The GOP Faces the Blue Wall
By David S. Broder
WashPost
Sunday, February 8, 2009
It was not all that long ago that political reporters were writing about "the Republican lock" on the White House. From 1972 to 1988, from Richard Nixon's reelection through George H.W. Bush's victory over Michael Dukakis, 24 states supported the GOP nominee each time.
By the end of the run, those states could deliver 219 electoral votes, leaving only 51 others to make up a majority.
But now the Republican electoral lock has been replaced and surpassed by "the blue wall." That's the term Ronald Brownstein, the political director of Atlantic Media Co., applies to the Democrats' advantage.
In an important article in National Journal last month, Brownstein notes that 18 states and the District of Columbia have voted Democratic at least five times in a row, supporting Democrats from Bill Clinton through Barack Obama. Those states -- concentrated in the Northeast and the upper Midwest and on the Pacific Coast -- provide 248 electoral votes, 29 more than the old Republican lock and more than 90 percent of the electoral college majority.
(More here.)
WashPost
Sunday, February 8, 2009
It was not all that long ago that political reporters were writing about "the Republican lock" on the White House. From 1972 to 1988, from Richard Nixon's reelection through George H.W. Bush's victory over Michael Dukakis, 24 states supported the GOP nominee each time.
By the end of the run, those states could deliver 219 electoral votes, leaving only 51 others to make up a majority.
But now the Republican electoral lock has been replaced and surpassed by "the blue wall." That's the term Ronald Brownstein, the political director of Atlantic Media Co., applies to the Democrats' advantage.
In an important article in National Journal last month, Brownstein notes that 18 states and the District of Columbia have voted Democratic at least five times in a row, supporting Democrats from Bill Clinton through Barack Obama. Those states -- concentrated in the Northeast and the upper Midwest and on the Pacific Coast -- provide 248 electoral votes, 29 more than the old Republican lock and more than 90 percent of the electoral college majority.
(More here.)
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