Can Obama change U.S. political map?
By: John Fortier
The Politico
April 10, 2008
Barack Obama threatens to drive political cartographers crazy. By attracting young people and African-Americans, he believes he can turn red states blue and upend our relatively stable political map. Obama may well win the November election on a wave of Democratic turnout and enthusiasm, but he will likely find that states don’t change their political stripes very easily.
The 2000 and 2004 elections were remarkably similar. Forty-seven states voted for the same party in both elections. Only New Hampshire, which switched from Republican in 2000 to Democrat in 2004, and Iowa and New Mexico, which moved in the other direction, changed sides.
But in a larger sense, the political map has not only been stable in the past two elections, it has also been relatively immune to sudden shifts over the past 60 years. There have been blowout Republican wins such as those in 1984 and 1972, when almost all states voted for the GOP, and in 1964, when the vast majority of states voted for Democrats.
In a recent study of presidential elections since 1944, my colleague Tim Ryan and I found that states’ partisan leanings tend to move with the national popular vote rather than change wildly based on the candidates. Imagine a state that leans 10 percentage points toward a Republican when the national popular vote is 50-50. If a Democrat wins the national vote by 15 points, he or she will likely win that state by 5 points. If a Republican wins the national vote by 10 points, he or she will win the state by 20 points.
(Continued here.)
The Politico
April 10, 2008
Barack Obama threatens to drive political cartographers crazy. By attracting young people and African-Americans, he believes he can turn red states blue and upend our relatively stable political map. Obama may well win the November election on a wave of Democratic turnout and enthusiasm, but he will likely find that states don’t change their political stripes very easily.
The 2000 and 2004 elections were remarkably similar. Forty-seven states voted for the same party in both elections. Only New Hampshire, which switched from Republican in 2000 to Democrat in 2004, and Iowa and New Mexico, which moved in the other direction, changed sides.
But in a larger sense, the political map has not only been stable in the past two elections, it has also been relatively immune to sudden shifts over the past 60 years. There have been blowout Republican wins such as those in 1984 and 1972, when almost all states voted for the GOP, and in 1964, when the vast majority of states voted for Democrats.
In a recent study of presidential elections since 1944, my colleague Tim Ryan and I found that states’ partisan leanings tend to move with the national popular vote rather than change wildly based on the candidates. Imagine a state that leans 10 percentage points toward a Republican when the national popular vote is 50-50. If a Democrat wins the national vote by 15 points, he or she will likely win that state by 5 points. If a Republican wins the national vote by 10 points, he or she will win the state by 20 points.
(Continued here.)
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