilts red, or that it has in the pretty recent past), so it's not like the Republican coalition that exists there is going to be undercut by demographic trends.

NH has generally had a pretty competent state Democratic Party in the 21st century, while the GOP has expended lots of energy fighting off extremists and occasionally failed, as with the nominations of Ovide Lamontagne in 2012 and Don Bolduc in 2022. (Sununu is fascinating for how strong his coattails are in state elections while being simultaneously insanely weak in federal elections. This includes primaries, BTW.)

I agree with the other posters that Nevada and Wisconsin are the more reasonable answers, though. Nevada has had a really long streak of election results suggesting that it's trending Republican, at least relative to similar states, and Wisconsin sort of should 'should' be trending Republican based on its demographics, more than any other swing state.

[Mr. Smith]

NH trended R 3 Presidential elections in a row, 2008, 2012, and 2016. I would not count that state out yet for Republicans. Biden seems to have had a special appeal to NorthEasterners.

Or Trump did in 2016 that he lost because of the Bible thumping.

[CookieDamage]

Minnesota is not a good target for the GOP. It's suburbs are trending D, and is the poster-child for the change of coalitions (GOP suburbs-DEM working class rurals => DEM suburbs-GOP working class rurals). Minneapolis Saint Paul is home to 60% of the population and is growing faster than the rest of the state and is only getting bluer. The exurbs and rurals aren't declining as bad as say WV, PA, or MI, but it still stands that the bluest part of the state is growing the fastest, giving the GOP a very hard path to winning anytime soon.

To answer the question, I think the clear answer would be Wisconsin, followed by Nevada.