Several posters have commented that they heard on CNN that the Democrats have a 19 state advantage in the electoral college based on voting patterns over the past 20 years (last 6 elections). I heard it as well, and was curious, so I thought I’d go through the maps to make the list of consistently blue states and consistently red states over the past 20 years. Here they are, courtesy of electoral-vote.com and the various wiki pages on the presidential elections:
Bedrock Blue States
California 55
New York 29
Illinois 20
Pennsylvania 20
Michigan 16
New Jersey 14
Washington 12
Massachusetts 11
Maryland 10
Minnesota 10
Wisconsin 10
Connecticut 7
Oregon 7
Hawaii 4
Maine 4
Rhode Island 4
Delaware 3
Vermont 3
DC 3
Total Blue Electoral Votes: 242 Bedrock Red States
Texas 38
Alabama 9
South Carolina 9
Oklahoma 7
Kansas 6
Mississippi 6
Utah 6
Idaho 4
Alaska 3
North Dakota 3
South Dakota 3
Wyoming 3
Total Red Electoral Votes: 97
Now obviously, that leaves a lot of electoral votes open to either party: 199 in the states that have gone to either party in the past 20 years. And, Bush II did it twice.
Nonetheless, that is a significant deficit that the Republicans face at the beginning of each electoral planning; their bedrock support is less than half that of the Democrats.
Another thing that struck me was the advantage the Democrats have in the large states: Their bedrock states have an average of 12.7 electoral votes, while the Republican bedrock states have an average of 8.0 electoral votes.
Overall, the math means that the Democrats can focus on fewer states to get to to 270, which I assume is significant in terms of the amount of money and organizational efforts they need to spend to win the necessary number of states to get them to 270.
The more urbanized the area the more likely it is to vote Democratic, and the higher the margins for the Democratic candidate. Large cities in the northeast are already 80-90% Democratic. Some numbers can be found in the thread Why Is DC So Overwhelmingly Democrat-Leaning.
The Democrats are solidly in the lead in the majority of the most populous states. If Florida stays Democratic and Texas swings they will be assured an electoral college win barring exceptional circumstances. Swing exist will cease to exist. We’ve been talking about it in the Romney campaign: We lost Florida.
Some Republican leaders are already talking about changing the party image. It’s hard to see how that’s going to work. The Southern Strategy worked to brand the party as the racist legacy of the 1960s in the eyes of both blacks and whites. This year the Republicans won both houses of every legislature in the old South, almost entirely by relying on their appeal to the white vote. Only libertarian fantasists believe that the two sides can be combined through small government and tax cuts.
A new generation of Republican leaders will have to wrest the party away from the current leaders who are too identified with current policies. How long that will take is impossible to say, but it won’t be quick.
Well if you are willing to go back another 8 years the list of Bedrock Democratic states would be ONE state: Minnesota.
Don’t count them out yet, we did that in 2008 and we got assraped in 2010.
SEVERAL of those “BEDROCK” Democratic states have elected REpublican governors and state legislatures. I mean just off the top of my head, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconisn all have Republican state governments and New Jerssey has a Republican governor.
The Democrats face a huge challenge is Republicans stop being crazy.
As I pointed out in another thread where this statistic was quoted, in large part it is the result of 6 elections with a poor Republican candidate running, starting with President Bush I in 1992 (hammered into being unpopular by a bad economy), continuing through Bob Dole, including President Bush II (who squeaked in in 2000 and barely survived in 2004), and then finishing up with McCain and Romney. A truly charismatic leader like Reagan would presumably be able to flip some of the “bedrock” states in the statistic.
However, there is one bit of merit to the statistic and the argument derived from it: Democrats don’t need to run charismatic candidates to do well in the Electoral vote. Al Gore almost managed a win because of this “bedrock”.
Sure, you go back far enough, and voting patterns will be different - they always are, because changes in a country will be mirrored in the election outcomes.
However, I think using a 20 year cut-off makes sense, because that is a generation in terms of new voters. Anyone who voted in the 1984 election now is at least 46 years old; anyone younger than 46 did not have the opportunity to vote for Reagan and for them, the 1984 results are ancient history.
Another way to look at that 20 year cycle is that in only one presidential election in those 20 years have the Republicans won a majority of the popular vote (2004).
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
As I pointed out in another thread where this statistic was quoted, in large part it is the result of 6 elections with a poor Republican candidate running, starting with President Bush I in 1992 (hammered into being unpopular by a bad economy), continuing through Bob Dole, including President Bush II (who squeaked in in 2000 and barely survived in 2004), and then finishing up with McCain and Romney. A truly charismatic leader like Reagan would presumably be able to flip some of the “bedrock” states in the statistic.
[/QUOTE]
But that leads to the next question: why have the Republicans not been able to find a good candidate in 20 years and 6 elections? (and, I’m not so sure that Bush II was a bad candidate, in the 2000 election; 2004 was an odd election, given 9/11 and the fear of changing horses mid-stream).
Is it that the candidates don’t have the charisma to make the sale, or is it that the electorate ain’t buying what they’re selling, so they’re not popular?
Moreso than reality, democracy has a liberal bias. The idea that the masses have the power to select their leaders and that every individual has an equal say in it is inherently “progressive”. Unfortunately, “All men are created equal” is not part of the Republican/Tea Party manifesto these days, and the farther they distance themselves from it, the less they appeal to the masses who benefit from it.
