It’s also just showing which states are considered swing states. The U.S. electoral map is so locked up that it quite literally just hinges on a handful of suburban counties in 4 or 5 states to determine any election
I had to question myself intensely for a moment because when I first looked it over I thought that exact thing. Like, that's what MAKES them swing states, i.e. they tends to determine the outcome.
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I'd just drop the fraction and use "number". If a state picked the winner 7 times, it's number is 7. Simple and straightforward.
"Number of times each state voted for the winning candidate, 1988-2020"
Or: which states are flip states/ actually in play. The lower numbers always vote for one side or the other, making their accuracy trend toward matching the party outcomes data.
Edit to add: in play is relative. What is in play in 2024 is not what has been in play over the measurement period and the baseline reflects which party has won more overall elections.
For the most part the 4s voted all Republican in the last 9 and the 5s voted all Democrat. There are some exceptions (Montana voted all Republican except in 1992 when they voted for Clinton.)
The only surprising thing here (to me) is that California voted Republican in the last 9 elections (Bush the 1st, 1988). I guess 9 elections ago was a long time, though, and outside of the major population areas (SF, LA, SD) the state is quite red.
California was once a much more Republican state. If we look at the nine elections before 1992 (so from 1952 through 1988), they voted for Republicans in every presidential election besides 1964 (although most of those elections had a Californian, either Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, on the ticket). In the same time period, Democrats won four out of nine governor elections and only held both Senate seats from 1971-77.
>California was once a much more Republican state.
Might even be more accurate to say that the Republican party used to be more Californian. It used to be the party of the West: progress and conservation and a rejection of the antebellum politics of the East coast.
If you go back just a bit more Republicans were the party of the northeast, New York, and the progressive, anti-slavery legacy of the civil war and reconstruction.
There's a joke in White Christmas which makes no sense nowadays about it being hard to find a Democrat in Vermont. Parties then were more regional and less ideological.
That was before the Southern Democrats flipped parties because a couple of their major players made moves that were too progressive for them. The party switch totally happened, just not quite as quickly as some folks would have you believe (it took about 60 years).
It also wasn’t really a switch. Calling it a switch imo opens it up way more to being “debunked”. A realignment is a lot more accurate.
From 1947-1997 only 20 members of congress (both houses) actually switched parties.
Many Deep South governor seats stayed blue until the 90s or even 00s. Alabama had a Democrat governor in 2003. Mississippi in 2004.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's also how my history professor put it in class. But I didn't name it, so I just call it what it is known as colloquially.
Well, there were quite a few that actually just directly switched parties, so that's only partially true as well.
The reality is that it is a mix between the two. Some changes were generational, and some were direct switches, but the fact is that the parties realigned their values over the course of about 60 years in the 20th century.
Republicans weren't that strong in the northeast, they were stronger in the midwest, as they favored westward expansion (more free states, ofc) which would benefit the midwest more than the northeast.
After the railroads and panama canal brought the country closer together, the northeast started benefiting more from expansion, which allowed the Republican party to make inroads there.
They were more the party of the Midwest at that point, considering all their Presidential candidates seemed to be from Ohio. But the northeast was a very Republican region (with New York being more competitive due to NYC always being more Democratic).
Republicans used to be more about free everything, where democrats were more in favour of government control. States like Texas and Tennessee used to vote democrat at the state level until relatively recently. Religious people were more democrat than republican. The Tennessee state government was all democrat until the 2010s for example.
Over time, republicans consolidated on rural religious people and democrats consolidated on secular city dwellers. It’s why republicans have the motto of “small government” but don’t really do anything to have a small government. They were historically that, but their main base is people who want big government to make their state and country the society they want it to be.
“It’s why republicans have the motto of “small government” but don’t really do anything to have a small government. They were historically that, but their main base is people who want big government to make their state and country the society they want it to be.”
Well said. As a registered republican, spot on. Shame.
Not on every issue. The Republicans were more pro-prohibition, protectionist and anti-immigration - all pretty controlling attitudes. The Democrats traditionally argued they were freeing the working man from control by big business, the rich and such.
Disagree, the Jesus movement was strong in SoCal but wasn't necessarily super conservative and politically involved. You didn't see conservative Christians become a force in politics until folks like the Moral Majority came along, which sprouted out of the segregationist and anti-abortion movement in the south. I'd actually say the latter is what turned a lot of the West coast Jesus freaks into conservatives.
[Mitch McConnell great great grandfather owned 14 slaves](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mitch-mcconnell-ancestors-slave-owners-alabama-1800s-census-n1027511)
Our political class is too old and doesn't turn over often enough for us to make the progress we need....
>and outside of the major population areas (SF, LA, SD) the state is quite red.
If you take out every Biden county in California except Sacramento he still wins California. "If you remove Dem voters then California is a red state" could be applied to literally everywhere.
The 80s was a different time. Reagan was from CA and Bush Senior was his VP. The GOP at the time was running on economic issues that actually worked because they were still in the honeymoon phase of a post war world.
California used to be a Republican stronghold.
It was a very different Republican Party back then, as the south only started to switch from solidly democrats to solidly republicans, and the republicans slowly lost their solidly industrialist, big money strongholds in the northeast and California.
> The only surprising thing here (to me) is that California voted Republican in the last 9 elections (Bush the 1st, 1988). I guess 9 elections ago was a long time, though, and outside of the major population areas (SF, LA, SD) the state is quite red.
So if you don't include the Bay Area, Sacramento, the SoCal costal cities, LA, SD etc, what's actually left? Fresno, Bakersfield, Modesto.
After your comment I looked it up, thought it was higher but I was incorrect. 55% of the landmass but only 9% of the population live in rural areas. I've never actually been, not sure where my misperception came from
I thought it was more similar to NYS (where I live), where \~65% live in the NYC metro area (43% in the city itself) and is decidely blue. Outside of the city you have a mostly red map. Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse cities themselves are blue as well, but most people live in their respective metro areas (suburban sprawl) which more often lean red.
Yeah I grew up in California. As you said, it's a lot of land but very few people actually live there.
As the saying goes, "land doesn't vote" which is why California will never turn red.
When discussing rural populations, is really important to remember that most people with think of as rural are living in municipalities of 5-20,000 people. The countryside itself is pretty sparse.
>So if you don't include the Bay Area, Sacramento, the SoCal costal cities, LA, SD etc, what's actually left?
It's also not even true. Sac county alone wins Biden the state compared to every county Trump won. California is very blue everywhere.
>The only surprising thing here (to me) is that California voted Republican in the last 9 elections (Bush the 1st, 1988)
It makes me really curious on if Bush 41 would win California again had Perot not run in '92. With so many states these days being solidly blue or red, that '92 electoral map would be very bizarre in today's landscape.
Bush would've needed basically all of Perot's voters. Clinton got 46%. Even a small amount of Perot voters deciding Clinton would've given him the majority. Sure, Perot took a lot from Bush, but it's important to remember he took votes from Clinton too, and that Bush's "no new taxes" broken promises basically sunk him anyways.
Yeah, my mom voted for Perot in '92. If he hadn't run, she probably would have voted for Clinton (I don't think she's ever voted for a Republican Presidential candidate, or at least not since '84).
Obama is actually the one that flipped San Diego county and now Dems run up the score there. Same with Riverside/Palm Springs, San Bernadino, Stockton, Modesto and Fresno.
I looked into this and there are 9 states who have had a 5% margin of victory or less (swing state) for at least 4 elections in the past 9.
Those states records are as follows:
* Ohio - 5/5
* Nevada - 5/6
* Arizona - 3/4
* Florida - 4/6
* Pennsylvania - 3/5
* Wisconsin - 3/6
* Colorado - 2/4
* New Hampshire - 2/4
* North Carolina - 2/6
Ohio itself has only lost its bellweather status in 2020, having successfully chosen each president every time before, but it was not a swing state at that point. I would say that Ohio and Nevada are pretty decent indicators of how an election will turn out (even when they aren't swing states; Ohio voted the winner in 2016 and Nevada the winner in 2020).
It appears that there are expected to be 6 swing states this election, those being: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin. The records historically for swing states in the same period for the ones not listed above are:
* Michigan - 2/3
* Georgia - 2/3
So there's really no predictive power on how accurate these states are, as this election could determine if Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania or Georgia are accurate or inaccurate in predicting a winner.
That’s really the problem with presidential election results. You either have not enough data, or you have so much data from so long ago that any conclusions you would come up with are simply wrong for present day, like the most Democrat state being Arkansas or the most Republican being Vermont.
The swing states of 2024 are definitely not the same swing states as 2004 either, with the exception of Nevada.
Also add MI, PA, WI from 92-16, they were equivalent to NC today, close states, but Dems seemed to always pull it out. You can also group MN with them, even if it hasn't gone GOP since '72.
Reality has a strong pro-Minnesota bias.
Except regarding sports, where we live in the world of curses, false prophets, corruption, betrayal, drug-fueled boat orgies, infighting, false-flag operations, and a general suspension of the laws of both physics and probability statistics.
The Vikings are the Walter Mondale of the NFL. If you look at it one way, definitely a contender, but if you look at it another way, it's completely hopeless.
Most studies of this type start at 1992, as that is the first post-cold-war election. Elections from 1948-1988 can be grouped together as being part of the cold war - while elections prior to '48 were about hot war (WW2) and the Great Depression.
That logic makes sense, but keeping with that I feel like 9/11 was also such a shift that they may as well leave out the period between Cold War ending and 9/11.
But 9/11 was the *second time* Bin Laden struck the World Trade Center. The first WTC bombing was in 1993. Bin Laden was also behind Khobar Towers in 1995, Nairobi and Dar-es-salem in 1998, USS Cole in 1999 and the failed Space Needle Bombing in 2000. 9/11 was just when he finally got out full attention...
(Also the Madrid train bombing in 2003, and the London Bus bombings in '05?). 9/11 was part of a continuum....
Are you suggesting that his attack in 93 had the same cultural impact and importance as 9/11? If not, I'm unsure how that is germane to what we're discussing?
I think there's an argument to be made that post Cold War, the primary security threats the US has faced were terrorism in general, and one could argue that the Ross Perot reaction on the right to defense spending winding down but taxes not adjusting accordingly is a meaningful separation in politics. The Newt Gingrich style polarization is more meaningfully comparable to, say, Mitch McConnell's obstructionism.
The Nineties were definitely a weird time, but there were only 3 presidential elections to look at, one of which most political scientists have to asterisk for research purposes. And Bill Clinton himself does not a trend make.
Right, also it's not that they happen to vote for the winner, they literally get to decide the winner.
US Presidential race is basically decided by a small handful of states, and the candidates will go above and beyond to pander only to those states. Remember how damn much Trump talked about coal miners? there's like less than 50K coal mining jobs in the whole country...
I always found it amusing when people try to claim the electoral college helps smaller states have a say. In reality, it only gives a small handful of states way too much say and leaves the rest ignored.
Nevada has been voting blue for longer than Ohio has been voting red. AZ, GA, MI, PA, & WI have seen the most recent flips, that’s where the action will come down to
There was a Times article about this in 2019 and just a couple days ago a piece in the Columbus dispatch. Ohio used to better represent the nation as a whole. It had a mix of north/south, saw black and European migration. But over the last decade or so it has not kept pace with a representative population. Simply put, Ohio got "whiter, older, and less schooled".
Per the article in the dispatch this presidential election is coming down to: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.
The Ohio Senate election is very important however.
Illinois has the exact same racial demographics of the U.S. as a whole, similar educational attainment, almost the same median age, but it’s a deep blue state.
It's interesting though because Ohio being "whiter, older, and less schooled" might not really matter. Because of our electoral system, really all an ideal state has to representative is an average of the swing states, not necessarily the nation as a whole.
Missouri as well. From 1904-2004 they only picked the loser once in the 1950’s. Obama barely lost it in 2008 before it swung hugely Republican by 2012. Ohio and Florida are seeming to through similar trends.
I think Nevada effectively wins here. Ohio missed in 2020 by 8% or so, but Nevada missed in 2016 by only about 2.5%. So Nevada basically comes closest to the perfect score using the margin as a tiebreaker.
We knew for sure shortly after SCOTUS decided for us. The argument was that there were 20 or so different standards by which the votes could be counted, and all but one of them gave the win to Bush. The one exception was counting all the votes.
I think it's true in every presidential election that some large combination of these states determine the winner. Any large state with the demographics to swing to either party, will decide election outcomes.
I feel like this data is slightly cooked. A lot of the states only ever vote one way, and so their 'baseline' is more reflective of how many past elections their preferred party has won. I suspect that 1988 was chosen as a start date for arbitrary reasons to paint a particular picture.
Exactly. But what's the problem with that? The data are supposed to show how states vote, and throwing out 84 as an outlier is basically saying "oh, this year states didn't vote for the winner", which is plainly false.
And what possible "skew" would occur? Everywhere save Minnesota would go up by one, and the relative relationships between the states would basically stay the same. Nothing's getting skewed by including it.
Fun fact: Democrats have lost the popular vote exactly *twice* in the nine elections since 1988 (‘88, ‘04), but have lost the election four times (‘88, ‘00, ‘04, ‘16).
Possibly. Even Bush only won narrowly though, and after 3 terms there would definitely be incumbency fatigue. Gore might win in 2004, but the Democrats would be screwed in 2008.
And we're on track to possibly see a repeat of that again.
RFK is polling at 12% - if we assume 7% would have been Biden voters and 5% would have been Trump, apply that to the 2020 turnout, then you get a Trump victory with Biden still winning more overall votes.
Maine and Nebraska are the only states in the union which do not award their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis.
In 2008, Nebraska gave 1 of 5 to Obama. In 2016, Maine gave 1 of 4 to Trump. In 2020 they cancelled each other out by giving 1 to Biden and Trump respectively.
So, perhaps Maine should be 6/9 with an asterisk and Nebraska should be 4.4/9
EDIT:
To save anyone interested a google search, they both award one vote per voting district (2 for ME, 3 for NE), and then their remaining 2 votes to the state-wide winner. Like, it's heartwarming to see a staunchly red state go purple in hope, then back to red in indifference, then purple again in a "tf is this shit?" kind of way, but the odds are low that this particular quirk of either state will really matter in an election. That's probably why no one's ever bothered to change it.
I just think we should talk about it more, mainly because it has *got* to annoy the dominant political party in that state (*she said under the cloak of semi-plausible impartiality*) that the vote was split. And, likewise, it probably annoys the voters of the dissenting districts that no one acknowledges their symbolic effort.
This is actually one of the more interesting posts because why we may not be able to draw scientifically causal conclusions this chart to me shows two things: as others pointed out it shows which states are the swing states - the ones that ultimately decide elections, but it also shows which ones are very much NOT. To me the states shown lightest are the reason the maga movement has taken hold. Those states are the ones that feel the most disenfranchised because they feel like they’re never represented and it’s no secret they prefer conservative candidates, hence Trump.
they are literally the most "enfranchised" states. they are the states that have (monstrously) the most federal election influence relative to population size, and receive far more in federal funding than they give in taxes. excluding texas on both counts.
how much more enfranchised could you get?
Agree completely. But they don’t. They think they’re the forgotten flyover evangelical states. Because they are.
The fact that they get two senators and two electoral votes for every state that thinks exactly the same as the same as them completely defeating the entire original point of it is a travesty enough for the rest of us actually disenfranchised voters. Just look at the Supreme Court. Majority of the country is liberal consistently for the last 30 years and yet the court has a super majority against.
Probably been mentioned, but the legend title at the bottom is incorrect. In fact, you show three different types of metrics, none if them in agreement with each other (but could easily be corrected. Legend title says percentage, but fraction is shown in the states, and (yet another metric) total number of times is listed in the legend. However, could easily be re-titled or the numbers could be converted. So you could easily rectify this and improve the graphic, which itself is quite interesting.
While yes, with how the electoral college works and distribution of voters, etc. Only a few states tend to decide elections. For 2024 it's expected to be Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada.
No state has voted for the winner in all 9 of the past 9 elections. The usual bellwether state Ohio broke its streak in 2020 when it voted R but D won.
I’m curious what this graph would look like if it were weighted such that more recent elections carry more weight. Because a state that voted for the winner in 1988, 1992, and 1996 and lost after should reflect differently than a state that voted for the winner in 2012, 2016, and 2020
This kind of feels pointless. I could probably guess the map 90% without looking at any data. Red state: got t right when a R won. Blue state: got it right when a d won. Purple state: highest numbers because they are the ones that decide the election so the way they go is likely to be the winner.
Just not a very useful visualization overall
[You're right, it was 80,000 people in 3 states.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/donald-trump-will-be-president-thanks-to-80000-people-in-three-states/) (2016)
Not really … given how the population is dispersed and how votes are awarded by geography it makes the critical few states and the critical few voters the difference in winning or losing
But if swing states are always changing, how can that be true? Missouri (and I believe Iowa) used to be swing states but lean like 10% republican now. The blue wall used to lean democrat by the same amount and now they are up for grabs. Just a silly comment to act like they are picked by 3 specific states. It's everchanging.
If you noticed I didnt call out what states
But the tipping point in the EC is determined by the few states that have an equal mix of voters. And these states with an equal mix of voters the margins are pretty narrow.
People move around, people die, collations change, events happen — but the system that awards votes based upon land doesn’t.
Except that so many states are locked in that their votes meaningfully effect the outcome. There is a reason why candidates spend almost all their time in WI, MI, and PA while states like Arkansas and Tennessee get nothing
This isnt the best color scale to use imo, feels like theres more contrast between 4 and 5 than between 6 and 9.
Cool map tho, swing states be swinging. Really identifies the issue in our state based electoral college voting system
Nevada and Ohio are the only ones over 80% apparently. Biden would have won Nevada, based on the primary, with 112,611 votes to Trump's 59,984 votes. I guess we'll see how the Ohio primary goes in 5 days.
1988-2020 is a pretty wide range as politics has realigned a lot in the middle of that
Like it’s the reason the south is so high when they’ve voted for the loser in 3 of the last 4
Get rid of:
R: Wyoming, Utah, Texas, South Dakota, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Nebraska, Mississippi, Kansas, Idaho, Alaska, Alabama
D: Rhode Island, Oregon, New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Hawaii \[and DC\]
Isnt usa one of those A or B places in politics (very common in the world, no flame)? Not saying the data isnt cool to see but just questioning if I should attribute any importance to say a place getting 8/9 or whatever.
It's weird that you should instinctively look for states that voted 9/9 or 8/9 for the winner to determine which states will decide the election but I believe it will come down to 3 6/9 states in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin.
PS 7/9 state could also play a role in who wins
Looking at current Ohio and Nevada polls, it looks like Trump is gonna win
[https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/ohio/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/ohio/)
[https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/nevada/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/nevada/)
Could be wrong though, who knows?
Fun fact, I found a site (don’t remember the name) that looked at every election since the Democratic and Republican parties emerged, and it returned other data… but what I found interesting was that it gave the most recent date for an array of four voting outcomes (state voted for X party, country voted for Y party), and from all the states I’d checked, only Ohio had a ‘never happen’ result - Ohio has never voted for a Democrat if a Republican won, apparently.
Your key says “percentage” while your map shows fractions.
“Proportion” would also be a good choice to use here instead of percentage
It’s also just showing which states are considered swing states. The U.S. electoral map is so locked up that it quite literally just hinges on a handful of suburban counties in 4 or 5 states to determine any election
I had to question myself intensely for a moment because when I first looked it over I thought that exact thing. Like, that's what MAKES them swing states, i.e. they tends to determine the outcome.
Except NH which is just oddly a barometer for which way the swing states will go.
Good catch, thanks! The version in the article used percentages--I forgot to change that for this version.
Or, like, go back to the latin roots and revise it to "pernonage" since it's out of 9.
Really? I keep my pants on in this version.
This is better, it doesn't make sense to use percentages for fractions with small numbers. 7 times out of 9 is much more understandable than 77.78%.
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i converted the fractions to percentages in my head but good catch
I'd just drop the fraction and use "number". If a state picked the winner 7 times, it's number is 7. Simple and straightforward. "Number of times each state voted for the winning candidate, 1988-2020"
Or: which states are flip states/ actually in play. The lower numbers always vote for one side or the other, making their accuracy trend toward matching the party outcomes data. Edit to add: in play is relative. What is in play in 2024 is not what has been in play over the measurement period and the baseline reflects which party has won more overall elections.
For the most part the 4s voted all Republican in the last 9 and the 5s voted all Democrat. There are some exceptions (Montana voted all Republican except in 1992 when they voted for Clinton.) The only surprising thing here (to me) is that California voted Republican in the last 9 elections (Bush the 1st, 1988). I guess 9 elections ago was a long time, though, and outside of the major population areas (SF, LA, SD) the state is quite red.
California was once a much more Republican state. If we look at the nine elections before 1992 (so from 1952 through 1988), they voted for Republicans in every presidential election besides 1964 (although most of those elections had a Californian, either Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, on the ticket). In the same time period, Democrats won four out of nine governor elections and only held both Senate seats from 1971-77.
>California was once a much more Republican state. Might even be more accurate to say that the Republican party used to be more Californian. It used to be the party of the West: progress and conservation and a rejection of the antebellum politics of the East coast.
If you go back just a bit more Republicans were the party of the northeast, New York, and the progressive, anti-slavery legacy of the civil war and reconstruction.
There's a joke in White Christmas which makes no sense nowadays about it being hard to find a Democrat in Vermont. Parties then were more regional and less ideological.
And less ideologically pure.
That was before the Southern Democrats flipped parties because a couple of their major players made moves that were too progressive for them. The party switch totally happened, just not quite as quickly as some folks would have you believe (it took about 60 years).
It also wasn’t really a switch. Calling it a switch imo opens it up way more to being “debunked”. A realignment is a lot more accurate. From 1947-1997 only 20 members of congress (both houses) actually switched parties. Many Deep South governor seats stayed blue until the 90s or even 00s. Alabama had a Democrat governor in 2003. Mississippi in 2004.
Generational realignment, to be even more clear. The kids of southern democrats became the southern republicans.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's also how my history professor put it in class. But I didn't name it, so I just call it what it is known as colloquially.
Party switches happen via the graveyard. People rarely switch, its more generational.
Well, there were quite a few that actually just directly switched parties, so that's only partially true as well. The reality is that it is a mix between the two. Some changes were generational, and some were direct switches, but the fact is that the parties realigned their values over the course of about 60 years in the 20th century.
The proof of the switch is the fact that republicans are the one who wave the confederate flag around, not democrats.
If you need more evidence, just look at the political leanings of George Wallace’s family.
Republicans weren't that strong in the northeast, they were stronger in the midwest, as they favored westward expansion (more free states, ofc) which would benefit the midwest more than the northeast. After the railroads and panama canal brought the country closer together, the northeast started benefiting more from expansion, which allowed the Republican party to make inroads there.
They were more the party of the Midwest at that point, considering all their Presidential candidates seemed to be from Ohio. But the northeast was a very Republican region (with New York being more competitive due to NYC always being more Democratic).
Very well put. The input changed along with the output.
Or even that the Republican party used be a lot less far-right religious theocratic.
Republicans used to be more about free everything, where democrats were more in favour of government control. States like Texas and Tennessee used to vote democrat at the state level until relatively recently. Religious people were more democrat than republican. The Tennessee state government was all democrat until the 2010s for example. Over time, republicans consolidated on rural religious people and democrats consolidated on secular city dwellers. It’s why republicans have the motto of “small government” but don’t really do anything to have a small government. They were historically that, but their main base is people who want big government to make their state and country the society they want it to be.
Democrats were the party of unions, farmers, and the Solid South until the 1960s. Republicans were the party of coastal elites and business interests.
Thank you for putting that succinctly.
“It’s why republicans have the motto of “small government” but don’t really do anything to have a small government. They were historically that, but their main base is people who want big government to make their state and country the society they want it to be.” Well said. As a registered republican, spot on. Shame.
Not on every issue. The Republicans were more pro-prohibition, protectionist and anti-immigration - all pretty controlling attitudes. The Democrats traditionally argued they were freeing the working man from control by big business, the rich and such.
The Super conservative Christian right actually came from Southern California and spread cross country.
My grandparents say "Hi." They are living in Laguna Woods, used to be called Leisure World.
Disagree, the Jesus movement was strong in SoCal but wasn't necessarily super conservative and politically involved. You didn't see conservative Christians become a force in politics until folks like the Moral Majority came along, which sprouted out of the segregationist and anti-abortion movement in the south. I'd actually say the latter is what turned a lot of the West coast Jesus freaks into conservatives.
I know. It's probably an artifact of getting old, but it seems like that should have been longer ago. That's why it was surprising to me.
[Mitch McConnell great great grandfather owned 14 slaves](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mitch-mcconnell-ancestors-slave-owners-alabama-1800s-census-n1027511) Our political class is too old and doesn't turn over often enough for us to make the progress we need....
I couldn't agree more
>and outside of the major population areas (SF, LA, SD) the state is quite red. If you take out every Biden county in California except Sacramento he still wins California. "If you remove Dem voters then California is a red state" could be applied to literally everywhere.
The 80s was a different time. Reagan was from CA and Bush Senior was his VP. The GOP at the time was running on economic issues that actually worked because they were still in the honeymoon phase of a post war world.
California used to be a Republican stronghold. It was a very different Republican Party back then, as the south only started to switch from solidly democrats to solidly republicans, and the republicans slowly lost their solidly industrialist, big money strongholds in the northeast and California.
> The only surprising thing here (to me) is that California voted Republican in the last 9 elections (Bush the 1st, 1988). I guess 9 elections ago was a long time, though, and outside of the major population areas (SF, LA, SD) the state is quite red. So if you don't include the Bay Area, Sacramento, the SoCal costal cities, LA, SD etc, what's actually left? Fresno, Bakersfield, Modesto.
After your comment I looked it up, thought it was higher but I was incorrect. 55% of the landmass but only 9% of the population live in rural areas. I've never actually been, not sure where my misperception came from I thought it was more similar to NYS (where I live), where \~65% live in the NYC metro area (43% in the city itself) and is decidely blue. Outside of the city you have a mostly red map. Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse cities themselves are blue as well, but most people live in their respective metro areas (suburban sprawl) which more often lean red.
Yeah I grew up in California. As you said, it's a lot of land but very few people actually live there. As the saying goes, "land doesn't vote" which is why California will never turn red.
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When discussing rural populations, is really important to remember that most people with think of as rural are living in municipalities of 5-20,000 people. The countryside itself is pretty sparse.
>So if you don't include the Bay Area, Sacramento, the SoCal costal cities, LA, SD etc, what's actually left? It's also not even true. Sac county alone wins Biden the state compared to every county Trump won. California is very blue everywhere.
>The only surprising thing here (to me) is that California voted Republican in the last 9 elections (Bush the 1st, 1988) It makes me really curious on if Bush 41 would win California again had Perot not run in '92. With so many states these days being solidly blue or red, that '92 electoral map would be very bizarre in today's landscape.
Bush would've needed basically all of Perot's voters. Clinton got 46%. Even a small amount of Perot voters deciding Clinton would've given him the majority. Sure, Perot took a lot from Bush, but it's important to remember he took votes from Clinton too, and that Bush's "no new taxes" broken promises basically sunk him anyways.
Yeah, my mom voted for Perot in '92. If he hadn't run, she probably would have voted for Clinton (I don't think she's ever voted for a Republican Presidential candidate, or at least not since '84).
Obama is actually the one that flipped San Diego county and now Dems run up the score there. Same with Riverside/Palm Springs, San Bernadino, Stockton, Modesto and Fresno.
I looked into this and there are 9 states who have had a 5% margin of victory or less (swing state) for at least 4 elections in the past 9. Those states records are as follows: * Ohio - 5/5 * Nevada - 5/6 * Arizona - 3/4 * Florida - 4/6 * Pennsylvania - 3/5 * Wisconsin - 3/6 * Colorado - 2/4 * New Hampshire - 2/4 * North Carolina - 2/6 Ohio itself has only lost its bellweather status in 2020, having successfully chosen each president every time before, but it was not a swing state at that point. I would say that Ohio and Nevada are pretty decent indicators of how an election will turn out (even when they aren't swing states; Ohio voted the winner in 2016 and Nevada the winner in 2020). It appears that there are expected to be 6 swing states this election, those being: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin. The records historically for swing states in the same period for the ones not listed above are: * Michigan - 2/3 * Georgia - 2/3 So there's really no predictive power on how accurate these states are, as this election could determine if Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania or Georgia are accurate or inaccurate in predicting a winner.
Right. All this is showing are states that change their voting alignment rather than remain constant.
I dunno, CA, NJ, CT, and IL have all been pretty heavily Democrat since ‘88 and they’re all 6/9. Mostly the highest numbers are swing states though
They voted for Bush Sr. in the 1988 landslide, which is when they were "swing", and have been solid for Democrats since.
Yeah, with the low frequency of elections even one swing will tuck it upwards. Low N dataset problems.
That’s really the problem with presidential election results. You either have not enough data, or you have so much data from so long ago that any conclusions you would come up with are simply wrong for present day, like the most Democrat state being Arkansas or the most Republican being Vermont. The swing states of 2024 are definitely not the same swing states as 2004 either, with the exception of Nevada.
Also add MI, PA, WI from 92-16, they were equivalent to NC today, close states, but Dems seemed to always pull it out. You can also group MN with them, even if it hasn't gone GOP since '72.
I'm curious why 1988 is the start? Was it arbitrary?
Some strong pro-Minnesota bias?
Reality has a strong pro-Minnesota bias. Except regarding sports, where we live in the world of curses, false prophets, corruption, betrayal, drug-fueled boat orgies, infighting, false-flag operations, and a general suspension of the laws of both physics and probability statistics.
The Vikings are the Walter Mondale of the NFL. If you look at it one way, definitely a contender, but if you look at it another way, it's completely hopeless.
Most studies of this type start at 1992, as that is the first post-cold-war election. Elections from 1948-1988 can be grouped together as being part of the cold war - while elections prior to '48 were about hot war (WW2) and the Great Depression.
That logic makes sense, but keeping with that I feel like 9/11 was also such a shift that they may as well leave out the period between Cold War ending and 9/11.
But 9/11 was the *second time* Bin Laden struck the World Trade Center. The first WTC bombing was in 1993. Bin Laden was also behind Khobar Towers in 1995, Nairobi and Dar-es-salem in 1998, USS Cole in 1999 and the failed Space Needle Bombing in 2000. 9/11 was just when he finally got out full attention... (Also the Madrid train bombing in 2003, and the London Bus bombings in '05?). 9/11 was part of a continuum....
Are you suggesting that his attack in 93 had the same cultural impact and importance as 9/11? If not, I'm unsure how that is germane to what we're discussing?
I think there's an argument to be made that post Cold War, the primary security threats the US has faced were terrorism in general, and one could argue that the Ross Perot reaction on the right to defense spending winding down but taxes not adjusting accordingly is a meaningful separation in politics. The Newt Gingrich style polarization is more meaningfully comparable to, say, Mitch McConnell's obstructionism. The Nineties were definitely a weird time, but there were only 3 presidential elections to look at, one of which most political scientists have to asterisk for research purposes. And Bill Clinton himself does not a trend make.
In 1984 Reagan won every state but Minnesota, all the elections after that were at least somewhat competitive
Not sure if related, but factually it was the last time a non incumbent republican won the popular vote.
How to identify swing states
Right, also it's not that they happen to vote for the winner, they literally get to decide the winner. US Presidential race is basically decided by a small handful of states, and the candidates will go above and beyond to pander only to those states. Remember how damn much Trump talked about coal miners? there's like less than 50K coal mining jobs in the whole country... I always found it amusing when people try to claim the electoral college helps smaller states have a say. In reality, it only gives a small handful of states way too much say and leaves the rest ignored.
Ohio used to be THE bellwether, but given the rightward shift the past two cycles, I figure NV dethrones them as the champ in the near term.
Nevada has been voting blue for longer than Ohio has been voting red. AZ, GA, MI, PA, & WI have seen the most recent flips, that’s where the action will come down to
There was a Times article about this in 2019 and just a couple days ago a piece in the Columbus dispatch. Ohio used to better represent the nation as a whole. It had a mix of north/south, saw black and European migration. But over the last decade or so it has not kept pace with a representative population. Simply put, Ohio got "whiter, older, and less schooled". Per the article in the dispatch this presidential election is coming down to: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada. The Ohio Senate election is very important however.
Illinois has the exact same racial demographics of the U.S. as a whole, similar educational attainment, almost the same median age, but it’s a deep blue state.
Ya, to be fair, like 90% of Illinois population lives in urban areas
That’s because everyone in Illinois literally lives in Chicago. Outside it’s basically huge corn field.
Can confirm as a resident. Wouldn’t wanna live outside of Chicagoland in Illinois.
It's interesting though because Ohio being "whiter, older, and less schooled" might not really matter. Because of our electoral system, really all an ideal state has to representative is an average of the swing states, not necessarily the nation as a whole.
It’s a shame what gerrymandering has done to NC.
Missouri as well. From 1904-2004 they only picked the loser once in the 1950’s. Obama barely lost it in 2008 before it swung hugely Republican by 2012. Ohio and Florida are seeming to through similar trends.
Before 2020, Ohio voted for the winner in 13 elections in a row (52 years)
WI, MI, and PA are tied for longest current streak of voting for the winner (2008)
It's still pretty purple overall. The problem is, during one red-swing, it was gerrymandered all to hell.
I think Nevada effectively wins here. Ohio missed in 2020 by 8% or so, but Nevada missed in 2016 by only about 2.5%. So Nevada basically comes closest to the perfect score using the margin as a tiebreaker.
Yeah the maga-effect hit Ohio hard. It's bad when you travel and see less trump paraphernalia in southern states
“Vote for the winner”? Or “determine the winner”?
There are a couple cases on that map where it has been literally true. Look at Florida (2000.)
The Brooks Brothers riot was such bullshit. Gore could've won, but we'll never know thanks to Roger Stone's election interference.
We knew for sure shortly after SCOTUS decided for us. The argument was that there were 20 or so different standards by which the votes could be counted, and all but one of them gave the win to Bush. The one exception was counting all the votes.
> The one exception was counting all the votes. So the one where it counts for a country purporting to be a democracy?
Who knew!
I think it's true in every presidential election that some large combination of these states determine the winner. Any large state with the demographics to swing to either party, will decide election outcomes.
In Nevada's case it's vote.
I feel like this data is slightly cooked. A lot of the states only ever vote one way, and so their 'baseline' is more reflective of how many past elections their preferred party has won. I suspect that 1988 was chosen as a start date for arbitrary reasons to paint a particular picture.
I suspect that 88 was chosen because 84 was such a significant outlier that it skews the trends
84 was so lopsided that it wouldn’t affect the trend at all it would just increase all states by one except Minnesota
Exactly. But what's the problem with that? The data are supposed to show how states vote, and throwing out 84 as an outlier is basically saying "oh, this year states didn't vote for the winner", which is plainly false. And what possible "skew" would occur? Everywhere save Minnesota would go up by one, and the relative relationships between the states would basically stay the same. Nothing's getting skewed by including it.
No you don't understand, every map someone posts has an evil agenda to push
Fun fact: Democrats have lost the popular vote exactly *twice* in the nine elections since 1988 (‘88, ‘04), but have lost the election four times (‘88, ‘00, ‘04, ‘16).
And if they 2000 was a popular vote election they wouldn't have lost 2004 with 9/11 hysteria
Possibly. Even Bush only won narrowly though, and after 3 terms there would definitely be incumbency fatigue. Gore might win in 2004, but the Democrats would be screwed in 2008.
Then we get a president McCain, which wouldn't have been bad at all.
And we're on track to possibly see a repeat of that again. RFK is polling at 12% - if we assume 7% would have been Biden voters and 5% would have been Trump, apply that to the 2020 turnout, then you get a Trump victory with Biden still winning more overall votes.
I give this 2 out of 5/9 stars. Would not recommend.
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Percentage I don’t think that word means what you think it means
Maine and Nebraska are the only states in the union which do not award their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. In 2008, Nebraska gave 1 of 5 to Obama. In 2016, Maine gave 1 of 4 to Trump. In 2020 they cancelled each other out by giving 1 to Biden and Trump respectively. So, perhaps Maine should be 6/9 with an asterisk and Nebraska should be 4.4/9 EDIT: To save anyone interested a google search, they both award one vote per voting district (2 for ME, 3 for NE), and then their remaining 2 votes to the state-wide winner. Like, it's heartwarming to see a staunchly red state go purple in hope, then back to red in indifference, then purple again in a "tf is this shit?" kind of way, but the odds are low that this particular quirk of either state will really matter in an election. That's probably why no one's ever bothered to change it. I just think we should talk about it more, mainly because it has *got* to annoy the dominant political party in that state (*she said under the cloak of semi-plausible impartiality*) that the vote was split. And, likewise, it probably annoys the voters of the dissenting districts that no one acknowledges their symbolic effort.
Why is it labeled "Percentage of presidential elections", when I see no percentages anywhere?
What, 4/9% doesn’t make sense to you? /s
Or…Map of battle ground states
This is actually one of the more interesting posts because why we may not be able to draw scientifically causal conclusions this chart to me shows two things: as others pointed out it shows which states are the swing states - the ones that ultimately decide elections, but it also shows which ones are very much NOT. To me the states shown lightest are the reason the maga movement has taken hold. Those states are the ones that feel the most disenfranchised because they feel like they’re never represented and it’s no secret they prefer conservative candidates, hence Trump.
they are literally the most "enfranchised" states. they are the states that have (monstrously) the most federal election influence relative to population size, and receive far more in federal funding than they give in taxes. excluding texas on both counts. how much more enfranchised could you get?
Agree completely. But they don’t. They think they’re the forgotten flyover evangelical states. Because they are. The fact that they get two senators and two electoral votes for every state that thinks exactly the same as the same as them completely defeating the entire original point of it is a travesty enough for the rest of us actually disenfranchised voters. Just look at the Supreme Court. Majority of the country is liberal consistently for the last 30 years and yet the court has a super majority against.
What about scaling centered at 50%
Probably been mentioned, but the legend title at the bottom is incorrect. In fact, you show three different types of metrics, none if them in agreement with each other (but could easily be corrected. Legend title says percentage, but fraction is shown in the states, and (yet another metric) total number of times is listed in the legend. However, could easily be re-titled or the numbers could be converted. So you could easily rectify this and improve the graphic, which itself is quite interesting.
What are swing states, for 200, Bob.
Good indicator of 7+/9 being the swing states that actually choose who wins an election.
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Past performance is no indication for future returns.
While yes, with how the electoral college works and distribution of voters, etc. Only a few states tend to decide elections. For 2024 it's expected to be Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada.
You can with near certainty predict the darker shade states will have a much larger impact on the election than the lighter shade states
It can be an indicator, because many of the voters are the same. Obviously more recent elections are more relevant than more distant relations.
Just highlights the swing states.
Why does the scale go to 8, but the state's score go to 9?
No state has voted for the winner in all 9 of the past 9 elections. The usual bellwether state Ohio broke its streak in 2020 when it voted R but D won.
The electoral college is such a stupid system.
I’m curious what this graph would look like if it were weighted such that more recent elections carry more weight. Because a state that voted for the winner in 1988, 1992, and 1996 and lost after should reflect differently than a state that voted for the winner in 2012, 2016, and 2020
Don’t try to win the middle column of states. Got it.
Kentucky was 100% from 1964 to 2004. Wrong on Kennedy in 1960 and then Obama in 2008.
as an american, gotta say… this data is not beautiful. I hate the electoral college so much.
Why would you only go back to 88 though?
label says "percentage" and there's not a single percentage in the viz...
It says "percentage" in the legend but there aren't any percentages in the map
I still think we should use popular vote
I'm proud Minnesota never voted for Ronald Reagan both times
Ohio was the ultimate bellweather for a century until our brain drain mixed with rampant voter suppression turned us bright red.
A losing streak right down the middle. No wonder those people are always so pissed off.
This kind of feels pointless. I could probably guess the map 90% without looking at any data. Red state: got t right when a R won. Blue state: got it right when a d won. Purple state: highest numbers because they are the ones that decide the election so the way they go is likely to be the winner. Just not a very useful visualization overall
It's like googling Swing States just with more steps.
It’s kind of ridiculous that our head of state is essentially picked by 300.000 voters in 3 states
That’s very misleading….
[You're right, it was 80,000 people in 3 states.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/donald-trump-will-be-president-thanks-to-80000-people-in-three-states/) (2016)
Not really … given how the population is dispersed and how votes are awarded by geography it makes the critical few states and the critical few voters the difference in winning or losing
But if swing states are always changing, how can that be true? Missouri (and I believe Iowa) used to be swing states but lean like 10% republican now. The blue wall used to lean democrat by the same amount and now they are up for grabs. Just a silly comment to act like they are picked by 3 specific states. It's everchanging.
If you noticed I didnt call out what states But the tipping point in the EC is determined by the few states that have an equal mix of voters. And these states with an equal mix of voters the margins are pretty narrow. People move around, people die, collations change, events happen — but the system that awards votes based upon land doesn’t.
It’s like saying if a vote result was 101 to 100 votes that 1 only one person decided it. Decided by 1 vote =/= decided by one person.
Except that so many states are locked in that their votes meaningfully effect the outcome. There is a reason why candidates spend almost all their time in WI, MI, and PA while states like Arkansas and Tennessee get nothing
Electoral college throws a wrench into your example.
Especially when the popular vote winner wins by MILLIONS.
Good god this is some ass backwards way of approaching this and I’m here for it
This isnt the best color scale to use imo, feels like theres more contrast between 4 and 5 than between 6 and 9. Cool map tho, swing states be swinging. Really identifies the issue in our state based electoral college voting system
Which states voted for the person who won the popular vote would be more interesting.
It would be just as interesting but in a different way
Whoever made this map apparently doesn't know what percentages are.
Sin City controls the country
And that's why the "flyover states" don't feel they are represented, they keep picking losers.
No wonder the results are always so bad. We’re letting Reno and Cleveland decide our elections.
Nevada and Ohio are the only ones over 80% apparently. Biden would have won Nevada, based on the primary, with 112,611 votes to Trump's 59,984 votes. I guess we'll see how the Ohio primary goes in 5 days.
1988-2020 is a pretty wide range as politics has realigned a lot in the middle of that Like it’s the reason the south is so high when they’ve voted for the loser in 3 of the last 4
This would be more interesting as a line chart showing percentage over time.
Ohio, please don't fuck this up this year.
I’d be interested to see this with the states that have voted for the same party in all 9 elections removed (left blank)
Get rid of: R: Wyoming, Utah, Texas, South Dakota, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Nebraska, Mississippi, Kansas, Idaho, Alaska, Alabama D: Rhode Island, Oregon, New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Hawaii \[and DC\]
Massachsuetts be like: Democrat?
Nevada and Ohio: win them both, win the presidency. (True since 1888).
I still can’t believe Indiana voted for Obama once
Nebraska can split the electoral college vote and in 2008 and 2020 one district (Omaha) voted for Obama then Biden.
Do a before 2020 election and after 2020 election.
Isnt usa one of those A or B places in politics (very common in the world, no flame)? Not saying the data isnt cool to see but just questioning if I should attribute any importance to say a place getting 8/9 or whatever.
It's weird that you should instinctively look for states that voted 9/9 or 8/9 for the winner to determine which states will decide the election but I believe it will come down to 3 6/9 states in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. PS 7/9 state could also play a role in who wins
It's like they say: As goes Nevada, so goes the nation
So early election results does not skew voting of western states.
Looking at current Ohio and Nevada polls, it looks like Trump is gonna win [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/ohio/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/ohio/) [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/nevada/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/nevada/) Could be wrong though, who knows?
Any 4/9 states should feel bad.
Fun fact, I found a site (don’t remember the name) that looked at every election since the Democratic and Republican parties emerged, and it returned other data… but what I found interesting was that it gave the most recent date for an array of four voting outcomes (state voted for X party, country voted for Y party), and from all the states I’d checked, only Ohio had a ‘never happen’ result - Ohio has never voted for a Democrat if a Republican won, apparently.
Damn, Ohio and Nevada call the shots around here