2016 Presidential Battleground States?

[GwynnInTheHall]

It's true. More than any other reason, that is why he will be viewed as a poor President. He couldn't even deal with Democrats.

J

You truly do live in a bizzaro world.

[onejayhawk]

You truly do live in a bizzaro world.

No. Just a little right of center.

I can see why you would think it bizarre. The center is a long way from where you live.

J

[onejayhawk]

This sort of article is why I started the thread in the first place.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-is-no-blue-wall/

The nature of the Electoral College is to accentuate small margins in the popular vote; Obama’s electoral vote tallies have been fine, but historically ordinary....[W]hen commentators talk about the Democrats’ “blue wall,” all they’re really pointing out is that Democrats have had a pretty good run in presidential elections lately. And they have, if you conveniently draw the line at 1992 (it doesn’t sound so impressive to instead say Democrats have won five of the 12 elections since 1968). During that time, Democrats have won four elections pretty clearly, lost one narrowly and essentially tied the sixth. This has been evident from the popular vote, however. The one time the Electoral College really mattered — that was 2000, of course — it hurt the Democrats.

Where you’d see more evidence of an impregnable “blue wall” is in the event of an extremely lopsided election. Suppose that Democrats had lost the 2012 election by 18.2 percentage points, as Walter Mondale did to Ronald Reagan. In 1984, Mondale won only 13 electoral votes — 10 from his home state of Minnesota, plus D.C.’s three. In contrast, I estimate that a Democrat losing by that margin now would still carry states totaling 104 electoral votes: California, New York, Maryland, Vermont, Hawaii, and D.C. That’s a reflection of the fact that the country is far more geographically polarized than it once was. But this cuts both ways. If Obama had won by Reagan’s 1984 margin, Republicans would still have won Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Utah, Nebraska,4 West Virginia, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming — for 136 electoral votes. Neither party’s slate is close to a majority, however, and they mostly offset each other.

J

[nots]

This sort of article is why I started the thread in the first place.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-is-no-blue-wall/

The nature of the Electoral College is to accentuate small margins in the popular vote; Obama’s electoral vote tallies have been fine, but historically ordinary....[W]hen commentators talk about the Democrats’ “blue wall,” all they’re really pointing out is that Democrats have had a pretty good run in presidential elections lately. And they have, if you conveniently draw the line at 1992 (it doesn’t sound so impressive to instead say Democrats have won five of the 12 elections since 1968). During that time, Democrats have won four elections pretty clearly, lost one narrowly and essentially tied the sixth. This has been evident from the popular vote, however. The one time the Electoral College really mattered — that was 2000, of course — it hurt the Democrats.

Where you’d see more evidence of an impregnable “blue wall” is in the event of an extremely lopsided election. Suppose that Democrats had lost the 2012 election by 18.2 percentage points, as Walter Mondale did to Ronald Reagan. In 1984, Mondale won only 13 electoral votes — 10 from his home state of Minnesota, plus D.C.’s three. In contrast, I estimate that a Democrat losing by that margin now would still carry states totaling 104 electoral votes: California, New York, Maryland, Vermont, Hawaii, and D.C. That’s a reflection of the fact that the country is far more geographically polarized than it once was. But this cuts both ways. If Obama had won by Reagan’s 1984 margin, Republicans would still have won Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Utah, Nebraska,4 West Virginia, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming — for 136 electoral votes. Neither party’s slate is close to a majority, however, and they mostly offset each other.

J

I was told that there would be no math in this thread.

[onejayhawk]

I was told that there would be no math in this thread.

Stop checking with Doig.

270towin has a couple of recent twists. Go to the Presidential map.

At Select a Starting View try 2012 Very Close. This shows that President Obama won reelection without any of the states closer than 5%. However, Pennsylvania was exactly 5%. So an incumbent advantage of over 2.5% would have been decisive in the electoral vote count as well as the popular vote..

The more useful starting points is called 2012 Competitive. These are the states closer than 10%. Again there is a state right on the line--New Mexico at 10% exactly. I don't know why they treated it differently than Pennsylvania. In any event, If I were to work up a map, this would be my starting point, rather than the NBC list. That one seems arbitrarily fixed on 10 states. None of these states would flip in anything less than a blowout.

J

[onejayhawk]

New article on the bellweathers. New Mexico surprised me. I tend to think of it as solidly Democratic.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/ohio-new-mexico-the-best-presidential-bellwethers/

J