What year did it become impossible for a POTUS candidate to get a 50-state sweep?

[Plankton5165]

In 1984, Reagan won 49 states out of 50. He almost won Walter Mondale's home state Minnesota, which Mondale carried by just 18 pips (0.18% of the vote).

In 1988, Bush did worse than Reagan, but still better than anyone since then. (426 to 111)

Clinton did worse, but got 370 in 1992, and 379 in 1996. He also won a lot of states by bigger margins than in 1992.

2000, though, was extremely close, and that is, in a way, probably an understatement. Bush won 271 to 266, and Gore won the popular vote.

2004, though, was also close, 286 to 251, and I'm not even sure if Kerry was as worthy as almost winning as like Nixon in 1960 or Ford in 1976.

2008, Obama beat McCain 365 to 173. Slightly smaller than both of Clinton's wins, but you people claim that this was Obama's "ceiling".

So I ask this, what year did it become impossible for a presidential candidate to get a 50-state sweep? I only included options from 1988 to 2004.

[Orser67]

The 2000 election and Bush's first term feels like a major turning point in terms of polarization. I could see one of the earlier elections as the answer, but 2004 feels like the absolute latest possible year (bearing in mind that Bush had a 90% approval rating in October 2001).

[darklordoftech]

I guess sometime in between 1984 and 1988.

[MABA 2020]

2000, the polarisation really began with the Iraq War.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Perhaps 1988, likely 1992 and certainly 1996.

I don't think Democrats could ever have won western states like Utah post-Reagan given that even Clinton 1996 won less than 1/3rd of the vote in UT, so we can ignore Dem candidates.

If Reagan couldn't do it in 1984 I'm doubtful any candidate after him could, but I suppose there's maybe a tiny chance Bush 1988 could have won all fifty states if Democrats had somehow nominated an even worse candidate than Dukakis, given he still polled relatively well in New England, winning 45% of the vote in Dukakis' home state of Massachusetts. But MA tells the story I think. Republican strength there and in New England broadly cratered in the 90s thanks to the Southern Evangelicalisation of the national GOP. Admittedly Perot scrambles the two party vote so it's not quite simple, but in MA the Republican vote went from the aforementioned 45% in 1988 to 29% in 1992 and 28% in 1996. It's clear IMO that by 1996 at least, and probably four years earlier, that the GOP was no longer competitive in most of New England at the Presidential level.

[Electric Circus]

Impossible is a high bar. Electoral landslides often occur under circumstances that no one could have predicted even a few years in advance. We shouldn't assume that the ossified electoral map over the past twenty years is a permanent feature of our politics.

I voted for 2004 in this poll, under the assumption that a reaction to a disaster like 9/11 could have produced at least a near-sweep for a Republican incumbent if the timing were right relative to the next presidential election (just to name the most imaginable scenario).

[Vosem]

We haven't had a candidate win every state since, uh, *checks notes*, 1820, so this is a very high bar. The last time this seemed remotely possible was a Republican landslide in either 1984 or 1988; particularly the second time around Jesse Jackson was a credible candidate and it's pretty easy to imagine him cratering much harder than the likes of Mondale or Dukakis. (1984 is the year that came closest to this post-1820, so really the simplest way this might have gone is a slightly more lackluster Mondale campaign, or just a slightly better economy overall.)

But, while the ossified electoral map is not a permanent feature of our politics, the unusual multi-state competitiveness of the 1960s through 1980s, combined with the unusually high mid-1980s levels of political consensus, were themselves a strange period, and we should not assume a 50-state landslide is possible even if huge landslides become possible again. The largest-ever popular vote margin, 1920, came nowhere close to winning every state, after all.

[Pericles]

The cultural divide within the US widened a lot in the mid to late 1990s. Clinton's 1996 victory might actually have been a turning point by how weak it was compared to Reagan and Nixon's re-elections.

[Fuzzy Bear]

1988 was the year that the Democrats developed something of a "base" in WA, OR, NY, MA, and RI.