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The Electoral Opponent Which Cannot Be Defeated: Math
The website 270towin.com has a fascinating interactive tool for looking at how the Electoral College has voted and conceivably will vote in the near future.
You can look at the 2012 election results and see where Mitt Romney needed to win in order to get to 270 electoral votes (click individual states to change how they voted). He needed to take some 63 electoral votes away from Obama in order to win, by the way.
One of the more fascinating settings on the map is to look at states which haven’t changed their voting habits since 2000. What this setting reveals is the infamous “blue wall” of 242 electoral votes which the Democrats can essentially rely upon come hell or high water. In the Republican column are some 179 electoral votes which also haven’t changed since George W. Bush’s first election.
Obviously, given this state of affairs, Republicans have little margin for error when it comes to the Electoral College — the Dems’ 242 “guaranteed” electoral votes plus just Florida yields 271, and thus the Presidency. Republicans could run the table on the remaining tossup states and still lose if they don’t win Florida, so all electoral strategy necessarily begins and ends with winning that state. From this perspective it seems that some states have their nicknames mixed up — Pennsylvania’s position as the “Keystone State” is easily eclipsed on the electoral map by Florida. It is the eye of a needle through which all electoral success apparently must pass.
So, in order to construct a scenario where a Republican candidate can assemble the requisite 270 votes, there are several roads which can be taken. First, that person must hold all of the Romney states. Next, they must win Florida plus some number states George W. Bush took sufficient to reach 270 or they must begin flipping other states on the map.
I’ll address the last question first: which Blue Wall states could conceivably change allegiance? Wisconsin has shown a trendline which might credibly lend itself to joining the Republican coalition, mainly due to Gov. Scott Walker’s having neutered one of the state’s largest (and hostile to Republican) political constituencies. To a lesser extent, Bernie Sanders’ primary win there indicates that dissatisfaction with the presumptive Democrat nominee might run deep enough for the Republican candidate to scrape out a win. Outside of Wisconsin, the only other state from the Obama slate (and not part of the Blue Wall) showing signs of flipping would be Iowa. Given the lack of a charismatic Democrat candidate, this isn’t totally unbelievable — but that still leaves the Republican candidate with some 251 electoral votes, assuming they won all of the Romney states plus Florida, Wisconsin and Iowa.
The presumptive Republican candidate would still find themselves in the position of having to come up with 19 additional electoral votes – 18 of which would be conveniently located in Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich might be able to help the nominee over the finish line. Yet this scenario leaves that candidate a single vote shy of victory and creates an electoral college tie, whereupon the House of Representatives would select the President.
It should be noted that there are a lot of “ifs” buried in the assumptions of these electoral scenarios. Given how fractured and broken the various party infrastructures are this year, it’s hard to say what, if anything will hold true — but it does seem likely that the 242 votes of the “Blue Wall” will be fairly solid, with the possible exception of Wisconsin. The campaign will be an organizational run to the finish line with the candidate who is best able to marshal their resources to drive voters to the polls being likely to win.
In that sense, the old rules of politics haven’t changed a bit. The Democrats have a huge, structural advantage in the Electoral College — but the Republicans still possess a narrow gap through which they can reach the promised land. What it will take is a candidate who is savvy enough to out-organize the opposition, and shrewdly drive a wedge through the middle of the Democrat coalition in order to ensure that the Blue Wall can’t grow.
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I agree with this.
It is simple. You have a Black Republican Mayor with the guts of a Scott Walker and you send Giuliani and the best Policing and School guys you have and make him a hero.
Make him the black guy who deserves their loyalty.
Break the unions, fix the schools, cut crime and bring in jobs. Works every damn time.
I will posit the blacks are more loyal to their community than their party. The Dems know this and insert the party into the community. The GOP needs to do the same. It you will not get on the street, you might as well stay on the cruise ship after the next election.
Simple, but not easy.
This map is why what Trump is doing is so critical for the future of the GOP. The idea that if we could just throw the right conservative at the electorate that we could thread the needle with any consistency is crazy. The whole Cruz theory of the 2012 and 2008 elections – that conservatives in key states failed to show up because the nominee wasn’t conservative enough – is bonkers. But more importantly, it would require that the Republicans draw a royal straight flush every time in order to win. So its not sustainable.
Trump is taking the disaffection with the Democratic Party with many of its traditional supporters and bringing them into the Republican Party. He is then forcing movement conservatives out of the power center. When he is done, the map will have shifted and its possible to break through the blue wall.
It may not work. But fact is, if we just put up conservative candidates we would be perpetually losing.
A reorder is required. And with my normal disclaimer. I am not a Trump the man supporter. I am just completely convinced that the approach we were taking for years was going to mean permanent failure. We need his voters, like it or not, and if that means having a less conservative republican party, then I will take it. Because the alternative is conservatives lose every battle from here until the end.
Well, to be fair to Rudy, there were some SoCons who wouldn’t back that deal and were adamantly opposed to Rudy in any case, because of his pro-choice position. I had an email go-’round with the head of the Family Research Council (or one of those) about it. It didn’t matter to them that Rudy understood what lousy decision Roe v. Wade was and would likely appoint good constitutionalists to the Court. They opposed him, and the country elected Obama.
I’m afraid similar fracturing exist now from the other direction , and we’ll end up Felony.
I don’t dispute that the problem wasn’t one of “missing conservatives.” That’s been thoroughly debunked.
However, the Democrats had all the trump cards in their hand in ’08 and ’12 with Obama – they were able to weld the wispy notions of “hope” and “change” onto the twin neuroses of “racial animosity” and “white guilt” with a heaping dose of disgust and fear. Obama is the first (and hopefully only) affirmative action candidate.
That doesn’t mean that the Democrats don’t start out far ahead in the electoral math because of CA, IL and NY – they do – but where they go from there has a great deal to do with the quality of their candidate. If they nominate the haughty John Kerry? They can’t grow the wall. Nominate Obama? It’s clobberin’ time.
Spot on
For your reading pleasure. You could tell that Hinderaker was toying with this idea in the last Powerline podcast. Now, he put pen to paper.
A lot more right in here than wrong. Can’t wait to hear what he says about the liberal coalition. I agree its in much worse shape.
I think that the “blue wall” is an artifact of the fact that there hasn’t been a significant Republican Presidential victory since 2000. There are only 4 observations:
The Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI, here) gauges how “blue” or “red” a state is, in Presidential elections. The Cook PVI averages how much more partisan a certain state (or district) voted than the nation as a whole. The idea is that if a state has a PVI of, say, D+3, then the Democrat would be expected to win the state unless the Republican won nationwide by more than 3 points.
Take PA as an example. In 2008, Obama won PA by 10.3%, while willing nationwide by 7.2% (so he did 3.1% better in PA). In 2012, Obama won PA by 5.4%, while winning nationwide by 3.9% (so he did 1.5% better in PA). Averaging 3.1% and 1.5% gives PA’s current Cook PVI, D+2 (actually 2.3%; Cook rounds it).
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In the Cook PVI, Virginia is even.
There are 5 Republican-leaning swing states with a PVI less than R+5:
Since Obama had a big victory in 2008 (7.2% nationwide), he managed to carry ordinarily “safe” NC and IN.
There are 11 Democrat-leaning swing states with a PVI less than D+5:
Notice that this list includes 6 “blue wall” states, including PA (D+1), WI and MN (both D+2). I think that these are “in play” for a successful Republican today.
Note that these figures have changed in recent years. The Cook PVI uses the latest 2 Presidential elections. It’s hard to say whether the changes from prior versions reflect underlying demographics in the states, or perhaps something special about Obama (who probably had greater-than-usual appeal in some places, like CO and NM, and less-than-usual appeal in others, like PA and WI).
If we just use the Cook PVI, and define “safe” states as those beyond D+5 and R+5, then the parties start virtually even in electoral votes — Dem 167, Rep 170.
If we use D+3/R+3 as the cutoff, it’s still pretty even — Dem 207, Rep 191.
If we use D+2/R+2, it’s still pretty even — Dem 207, Rep 206.
Very interesting, AP. Thanks.
I do think states like Colorado will be decided on turnout, which is one thing Republicans seem to have going for them this time. Hillary is such an awful candidate, she suppresses turnout.
There are other reasons to believe that states leaning Dem per the Cook PVI — i.e. “blue states” — aren’t hostile to Republicans.
Governors: 10 blue states have Republican governors. Only 4 red states have Democratic governors.
Senators: There are 9 Republican Senators from blue states, 7 Democratic senators from red states.
House: Republicans have a House majority from 6 blue states, and the House delegation is split evenly in 3 more blue states. Democrats do not have a House majority in any red state.
I had forgotten that! Wow I can’t believe I missed that.
TK I doubt that would even work because the Dems in those cities will continue to see to it that the blacks remain impoverished and tell them that the GOP’s exclusive, racist policies are to blame. See that’s the difference between us and them, they never stop fighting where as we get one or two election wins and think it’s over. We stop explaining why our policies work and who it is continuing to push failed, race based policies.
Columbus, Ohio, has been similarly abandoned by the Republicans. It was a solidly Republican city until the late 90s, when the local party just seemed to evaporate.
Seeing this map brings a question mind – if the GOP completely disenfranchised all of the delegates from blue states and selected their presidential candidate based solely by the delegates from red and gray states, how would that affect the current primary race? And, more importantly, would that result in a candidate better tailored to win the critical swing states?
Well, the Republican nominee has shrewdly driven a wedge between the Republican party. So, he’s already got that going for him.
Speaking of strategy where is Trump going to get his campaign funding from? Hillary will apparently have about $1 billion available. Free media will continue to help Trump, though I assume once he is assured the nomination much of the media will go full time negative on him, but he’s going to need some serious cash going forward.
Both candidates have high negatives and the strategies will probably be around driving down turnout for their opponent. Hillary will have plenty of $$ to remind voters of the negatives, Trump will also need the big bucks.
The symbols
United
Can never be defeated
I agree with your assessment of the blue wall. WI seems the best “blue wall” state to target. The next might be MI, then PA.
The little bit rosier assessment is that IN and NC should really be GOP states which brings the GOP starting count to 205. Both went for Obama in 2008, but then returned to the GOP in 2012.
I too have been advocating something like this a long time. A lot of people think it’s a waste of time. If people treat it as an election year tactic, then it is. It has to be a sustained long term investment. I’m not even sure I would want the RNC there at the start. Just some serious political entrepreneurs who want to do the right thing.
TKC,
I agree that the GOP’s problem are urban areas. Even in red states the urban areas are generally Dem strongholds. The question is: “Can the GOP make headway in urban areas without giving up on smaller government principles?
Oh, super. I put a smart-a** comment in the thread and they move the post to the main feed.
That’s true, but sometimes are local factors. I’m trying to remember which of the Dakotas seemed to be dominated by Democrats in both the Senate and the House despite voting Republican consistently. A state’s presidential politics can be very different from the politics of the state parties.
Analysis: True.
Those are fascinating statistics. Thank you.
I think the Institute for Justice does this sort of outreach. School choice, reducing barriers to employment for the poor and the smallest of small-time entrepreneurs… IJ is not keen to be associated with any particular party, though.
If you wanted the swing voters, wouldn’t it make more sense to have delegates from blue and gray states select the candidate?
From a completely cold point of view a decrease in turnout in the red states probably won’t change who wins those states.
Yes, if those principles allow you to create tactics that bring results. If they become the reason you cannot do this and cannot do that, then no.
Small government, big government is meaningless to citizens. They want government that works. If you can do that with 5% government and 95% private sector, which you can, then go for it.
The red blue map may have been the cause of more division than it is worth. It accepted a divided America. We cede ground and view people as being behind enemy lines.
It should never leave the tacticians war room.