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Wednesday, April 28, 2004

From Red to Blue

Posted by DavidNYC

I just came across some cool maps produced by the WaPo which detail the shift in voting patterns between 1960 to 2000. Though the South's nearly wholesale shift from blue to red is a well-known phenomenon, it's interesting to see the two maps laid out side-by-side.

The map I'm most intrigued by, however, is this one:

Red & Blue America: The Same Size

I've been looking for a map like this for a long time, and I'm glad to have finally found it. When you look at an ordinary map of the 2000 election, red America looks vast and daunting. If I recall correctly, some Bush partisans even tried to shore up questions about the legitimacy of the President's victory by observing that he won a majority of states, even though he won, of course, a minority of votes.

But this map - which indicates each electoral vote with a little square - shows exactly how close in size the red and blue states are. If anything, it understates our total numbers because tiny states (like WY) get 3 EVs no matter how small they are - and most of these vote GOP.

And one last point: After the 2000 election, we heard (and still hear) endless talk about the "50-50" nation. The closeness of all the presidential polls is supposed to be further evidence of this. There's just one problem with this thesis: There's no way in hell this should a 50-50 nation any longer, at least at the presidential level. Given the many advantages of incumbency, a sitting president has every reason to be above 50% - whether in approval ratings, polls, what have you. The fact that things have returned to a 50-50 sort of equilibrium is, I think, a very bad sign for Bush and a very good one for us.

Indeed, though the sample size is small, every president in the 20th century who was elected to their first term and was re-elected to a second term did better the second time around. This was true of Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Ike, FDR and Wilson. Do you have to do better in your second campaign than your first in order to win re-election? No, of course not. But if Bush does even a tiny bit worse this time, he'll lose. And it certainly doesn't look like he's on track to do much better.

(Map link thanks to Lapin.)

Posted at 06:49 PM in General | Technorati

Comments

Let's not forget the Ralph Nader factor. In 2000,
Al Gore would have gone over 50% if Nader hadn't
run. Nader got 2.79% of the vote. It is conservatively estimated that 80-85% of Nader voters would have backed Gore, 5-8% backed Bush
and 7-15% would either sit the election out or vote for one of the minor candidates.

Any percentage you choose(80% up to 85%) would
still mean over 50% for the Democratic contender.

Posted by: Alex Gray at April 29, 2004 11:24 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

The Nader factor is going to be minimal in 2004 in my opinion. Nader is in this to raise issues being ignored by Kerry, not to turn the election. I think if Nader can pull it off (which I doubt because the media won't let him talk about anything else) he can help keep important issues alive that would otherwise be dead. If Kerry is smart he will recognize a strong political issue raised by Nader and borrow it much like he did Dean's stump speech in the primary. I think the impact of Nader will rely most heavily on how Kerry handles it (and as I note in the post above although I opposed a Nader run in 2004 I take issue with villification of Nader).

Posted by: seamus at April 29, 2004 12:00 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Loved the map on How America votes. I would like to see the same map after the 2001 redistribution of house sets (and electoral votes) based on the 2000 cences. I believe the blue states lose 8 votes. Thus, if the same states went the same way. Dems would end up with -8 electoral votes in 2004.

Posted by: Phil Di Bianca at June 2, 2004 07:34 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Here's a more intuitive proportional electoral map:

This site has updated poll data:

DC2/Electoral

Posted by: S at August 17, 2004 12:08 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

One aspect of 9-11 is that NY is a solid Red state this year (very big difference for better or worse).


Stock Picks

Land For Sale

Posted by: joe at September 23, 2004 10:42 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Joe,

You must have been born under a rock. NY is still a solid blue state. The latest Survey USA poll has Kerry up 16 points in NY.

Posted by: DFuller at September 24, 2004 08:29 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

dear sirs:
your statement about the incumbents advantage in the popular vote is seriously flawed, when you have a republican incumbent.
the tremendous advantage in individual votes that the democrats have in NY and CA are what you missed in saying the incumbent should have a majority of individual
votes. this is only true if the incumbent is a democrat!
keep up the good site work, even if you are a democrat. it's always important to "know your foe."

Yours truly,
Bill H.
wdwildbill@yahoo.com

Posted by: bill h. at October 11, 2004 01:45 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

dear sirs:
your statement about the incumbents advantage in the popular vote is seriously flawed, when you have a republican incumbent.
the tremendous advantage in individual votes that the democrats have in NY and CA are what you missed in saying the incumbent should have a majority of individual
votes. this is only true if the incumbent is a democrat!
keep up the good site work, even if you are a democrat. it's always important to "know your foe."

Yours truly,
Bill H.
wdwildbill@yahoo.com


p.s. your "make you wait" feature is agravating when you just forgot to enter your complete emil address, just so you know.

Posted by: bill hicks at October 11, 2004 01:48 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

dear sirs:
your statement about the incumbents advantage in the popular vote is seriously flawed, when you have a republican incumbent.
the tremendous advantage in individual votes that the democrats have in NY and CA are what you missed in saying the incumbent should have a majority of individual
votes. this is only true if the incumbent is a democrat!
keep up the good site work, even if you are a democrat. it's always important to "know your foe."

Yours truly,
Bill H.
wdwildbill@yahoo.com


p.s. your "make you wait" feature is agravating when you just forgot to enter your complete emil address, just so you know.

Posted by: bill hicks at October 11, 2004 01:54 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

dear sirs:
your statement about the incumbents advantage in the popular vote is seriously flawed, when you have a republican incumbent.
the tremendous advantage in individual votes that the democrats have in NY and CA are what you missed in saying the incumbent should have a majority of individual
votes. this is only true if the incumbent is a democrat!
keep up the good site work, even if you are a democrat. it's always important to "know your foe."

Yours truly,
Bill H.
wdwildbill@yahoo.com


p.s. your "make you wait" feature is agravating when you just forgot to enter your complete emil address, just so you know.

Posted by: bill hicks at October 11, 2004 02:29 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment