# Electoral map oddities **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 1, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607 "2012-11-01T20:13:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/1 "2012-11-01T20:13:00Z")
I can never remember which is Vermont, and which is New Hampshire. But Vermont is rock-solid Democratic, and New Hampshire is a swing state. Why are they so different? And New Mexico is also solid blue Democrat; sandwiched between dead red Arizona and Texas. What is about New Mexico that sets it apart from its neighbors? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/2 "2012-11-01T20:17:37Z")
Obviously it’s the word “New”. The formula goes like this- if a state has “New” in its name, it has to go against the grain, politically, from its neighbors. Unless it’s New York. NY is the exception that proves the rule. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/3 "2012-11-01T20:20:20Z")
Vermont’s the one that’s kind of shaped like a V. And it’s full of hippies. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/4 "2012-11-01T20:22:04Z")
New Hampshire is right-side up. Vermont is upside down. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/5 "2012-11-01T20:24:24Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Obviously it’s the word “New”. The formula goes like this- if a state has “New” in its name, it has to go against the grain, politically, from its neighbors. Unless it’s New York. NY is the exception that proves the rule. What about New Jersey? ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/6 "2012-11-01T20:29:35Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Vermont’s the one that’s kind of shaped like a V. And it’s full of hippies. That’s a handy way to remember it. (The “V,” not the hippies). I just always remembered that I had been to a beach in NH. Damn, the water was cold. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/7 "2012-11-01T20:33:12Z")
The default, or Zen, state is to be blue. So your question essentially boils down to “why are Texas and Arizona red?” Texas, because they’re insecure and overcompensate, Arizona, because the median age is 92.4. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/8 "2012-11-01T20:34:31Z")
For some reason, I always remember that originally the colonies of New Hampshire and New York quarrelled over the land in between, which later became Vermont. So Vermont is the one in between the other two. Not much of a mnemonic I guess. But that’s how I used to remember it. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/9 "2012-11-01T20:36:23Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > What about New Jersey? New Jersey doesn’t exist. It’s just a figment of everyone’s imagination, including those from New Jersey. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/10 "2012-11-01T20:39:58Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > I can never remember which is Vermont, and which is New Hampshire. But Vermont is rock-solid Democratic, and New Hampshire is a swing state. Why are they so different? Both States were hardcore GOP until recently. IIRC, Vermonts streak of voting for Republican candidates is the longest single party voting streak in US history. During the Clinton Administration, VT turned blue and never really looked back. I’d tend to attribute this more to the national GOP chasing the Southern, religious conservative vote, leaving the more secular, socially liberal VT behind rather then any internal change in VT itself. NH has a reputation of remaining conservative, but I’d say they’ve simply been going through a slower version of the same process. In the last five elections, they’ve only gone Republican once. 2010 elected a bunch of Republicans to State and Federal offices, but before that those seats had been trending Dem as well. So short answer: the GOP abandoned New England Conservatives to chase the more numerous votes of Southern Conservatives, and as a result VT, NH and Maine have been drifting blue at varying rates. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/11 "2012-11-01T20:49:00Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > During the Clinton Administration, VT turned blue and never really looked back. I’d tend to attribute this more to the national GOP chasing the Southern, religious conservative vote, leaving the more secular, socially liberal VT behind rather then any internal change in VT itself. And an influx of New Yorkers. > [@](#): > > NH has a reputation of remaining conservative, but I’d say they’ve simply been going through a slower version of the same process. In the last five elections, they’ve only gone Republican once. 2010 elected a bunch of Republicans to State and Federal offices, but before that those seats had been trending Dem as well. When I was in school in Boston, NH was scary conservative. But now much of the populous south is more like a suburb of Boston. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/12 "2012-11-01T20:49:20Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > That’s a handy way to remember it. (The “V,” not the hippies). I just always remembered that I had been to a beach in NH. Damn, the water was cold. I used to get them confused, too, until I moved to Boston. If it helps the OP, remember that New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any state. So it must be the eastern of the two. Used to get Mississippi and Alabama mixed up. Mississippi must border the Mississippi River, obviously, and the river runs through New Orleans, so Mississippi must be the one that borders Louisiana. ---
**Author:** ![regginbrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@regginbrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/regginbrow)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/13 "2012-11-01T22:32:51Z")
Another vote for Vermont being the one shaped like a ‘V’. I would never remember which was which if they were both full rectangles. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/14 "2012-11-01T22:50:47Z")
New Hampshire might be feeling some effects from the [Free State Project](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project) with two caveats: 1. I doubt FSP is actually big enough to have much effect on NH politics 2. There’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg quandary here: the FSP selected NH in part because of it’s reputation for small-government, individualist leanings that separated it from it’s neighbors even then. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/15 "2012-11-02T14:11:06Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > I can never remember which is Vermont, and which is New Hampshire. But Vermont is rock-solid Democratic, and New Hampshire is a swing state. Why are they so different? > > And New Mexico is also solid blue Democrat; sandwiched between dead red Arizona and Texas. What is about New Mexico that sets it apart from its neighbors? Despite electing idiots such as John McCain, Jan Brewer, and Sheriff Dumbfuck, Arizona is quickly losing its red status and definitely turning purple. Same with Texas. Changing demographics result in changing political ideology. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/16 "2012-11-02T14:48:12Z")
I think the OP may be based on a false premise, i.e. that political inclinations of states are uniformly distributed. In reality, most states contain pockets of Red and pockets of Blue, and if one state happens to contain more of one than the other, that impacts the overall composition of the state. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/17 "2012-11-02T15:10:53Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I think the OP may be based on a false premise, i.e. that political inclinations of states are uniformly distributed. > > In reality, most states contain pockets of Red and pockets of Blue, and if one state happens to contain more of one than the other, that impacts the overall composition of the state. Well, then, let me phrase the OP differently: why would New Mexico contain more pockets of blue than Arizona, when they are so similar geographically and demographically? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/18 "2012-11-02T15:42:18Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > I can never remember which is Vermont, and which is New Hampshire. But Vermont is rock-solid Democratic, and New Hampshire is a swing state. Why are they so different? Micah Cohen weighed in on the subject… > [@](#): > > _We continue our Presidential Geography series, a one-by-one examination of each state’s political landscape and how it’s changing. Here is a look at Vermont, the Green Mountain State. FiveThirtyEight spoke with Bertram Johnson, an associate professor of political science at Middlebury College, and Garrison Nelson, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont._ > > Vermont’s political landscape began to change in the 1960s and 1970s. City dwellers from nearby states like Massachusetts and New York began fleeing struggling metropolises like Boston and New York City. Heading north, these migrants had a choice of where to settle, and some [self-sorting](http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php) took place. > > More conservatives tended to choose [New Hampshire](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/presidential-geography-new-hampshire/), attracted to its low taxes and “Live Free or Die” ethos. Vermont, where cows [outnumbered](http://www.nationaljournal.com/almanac/2010/area/vt/) people before 1963, tended to attract young, left-leaning and outdoors-loving professionals, both Mr. Nelson and Mr. Johnson said. > > The overall effect on both states was to make them more politically competitive. In Vermont, the state’s first Democratic governor in over 100 years, [Philip H. Hoff](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_H._Hoff), who served from 1963-69, helped his party to maker further gains, Mr. Nelson said. (Vermont would take a little longer to elect Democrats in presidential races). > > In 1970, as the migration into Vermont got going, the state passed a law, [Act 250](http://www.vermonthistory.org/explorer/images/stories/articles/greenmountaineer/protectingvermontsair.pdf) (PDF), to limit development. That, in turn, attracted more environmental-minded migrants. > > Vermont’s population had been stagnant for decades, but with the influx of “new Vermonters” the state began to grow. When the migration began, Vermont’s population was below [400,000](http://www.censusscope.org/us/s50/chart_popl.html), small enough so that an influx of people could really affect the state’s politics. More than [625,000 people](http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/50000.html) live in Vermont today, and residents born elsewhere are part of the state’s fabric. Vermont’s current governor, Peter Shumlin, is the [first native governor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Governors_of_Vermont) in almost 40 years. > > The newcomers “changed the state,” Mr. Nelson said. > > [FiveThirtyEight Blog](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/new-vermont-is-liberal-but-old-vermont-is-still-there/#more-35296) He also deals with New Hampshire in a [different Blog post](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/presidential-geography-new-hampshire/): > [@](#): > > New Hampshire has gradually become more competitive because of a political imbalance in the voters who are being added to the rolls and those who are leaving them. New voters — both people who have moved into the state and younger people who have reached voting age — are more Democratic than the residents who are leaving the state or dying. > > A third of the potential electorate in 2008 couldn’t vote in the state in 2000, either because they didn’t live in the state or because they weren’t old enough,” Mr. Smith said. [The changes](http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/IB-NHVoter08.pdf) have dramatically changed New Hampshire’s political landscape from among the most Republican states in the Northeast to one where Mr. Obama was able to win every county in 2008. This might explain some of the differences. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/19 "2012-11-02T15:54:54Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Well, then, let me phrase the OP differently: why would New Mexico contain more pockets of blue than Arizona, when they are so similar geographically and demographically? Are they that similar? AZ is full of white transplants from the rest of the country, including CA. In addition to retirees, who tend to be the wealthier ones with the resources to retire in style, the younger migrants come for cheaper real estate, lower taxes, less regulation, and more open spaces. Natural Pubbies. NM is substantially Latino, both new migrants and centuries old communities, and Native American, with nowhere near as many Anglo transplants. ---
**Author:** ![enomaj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607/20 "2012-11-02T15:56:20Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > What about New Jersey? It’s what Delaware(s). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-map-oddities/639607.md?page=2)