How can a Presidential candidate win with zero Southern states?

[Samof94]

This hasn’t happened in over a century but it nearly happened in 2000 and 2004. What would it take for this to happen?

[Joe McCarthy Was Right]

A Republican with no working class appeal vs. a Democrat with that would scare NOVA voters.

Nikki Haley vs. Bernie Sanders would be the best bet.

[Tekken_Guy]

At this point it's impossible. No Democrat can win without Virginia at this point in time, and most Southern states are core parts of the GOP's winning coalition at this point.

[Del Tachi]

This hasn't been a realistic outcome since the 2000s.  Gore or Kerry could have won without any of the former Confederate States, but they both needed MD/DE (which are included in the broadest-allowable definitions of the South.)

Major parties being locked-out of entire regions of the country is very rare.  Besides the landslides of the 1970s and 1980s, it only happened to the GOP in the Northeast from 1992-2012 (excepting NH in 2000.)

[Roll Roons]

This hasn't been a realistic outcome since the 2000s.  Gore or Kerry could have won without any of the former Confederate States, but they both needed MD/DE (which are included in the broadest-allowable definitions of the South.)

Major parties being locked-out of entire regions of the country is very rare.  Besides the landslides of the 1970s and 1980s, it only happened to the GOP in the Northeast from 1992-2012 (excepting NH in 2000.)

It pretty much happened in 1976. Carter won Hawaii, but didn't win any continental Western states. In the South, Ford only won Virginia and Oklahoma. Even then, all three states were fairly close.

[MarkD]

Like this:


(BTW, in modern times, Maryland is a northeastern state, not a southern state. What it was 150 year ago during the Civil War and Reconstruction doesn't matter.)

[DS0816]

This hasn’t happened in over a century but it nearly happened in 2000 and 2004. What would it take for this to happen?

It last happened in 1924 with a full term for Calvin Coolidge having carried zero of the eleven states of the Old Confederacy.

In 1928, a third consecutive cycle won by the Republicans, Herbert Hoover flipped five Old Confederacy states and, from there, and from time to time, bellwether status has applied to at least one state. His pickups: Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Florida maintained bellwether status through 2016 and, with that election cycle, realigned to the Republicans. (It voted for all presidential winners, except 1960 and 1992, from 1928 to 2016.)

Now, the best bellwether state in the Old Confederacy is North Carolina. Although 2012 and 2020 winning Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden did not carry the state, it was next in line. (Obama carried 26 states. His No. 27 was North Carolina. Biden carried 25 states. His No. 26 was North Carolina.) Over the last two cycles, North Carolina was the Republicans’s No. 25 and the Democrats’s No. 26 best state. It will likely join Pennsylvania and Michigan—which are also Top 10 populous states—and Wisconsin to regularly vote for presidential winners. This includes Election 2024.

Nowadays, no one will win the presidency carrying zero of the Old Confederacy states. And no one will win the presidency carrying zero of the Rust Belt states. (No one ever has.) These two separate areas of states combine for nine of the Top 10 populous states. Historically, the fewest amount of Top 10 populous states carried by any presidential winners is four. It is, given this fact, highly unlikely anyone could win a map with zero of the Rust Belt or zero of the Old Confederacy states—even if one tried—because there are too many dynamics involved. (One such example already demonstrated: Rust Belt Ohio and Old Confederacy Florida have voted the same, with exceptions in 1944 and 1992, since 1928—for 22 of the last 24 cycles.)

[Sir Mohamed]

[Del Tachi]

In demographic terms, this would mean the GOP improving with Black voters enough to push VA/GA into solidly Lean R territory while the Democrats win back some non-college educated White support in the Upper Midwest.

[RINO Tom]

Not sure it can happen without any of the Census South, but it's not outlandish at all for a Democrat to at least theoretically win without the Former Confederacy - yes, even Virginia.  Is it likely?  No, it is extremely unlikely.  But states aren't math problems that only move in relation to each other based on CuRrEnT tReNdS.  The overwhelming odds say that any Democrat getting to 270 already has Virginia in the bag, but it's at least somewhat conceivable that some really unique circumstances or an odd matchup could give us this map or something:

[Schiff for Senate]

Like this:


(BTW, in modern times, Maryland is a northeastern state, not a southern state. What it was 150 year ago during the Civil War and Reconstruction doesn't matter.)

The term "Mid-Atlantic" exists for a reason. I wouldn't go nearly so far as to characterize MD as "northeastern" (DE, probably, but MD is too far south for that), but yes, it's definitely not southern, either.

Imo the South is all of the former Confederacy, excluding TX (huge swaths of it are much more western than southern) and FL (geographically it's Deep South ofc, but the same historical vs contemporary argument you made is very well applied to FL - today, it's got a ton of Midwestern/Northeastern transplants, a lot of Hispanics in the Southeast, etc.; really only the north of it - Little Dixie - can be characterized as southern).

[Schiff for Senate]

Not sure it can happen without any of the Census South, but it's not outlandish at all for a Democrat to at least theoretically win without the Former Confederacy - yes, even Virginia.  Is it likely?  No, it is extremely unlikely.  But states aren't math problems that only move in relation to each other based on CuRrEnT tReNdS.  The overwhelming odds say that any Democrat getting to 270 already has Virginia in the bag, but it's at least somewhat conceivable that some really unique circumstances or an odd matchup could give us this map or something:

I can imagine a theory that on paper at least isn't too outlandish. If Youngkin somehow maintained popularity in VA and managed to stay relevant through 2028 (here, the one-term limit is really quite a hindrance), and then managed to win the GOP nomination, this map wouldn't be a shock by any means.

Although GA certainly complicates matters, as it appears it's only going to trend further left between now and 2028, which would make a GOP victory there quite an upset.

[Vosem]

Kerry came really close to this but most earlier or later possibilities are spoiled by Virginia having had a really different political trajectory from the rest of the South since the outset of the Cold War. Nowadays Texas and Florida also seem to have political trajectories kind of divergent from 'the South' as a whole.

[One Term Floridian]

Like this:


(BTW, in modern times, Maryland is a northeastern state, not a southern state. What it was 150 year ago during the Civil War and Reconstruction doesn't matter.)

Swap OH with VA and then I'll agree that's a Buttigieg victory map - he would be tailor made for NOVA  voters and not the WWC in the Mahoning Valley

[TDAS04]

This hasn't been a realistic outcome since the 2000s.  Gore or Kerry could have won without any of the former Confederate States, but they both needed MD/DE (which are included in the broadest-allowable definitions of the South.)

Major parties being locked-out of entire regions of the country is very rare.  Besides the landslides of the 1970s and 1980s, it only happened to the GOP in the Northeast from 1992-2012 (excepting NH in 2000.)

Bush did win without a single Northeastern state in 2004, but that’s the most recent time a presidential candidate won an election while losing an entire region of states, and I pretty much agree with you that it’s not likely to occur again for a while. Maybe Trump could plausibly win the Electoral College without Pennsylvania; If he’s losing PA, presumably he’s losing every Northeastern state. But of course people would claim that it doesn’t count, because of the ME-2 EV.

[Del Tachi]

This hasn't been a realistic outcome since the 2000s.  Gore or Kerry could have won without any of the former Confederate States, but they both needed MD/DE (which are included in the broadest-allowable definitions of the South.)

Major parties being locked-out of entire regions of the country is very rare.  Besides the landslides of the 1970s and 1980s, it only happened to the GOP in the Northeast from 1992-2012 (excepting NH in 2000.)

Bush did win without a single Northeastern state in 2004, but that’s the most recent time a presidential candidate won an election while losing an entire region of states, and I pretty much agree with you that it’s not likely to occur again for a while. Maybe Trump could plausibly win the Electoral College without Pennsylvania; If he’s losing PA, presumably he’s losing every Northeastern state. But of course people would claim that it doesn’t count, because of the ME-2 EV.

Raising ME-2 makes a good point - this is all made up.  Even when the GOP was locked out of the Northeast for 20 years, they won 10s of millions of voters there.  This is true for both parties in every region of the country going back for ~80 years now.   The Solid South hasn't been a thing since the '40s.