Does anyone know offhand how many other states east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River where Donald improved on his 2016 margins?
I don’t think Trump improved his margin in Ohio. Per Wikipedia at least.
2016 Trump +8.13%
2020 Trump +8.03%
An almost statistically insignificant Dem improvement.
Thanks, you’re johnny-on-the-spot again.
One of the few states where Trump did significantly improve his margins was Florida – another alleged “swing state” with a Senate election in 2022 that’s not on anyone’s map of potential Democratic pickups.
It’s only an insignificant improvement if Ohio is taken in isolation. Democrats were treading water even though they did better in 2020 than 2016, so Ohio went from ~R+10 to ~R+12 relative to the nation.
During the 2012 campaign, people were saying Ohio was the new Missouri (which had left behind its old swing state reputation to zoom to the right), and they were a lot more correct than they realized.
Ohio and Missouri swinging so far right are bad losses for the Dems; there are almost 19 million people in those states. Dems will need to hold the precarious Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia and win over a difficult North Carolina to keep control in the long run (not speaking just of the upcoming Senate races here). And, of course, continue to chase the Holy Grail of Texas (that’s 2028, at the earliest).
Arizona cancels out Missouri, and Georgia cancels out Ohio (almost). Those are two states where the shift is demographic/cultural (like it is in MO and OH). Ones where the large cities and close-in suburbs are growing at the expense of the rural and exurban community.
Missouri is the opposite. The cities are shrinking and the exurban/rural areas are growing (and are becoming way more culturally conservative). St Louis and Kansas City (and Columbia to some extent) just can’t outvote the more rural parts of the state absent a complete disaster of a candidate for the GOP.
Arizona is a really good recent “get” but another precarious hold for the Blues. I agree with Dave Wasserman that Georgia will solidify for us in the immediate years ahead and I think that North Carolina almost has to follow suit (Charlotte and the Triangle).
I forgot earlier to mention Nevada as a “precarious” hold as well but the trends – and population growth – are going in the right direction.
One concern with holding Arizona and Nevada – and making progress in Texas – will be what happens with Hispanic men. 2020 saw some very concerning movement among Hispanic voters, and particularly Hispanic men, in Florida and South Texas toward Trump and the Republicans. Maybe that’s just a blip and was driven by regionally-specific issues (Cuba, fracking policy). But Democrats who hang their hat on the “demography is destiny” peg better be very careful that they don’t take for granted that certain demographics will maintain their loyalty to the party. [Just to be clear I’m NOT implying this is your position.]
That’s a very pertinent observation. It appears that Trump gains among Hispanic men (still didn’t reach W levels, however) were driven by fairly recent negative experiences with so-called “socialism” experiments in Central and South America. I believe that the more those voters are assimilated into the mainstream, become educated and aware of how larger safety nets succeed in western Europe, the less likely that Republican views on “intrusive” government will be attractive to them.
Admittedly, I don’t really have a thing to base this opinion on besides observation and my eternal optimism.
Lies, damn lies and statistics? Per Wiki, Trump had 51.69% of the vote against Hillary in Ohio; he had 53.27% of the vote against Biden there.
@Red_Wiggler asked about states where Trump improved his margin, not his proportion of the total vote.
Trump’s margin of victory went down (slightly) while his proportion of the total vote went up. Over 5% of the Ohio vote did not go to either major party candidate in 2016. That was under 2% in 2020.
Thanks, Lance. I had written, “Trump did better in 2020 in Ohio than he did in 2016, in both votes cast and percentage of the vote.” I was correct.
Concur.
I don’t think I said that you were incorrect. I responded to @Red_Wiggler, who asked, “Does anyone know offhand how many other states east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River where Donald improved on his 2016 margins?”
Bolding mine.
Understood, and thanks again.
Now he tells us…:
Even if Tillis was aware of his diagnosis before the election and had disclosed it, I doubt it would have impacted the election beyond maybe getting him a few sympathy votes. Prostate cancer, caught early, is readily treatable. And I don’t think Cunningham would have benefited from more attention being paid to the status of the candidates’ genitals. 
Updated PredictIt derived 2022 senate thermometer. Not much different from a month ago.
Key races from most to least likely D…
NV 75.8%
AZ 70.1%
PA 68.1%
NH 62.2%
GA 55.7%
WI 45.1%
NC 31.6%
FL 9.6%
OH 8.6%
Well, if all of the Predictit favorites win, Dems pick up a seat. I’ll take that. But I don’t understand why Wisconsin is under 50% and NC, which was a narrow win for Trump last year, is only at 31%. Mediocre Dem candidates?
Ohio the least likely to go blue? Ouch… but they’re probably right.