Is the political map, so familiar that even nonexperts casually name red, blue and purple states, changing before our eyes? Yes, at least in a circumscribed way — and it’s probably about time.
The political map has been fairly immobile for almost two decades, the longest since the 1880s. In the last four presidential elections, 40 states and the District of Columbia, with 422 electoral votes, voted for the same party each time. Only in a few cases were the margins very close, as in the case of five states with 41 electoral votes that voted for the other party only once (North Carolina, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico, New Hampshire).
There are only five states left with 75 electoral votes, supporting the winning candidates, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in each of the last four elections. You’ll recognize them as the purplest of purple states: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada.
Current polls, which show Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 4 points nationally, suggest that it is possible that all 40 swing states will remain in the same column next November. Clinton actually leads better in the 2012 swing states than she does nationally, perhaps because her campaign has been running a ton of TV ads in most of them, while Trump’s has not.
But there is something else going on – there are some significant, though not overwhelming (and somewhat balanced) trends emerging among identifiable segments of the electorate.
Trump has typically done better than previous Republicans among whites without a college degree, worse among college graduates, and better among older people than younger ones.
That explains why he’s apparently lagging far behind in the purple states of Virginia and Colorado, with their juvenile and educated populations, to the point that the Clinton campaign canceled ad buys there. It’s actually an extension of the trend that turned those two states from secure Republicans in Bush’s elections into middling purple states in Obama’s.
At the same time, Trump’s relative strength among non-college-educated whites has made him competitive in Florida, Ohio and Iowa, and well ahead of Indiana, with its older, less-educated populations. And it has made him at least potentially competitive in the industrial belt from western Pennsylvania to eastern Iowa, where, as New York Times Upshot reporter Nate Cohn has explained, a near majority of non-college-educated whites, many of whom grew up in union households, voted for Obama over Mitt Romney’s executive scion in 2012.
The map could also change in Georgia and Arizona, where polls show close races. In recent elections, white college graduates have cast huge percentages for the Republicans, overcoming the Democratic advantage among growing black and Latino minorities. Trump’s weakness among college graduates could support Clinton win 27 electoral votes.
Will these changes prove eternal, no matter how the election turns out? The evidence from history suggests yes. Barry Goldwater and George McGovern, who were as far removed from their parties’ previous candidates as Trump was from his, lost in landslides in 1964 and 1972, respectively. But the groups they won with became part of their parties’ bases later on.
Goldwater carried the Deep South, running even better than Dwight Eisenhower. Although the process was delayed by George Wallace and Jimmy Carter, the region became solidly Republican in 1984 and remains so today.
McGovern ran relatively strongly in the northern part of America, particularly in the Germanic-Scandinavian upper Midwest and in Oregon and northern California. Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis ran relatively strongly in the northern part in the 1980s, and it has been more Democratic than the national average ever since.
Goldwater and McGovern lost the popular vote by 23 percent, in years when most voters remembered the Great Depression and World War II and were willing to cross party lines to reelect a president who seemed to bring prosperity and peace.
Today’s polarized electorate, unfamiliar with such disasters, is less willing to cross party lines, and Trump is not 23 points behind. But many voters appear ready to abandon their party: 21 percent say they will not vote for either major-party candidate.
That suggests low turnout, and more states in play if the race tightens. Longer-term questions arise: If Clinton wins by less than 50 percent, will her party hold on to the college graduates who can’t stand Trump? Will post-Trump Republicans hold on to the white non-college voters he attracted?
I suspect the answers will be no and yes. What is yours?
