When will the next POTUS candidate win the Presidency without winning a single ex-Confederate state?

[WalterWhite]

The ex-Confederate states are South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

The last time a POTUS candidate won the Presidency without winning any of these states was Calvin Coolidge's victory in 1924. Since then, every single winning POTUS candidate has won at least one ex-Confederate state. However, there are two instances in modern history where this was almost not the case:

- 2000: If Al Gore had won New Hampshire, they could have won the Presidency without winning a single ex-Confederate state.
- 2004: If John Kerry had won Ohio, they could have won the Presidency without winning a single ex-Confederate state.

Will another POTUS candidate win the Presidency without winning a single ex-Confederate state? Or will the ongoing Democratic trends in Virginia and solid Republican lock on Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, and a few other Southern states prevent this scenario?

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Well with the trends in VA and now in GA it's impossible as a Democrat that loses VA and GA isn't going to win the presidency.

Perhaps in the future, a progressive/populist win (perhaps Hispanic candidate) could but I consider it a bit unlikely.

[Хahar 🤔]

- 2000: If Al Gore had won New Hampshire, they could have won the Presidency without winning a single ex-Confederate state.
- 2004: If John Kerry had won Ohio, they could have won the Presidency without winning a single ex-Confederate state.

He.

[Vosem]

Seems very unlikely with Virginia adopting a very different political course from the rest of the ex-Confederacy, and Georgia seeming reasonably likely to do so soon. (While Florida and Texas still vote Republican, they also have very different demographic breakdowns from the rest of these states). I think we're far enough away from the Civil War that ex-Confederacy just isn't a very useful descriptor anymore, though it is interesting that 2000/2004 came pretty close to this outcome (and 1976 wasn't that far off, either; had either of the Eisenhower/Stevenson elections been close -- like 1952 polling actually showed -- they would've fit this pattern).

There were three presidential winners before the Civil War who carried no states which would become Confederate ones -- 1796, 1824, and 1860 -- and seven after the Civil War -- 1880, 1888, 1896, 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1924. But we haven't actually had an election like this in nearly a century.

[OSR stands with Israel]

2012 was the last time it was conceivably possible

[Zedonathin2020]

Given Trends in Georgia, Virginia, eventually North Carolina and Texas, either not for a long time or ever again

[pbrower2a]

Virginia used to be a reliably-Democratic state (except for 1928) before Eisenhower won it in 1952. Then it went D in only one Presidential election (the LBJ blowout against supposed-extremist Barry Goldwater in 1964) until Obama won it decisively in 2008. Virginia seems to be going stadily more D -- so much that it voted for the Dempocrat who lost the Presidential election, and that Biden won it by 10%. 

This was not the result of a steady shift. Virginia was the only former-Confederate state to vote against Carter in 1976 (if by a narrow 1.3% margin), and it went by about 4% against Bill Clinton in 1992 and against Clinton by roughly 2% in 1996... in elections in which Bill Clinton won with 370 and 379 electoral votes, respectively.  Gore lost it by 8% in the most even election ever, as did Kerry in 2004.

Virginia is the oddity stte of the South. No nominee for President has come from Virginia since at least  1916 (Wilson was born in Virginia), so that's not a part of it. Climate? Nope. Virginia has much the same climate of southeastern Pennsylvania. Summers in Philadelphia are as hot as those in Atlanta.

Maybe Virginia isn't a real "Southern" state anymore. Besides, I see similarities of temperament and conduct in Ike and Obama; both are Realpolitik politicians in a state that has much connection to national defense.

[MABA 2020]

Decades