What a term it has been! If someone told us six months ago we would be in the middle of global health crisis, historic domestic unrest over institutional racism, and in the worst economy since the great recession…. well maybe we would believe her but gosh it’s something else entirely to actually live through all of this. I hope we can be better tomorrow and everyday after that. It’s every ally’s responsibility to know that black and brown lives literally depend on the next steps we take.

There’s so much that hangs in the balance. I hope we can be better.

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About Page Updates

I believe my What’s To Come post answers most of the questions posed in the “About Page” assignment. There are just two points not covered there that I would like to cover here:

• If I had ten more weeks to work on this project, I would have delved more into the House of Representatives and the trends seen there in relation to what I already talked about. The same could be said for state elections and a lot of the intricacies seen individual contests. Finally, I would have loved to add another layer to my maps by tooling around with interactivity features embedded into SVG maps. On my own time, making more complex maps is a definite priority of mine because I’ve really just scratched the surface on what can be done with the tools at hand.
• I said this at the end of English 250, but doing this project reminded me how much I enjoy writing without a lot of enforced guidelines or style rules. While this project wasn’t personal in its final form, making it felt very personal because I was tasked with synthesizing a topic that is very close to my life (both personally and professionally). It was cathartic to sink into a new draft and type away until suddenly it’s 1:00am and I’m 2500 words deep. Does that help make my writing more concise? Hell no! But the process almost served as a tonic for a heart that has been heavy for several months. At the end of the day, I’m reminded why writing is good for me and should be a mandatory part of my existence.

Sources

For the statistics and election numbers for which all of this commentary was based off of, I used the following sites and platforms:

• Brittanica United States Presidential Results
• InfoPlease United States Presidential Results, 1776-2016
• Let’s Talk Elections United States Presidential Results
• Let’s Talk Elections United States Senate Elections Results 
• Federal Elections Commission 

Other Cool Stuff

Here are some really useful online tools that explore different applications of mapping and electoral politics:

• Districtr
  • Draw your own congressional districts and provisional constituencies for numerous individual states! You can literally do the work that state legislatures and individual commissions do every ten years after the census. You can be fair or try and gerrymander a state so that your party of choice can acquire as many seats as possible or you can create a balanced map that is roughly equal to the partisan identity of that state. The choice is yours!
• 270towin
  • Make your own custom electoral college map and think of pathways for both Joe Biden and Trump to reach 270 electoral college votes. Or if you’re feeling chaotic, make a map that leaves both candidates at 269 electoral votes, thus ensuring the election is decided by the House of Representatives. Finally, go back in time and alter election results all the way back to our nation’s first contest. Maybe Dukakis could have been President with your map? The choice is yours!
• AtlasElectionsForum
  • A fairly balanced partisan forum that discusses anything and everything around politics, both American and international. Unlike many other spots on the internet, this place is not inhabited by that many extreme partisans and the discussions have elevated a lot of my personal political discourse. Fair warning though, this site does have a Reddit style of edge that can leave you scrolling for more pages well into the early morning hours.

 

To anyone who has gotten this deep, I would like to say thank you! As you can tell, maps and politics have been a passion of mine for a long time and this project has been quite cathartic during the midst of a global pandemic. I hope you’ve learned at least one thing by now that makes politics and elections more easy to understand.

While I have shown the effects that demographic trends and polarization have had on Presidential elections, it’s time to analyze the impact these forces have had on Congress, specifically the United States Senate.

Before we get into it, here are some points:

• Both the Senate and the House of Representatives make up what we call the Congressional branch. Each state elects two Senators to represent them in DC, as in the entire state votes for each Senator. Barring a special election, those elections are spaced out by two or four year increments. Each Senator is elected for a six year term and roughly one third of the body is up every two years, cycling through each Senate class. The House of Representatives consist of 435 members who represent individual districts in each state. Oregon has five congressional districts (CD). If you live in Eugene, you also live in Oregon’s 4th CD and are represented by Representative Peter DeFazio. I live in the boundaries of Oregon’s 5th CD and am served my moderate Democrat Kurt Schrader. Members of the House are up for election every two years. How many CDs a state receives is dependent on information received after each annual census. On the second year of a new decade, redistricting will be put in place and states will roll out new Congressional maps if they gain or lose CDs. Unlike Presidents, neither the House nor the Senate have codified term limits. You are free to run and serve for life, if you are elected with consistency.
• Like state and local politics, Congress often lags behind the national trends seen in Presidential elections. This could be for a variety of reasons:
  • Certain figures and institutions of bygone political eras will continue to have solvency in their home state or region. For example, a state may continue to elect an old beloved Republican Senator even if they have consistently voted for Democrats on the Presidential level.
  • Certain figures and institutions are able to divorce themselves from the national their party’s national brand or national politics as a whole. This is often seen in gubernatorial races that often focus on local issues. An example of this on the federal scale is the 2018 election of Senator Jon Tester (D-MT). While Montana leans conservative on many issues and has not voted for a Democratic President since Clinton in 1992, a majority of Montanans elected Tester to the Senate because he focused on kitchen table issues like health care and labor, rather than waging in on divisive cultural issues.
  • Sometimes, state parties don’t have the resources or the talent to contest winnable races, thus setting themselves behind on national trends. For example, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was expected to trounce his way towards reelection in his 2018 contest. As such, Ohio Republicans were unable to field attract significant talent to the race, with backbench Representative Jim Renacci (R-OH) selected as the nominee. Well, as it turns out, Brown won reelection by a much lesser than expected 6 points and Ohio Republicans swept every statewide race. If enough resources had been put into Renacci’s campaign or a more robust candidate was fielded, perhaps Ohio Republicans could have flipped the seat.
• While both are very prestigious bodies, serving as a United States Senator is generally deemed as a higher or more important honor due to the smaller nature of the chamber in comparison to the House.
• Many Senators were once members of the House.
• Due to the six year intervals between regularly scheduled elections, the Senate is seen as even slower to pick up long standing national trends compared to the House.

It is because of this last point that I have decided to focus on the Senate for this post. There is plenty to say on the House and I may commit a whole post to the body.

Beneath, I will be comparing the partisan compositions of four different Senates at different points in recent history. Two of these points will be when Republicans held the chamber at a similar margin. Two of these points will be when Democrats held the chamber at a similar margin.

For reference: a state colored in red means that both Senate seats were held by Republicans, a state colored in blue means that both Senate seats were held by Democrats, a state colored in purple means that one seat was held by a Democrat the other by a Republican. There have been a few instances where independents have been elected to the Senate, but for simplicity’s sake I have color coded them to the party they caucused with.

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Two Democratic Senates

103rd Congress (1993-1995)

Basics:

• 57 Democrats vs. 43 Republicans
• Most recent class of Senators were elected in 1992 where Clinton won his first term in a landslide
• Democrats also held a majority in the House of Representatives
• Democrats would lose the Senate and the House just two years later in the midterm election of 1994

 

111th Congress (2009-2011)

Basics:

• 60 Democrats vs. 40 Republicans
• Most recent class of Senators were elected in 2008 when Obama won his first term in a landslide
• Democrats also held a majority in the House of Representatives
• Democrats would lose their House majority just two years later in the midterm election of 2010

Takeaways from comparison:

• While both feature similar numeric majorities, the geographic traits of both are wildly different in some spots.
• The Dem collapse in the interior south is striking: both Tennessee and Alabama go from dual Democratic senators in 1993 to none in 2009. Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oklahoma all lose their sole Democratic Senator as well.
• The consolidation of Democratic strength between 1993 and 2009 on the west coast and in the north east is readily apparent.
• Overall, you were much more likely to be represented by politicians of different parties in the Senate in 1993 than you were in 2009 (or today as we’ll come to find out).

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Two Republican Senates

108th Congress (2003-2005)

Basics:

• 51 Republicans vs. 49 Democrats
• Most recent class of Senators were elected in the midterm election of 2002
• Republicans also held a majority in the House of Representatives
• Republicans would keep their majorities in both chambers for four more years

 

116th Congress (2019-2021)

Basics:

• 53 Republicans vs. 47 Democrats
• Most recent class of Senators were elected in the 2018 midterm elections
• Democrats currently hold a majority in the House of Representatives
• I wish I could tell you what the next election results were, but this is our current Senate composition!

Takeaways from comparison:

• While we have been able to see the full might of rural Republican strength in earlier Presidential elections, this power has finally been translated in the 116th Senate.
• Whereas Republicans relied on some NE or urban states for their majority in 2003, they don’t need them now with their red-out in the heartland, the south, and the upper rocky west.
• In fact, disregarding Alabama, Montana, and West Virginia (Trump will most likely carry all three), the 116th Senate composition is a pretty good prediction of which states will be safe and which will be competitive in the 2020 election.
• Arguably, the last bastion of southern Dem power in the 116th Senate is Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) reelection bid in West Virginia. The rest of the mainstays from 2003 are gone.

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Final Takeaways:

• In our current form, the relaxed polarization of 1993 that allowed both New York and South Dakota to have a split Senate delegation is gone.
• As such, most split delegations have gone by the waste side in recent elections.
• Once again, I go back to intense polarization and the rural vs urban divide: while it lagged behind Presidential contests, the dividing factors that have framed the former have now seeped into the our Senate chamber.
• If this polarization continues and/or party coalitions stay the same, expect future Senate maps to quickly follow Presidential contests.
• As Democrats continue to see fertile ground in growing states like Texas, Georgia, and Arizona, expect blue challengers to in their Senate races to begin getting across the finish line. The same could be said for Republicans in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.
• As always, expect a few cute outliers like Alabama and Montana to remain in some form!

As mentioned in the previous post, no matter how much I may desire to go back in time and alter political history, sadly the bounds of physics and space make that a non possibility at this current moment. Darn!

Instead, I’m left to calculate different results and create corresponding maps. That’s pretty fun too. In this post, I’m going to be doing just that by dialing back each of the elections showcased in the prior post to a roughly equal map that hinges on the what would have been the tipping-point state in each contest.

A Quick Note About Methodology

To understand what I’m doing here, you have to understand the concept of a tipping-point state. The tipping-point state is the exact contest that delivered a candidate to at or above 270 electoral college votes (thus winning them the election), when all of the individual contests are ranked based on their popular vote. For example, say I’m candidate A and I just won the Presidential election with thirty states and over 350 electoral college votes. In order to find my tipping-point state, I would, one by one, put the states candidate B lost into their column according to their margin of loss (going up from the smallest). I would do this until we reach the state that would take them over 270 electoral college votes and leave me under 270, thus making them the ultimate winner. This state is the tipping-point state.

A few points of clarification:

• The tipping-point state is not always or usually the state that closest mirrors the national popular vote (NPV). While the tipping-point state is almost always closer to the NPV than most other states, their status as a the tipping point state does not mean their margin closest mirrors the NPV. This does allow for one interesting data point, if the tipping point state is considerably more partisan than the NPV of that election, this would suggest that one party had a built in advantage in the electoral college during that cycle (more on this later).
• The tipping-point state and the state with the closest margin are almost always different, save for elections that come down to literally one state.

Now that we know what a tipping point-state is, below are the same elections featured in post one, but now they’ve been recalculated to show what the electoral map would have looked like if the election came down to the tipping state. This is to show what the electoral boundaries would have looked like that year if the election was more 50/50 than it was in real life. I’m doing this to show how the natural partisan landscape has shifted over the years when removing some of the factors that allowed some candidates to prevail over others.

1992

Electoral Vote

• Clinton~ 263
• Bush~ 264

Tipping Point State

• Tennesse
• Real margin: D+4.7
• Real NPV margin: D+5.5
• Difference: D-0.8

Takeaways

• The negative 0.8 point difference between Tennessee’s Democratic margin and Clinton’s actual NPV total suggests that Republicans theoretically had a systemic advantage in the electoral college in 1992 because they would have been able to win the state of Tennessee before winning the NPV. Of course, this systemic advantage was not enough in the end.
• While Clinton does have strength in southern states like Missouri, Arkansas, and West Virginia, the Dem’s strength in urban areas can already be seen with state’s like California (which is just coming off Reagan bastion status during this election), Illinois, and New York all resting to the left of the tipping-point state.
• Similarly, Republican dominance in the industrialized south and rural west is readily apparent here. While Democrats of years past relied on state’s like Texas and Georgia to serve as their electoral bedrock, by 1992 all of them have fallen into Republican hands.

1996

Electoral Vote

• Clinton~ 256
• Dole~ 259

Tipping Point State

• Pennsylvania
• Real margin: D+9.2
• Real NPV margin: D+8.5
• Difference: D+0.7

Takeaways

• The positive 0.8 point difference between Pennsylvania’s Democratic margin and Clinton’s actual NPV total suggests that Democrats actually had the theoretical systemic advantage in the electoral college in 1996. It’s quite possible that Bob Dole would have been able to win the national popular vote while not carrying the state of Pennsylvania and thus losing the election.
• You see some execrated trends continued from 1992 into 1996. For example, Republicans continue their march in the west and in the south by taking previous tipping point state Tennessee as well as Missouri and our beloved Oregon. Meanwhile, Democrats follow their path of party urbanization as well as northern dominance by sealing New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin into their margin. The only stick out state here, in my opinion, is Louisiana: Clinton did incredibly well here in 1996 and improved on his ’92 margin (call it southern charm perhaps).
• Pennsylvania’s status as the tipping-point state is symbolic of the commonwealth’s increased status within Presidential politics, as many Presidential campaigns of both parties will make considerable plays in the region for nearly every cycle to come.

2000

Electoral Vote

• Gore~ 267
• Bush~ 246

Tipping Point State

• Florida
• Real margin: R+0.01 (537 votes out of the 5,963,110 cast)
• Real NPV margin: D+0.5
• Difference: D-0.501

Takeaways

• Florida! Florida! Florida!
• Of course, the most famous example of a tipping-point state is Florida in the election of 2000. This is one of those rare cases where the tipping-point state is also the closest state by margin (many don’t know that New Mexico was closer by number of actual votes… gosh 2000 was a nail biter everywhere!). As such, the map does not change at all besides coloring in Florida as the election decider.
• Of course, Republicans win back the electoral college advantage and this point was certainly litigated in the press and the courts as the country tried to figure out who won Florida.
• Outside of the Florida drama, we see Democrats collapse in the Dixie south as the Clinton bastions of Arkansas and Louisiana are wiped out by Bush. It won’t be until the DC suburbs drag Virginia into the Dem’s corner that we’ll see a former confederate colored blue on a tipping point map.
• In other regions, both parties trade blows with Democrats taking back Oregon and New Mexico while Republicans grab the swing state of New Hampshire.

 

2004

Electoral Vote

• Kerry~ 264
• Bush~ 254

Tipping Point State

• Ohio
• Real margin: R+2.1
• Real NPV margin: R+2.4
• Difference: D+0.3

Takeaways

• Once again, the electoral college vote swings back to the party that didn’t have it four years prior (seeing a pattern here?). However, there is a little more than meets the eye here: while Ohio actually tracks the NPV pretty closely in 2004, the state itself was only won by Bush by around ~150,000 votes. Meanwhile, Bush won the popular vote by over 2 million votes and is the first President to receive an absolute majority in the NPV since his father in 1988. This is significant because while New Mexico and Iowa flip in this tipping point map compared to the real one, Ohio could have still made the difference all on its own for Kerry. There is a timeline out there where Kerry makes up that ~150,000 difference while Bush still handily wins the popular vote, perhaps with the same majority. Who knows what this outcome would have done for electoral reforms, as we would have sequential Presidents from different parties who each won the White House without winning the NPV. Interesting to say the least!
• From a trend standpoint, not much is interesting here as the map set in place by 2000 is largely held. But this is fascinating when taking into account that turnout for the 2004 election was immense: over 17 million more ballots were cast in 2004 than four years prior.

2008

Electoral Vote

• McCain~ 269
• Obama~ 262

Tipping Point State

• Iowa
• Real margin: D+9.5
• Real NPV margin: D+7.2
• Difference: D+2.3

Takeaways

• Once again, more of the same! From a trend standpoint, both parties have sinked into their respective coalitions of the most recent cycles. Any changes to the paradigm could be attributed to the specific circumstances in each state that follow along our general thesis of urban vs rural. For instance, Nevada’s fold into to the Dem column could be attributed to growing numbers in the Las Vegas metro while Republicans maxed our their rural margins in the state. On the other end, Ohio falling into red America could be attributed to sluggish growth in state’s prominent metros (Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland) while Republicans have grown their strength in the once predominantly Democratic eastern townships and counties.
• It should also be noted that in this case, if Obama were to win Iowa in this map, the election would be tied at 269 EC for each candidate (the election would then be thrown to the House of Representatives and they would decide who the next President would be). This is because both candidates have different tipping point states. In this case, if Obama were to win Iowa, the next closest contest he could win would be Colorado and that state would take him over the finish line. I considered coloring both states purple but since the tipping point map is usually oriented towards how to get the loser across the finish line, I decided to focus on Iowa.
• Democrats had the highest EC advantage of any party in this year compared to every election since 1992.

 

2012

Electoral Vote

• Romney~ 266
• Obama~ 263

Tipping Point State

• Colorado
• Real margin: D+5.4
• Real NPV margin: D+3.9
• Difference: D+1.5

Takeaways

• More of the same! When reduced down to a 50/50 contest, it’s quickly apparent that four elections between 2000-2012 have been based around the same electoral framework with only slight variations between them on a state by state basis. The Former confederate states combined with the farm belt makes up the Republican coalition while Democrats lean on the north east and the west coast. The rigidity of these coalitions speaks to the partisanship and the urban vs. rural divide that has dominated our political discourse. The similarity of these neutral maps highlights those underlining forces, even when certain candidates went on to expand the map with their wins.
• Again, Democrats have the EC advantage.

 

2016

2012

Electoral Vote

• Clinton~ 268
• Trump~ 260

Tipping Point State

• Wisconsin
• Real margin: R+0.77
• Real NPV margin: D+2.1
• Difference: D-1.33

Takeaways

• Virginia is back in the fold as a Democratic state with 2016 being the first time a former confederate territory has been left of the country since 1996. Virginia’s path towards Dem dominance has been foretold since 2006, but this is the first election where the commonwealth has stayed with the Democratic nominee even as she was losing the electoral college.
• Wisconsin and most of the midwest sees itself caught in the balance between the two parties. While Donald Trump won the White House off the back of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, they are also the first states to flip back in this slightly more neutral environment. This shift is the natural next chapter of electoral polarization as Democrats begin to lose their grasp over blue collar rural communities in the upper midwest and rustbelt. While the margin of victory in all three of those states was under one percent, time will tell if Republicans are able to permanently align themselves with the white working class or if the Democrats can regain some lost territory.
• While the Republican’s demographic victories can be readily seen in this map and the election as a whole, not all is for Democrats in this picture: Hillary Clinton was able to make massive gains in the Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio metros. While not enough to flip their states or show up on this map, the trajectories set in place there suggest that the sunbelt may be key to delivering the White House to the Democrat’s next President.
• The EC advantage has finally swung back to Republicans as their gains with rural and working class voters is magnified in the upper midwest rustbelt.

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Final Takeaways

• Gosh, what a journey we’ve been on! With that being said, I think we can confidently say that for as much as changed in these maps, much more has stayed the same. Notably, the Clinton years saw the most amount of variation and trends almost completely solidified by the election of 2000. This is a testament to the following: the rural vs. urban political divide has been deep in political our political life for decades. At least on the Presidential scale. While some candidates may be able to win states outside of this paradigm during good years for their parties, the neutral state of this country leans into those existing divides. While some states ebbed and flowed as these trends persisted, the vast majority of the union stayed in place. In this case, decades may have past, but electoral math stayed largely the same.

 

• There was a lot of hemming and hawing from pundits following the 2016 election who said that Democrats are facing a long term electoral college disadvantage due to Hillary Clinton winning the popular by millions while also losing the contests that decided the President. While this is certainly a downer for Dems in 2016, the long term implications may be more of a wash: they may have to worry about this disadvantage against Trump in 2020, but this post has shown that party who holds the advantage in the EC can switch election by election. While Dems took a consistent lead from 2004-2012, that was all washed away by Trump’s play in the midwest during 2016. In the grander scheme of things, it would probably be best for both party’s strategy to be focusing on the emerging demographics that align with their candidates or causes and go from there. For instance, there may be a time very soon where a Democratic nominee is able to win of a bare victory in the sunbelt, lose the midwest by a considerable margin, and lose the NPV by a hair. In that case, it may be the Republicans hollering for the abolishment of the EC then!

 

• Taking all of this in, it’s important to remember that these represent one data point: recent Presidential elections. The demographic trends at the heart of this equation can be seen in so many other different political landscapes. It’s also a good time to point this out: Presidential politics is different than the politics of Congress or state politics or local politics. Are all of them connected in certain ways? Absolutely. Do the trends and events that impact one of these bodies have an impact on the others? You know it! However, the difference is that the structural attributes of each system deal with trends and events in different ways, subsequently changing their partisan composition in ways that differ from national Presidential results.

It’s in the next post where we’ll analyze some of those differences of change and by looking at how the US Senate has morphed in the wake of polarization and rural vs. urban divide.

As I have gotten older, I’ve begun to realize that time seems to be moving faster and faster with each passing week. What felt like one excruciating wait in the fifth grade is now one whirlwind and a hangover away from appearing as I approach my 22nd year. Things are not slowing down, and that is a terrifying. But if you’re willing to brush aside some existential dread about the course of your life or finding happiness before it’s all over, there are quite a few upsides: the wait between seasons of your favorite HBO series feel shorter, the sting of a breakup takes less time to fade, and, if you’re me, it feels like we’re always in an election year!

While I was not alive when then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton snatched the keys to the White House from President George H.W. Bush in 1992, enveloping myself in the maps and political history of the time allows you to imagine what it most likely felt like to inhale the air of that era. No, it’s not enough to replace replace the memories of being there, but this exercise is still a luxury of youth none the less. Pretty soon, our minds may be filled with timespans so immense, there may not be enough room to throw ourselves into lives we didn’t actually live.

All of that to say: politics moves quick!

And I feel it’s time to get to the main attraction: beneath are the results of every presidential contest from 1992 to 2016 as well as baseline commentary about what these elections mean about the American political consciousness.

(winners in each category are bolded)

 

 

1992

Governor Bill Clinton (D-AR) vs. President George H.W. Bush (R-TX) vs. Ross Perot (I-TX)

Popular Vote:

Clinton~ 44, 909,889 (43.0%)

Bush~ 39,104,550 (37.4%)

Perot~ 19,743,821 (18.9%)

Electoral Vote:

Clinton~ 370

Bush~ 168

Perot~ 0

 

1996

President Bill Clinton (D-AR) vs. Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) vs. Ross Perot (I-TX)

Popular Vote:

Clinton~ 47, 401,185 (49.2%)

Dole~ 39,197,469 (40.4%)

Perot~ 8,085,294 (8.4%)

Electoral Vote:

Clinton~ 379

Bush~ 159

Perot~ 0

2000

Vice President Al Gore (D-TN) vs Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

Popular Vote:

Gore~ 50,999,897 (48.4%)

Bush~ 50,456,002 (47.9%)

Electoral College:

Gore~ 266

Bush~ 271

*one elector from the District of Columbia refused to vote out of protest*

2004

Senator John Kerry (D-MA) vs President George W. Bush (R-TX)

Popular Vote:

Kerry~ 59,028,444 (48.3%)

Bush~ 62,040,610 (50.7%)

Electoral College:

Gore~ 251

Bush~ 286

*one faithless elector from the Minnesota voted for John Edwards*

2008

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) vs Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

Popular Vote:

Obama~ 69,498,516 (52.9%)

McCain~ 59,948,323 (45.7%)

Electoral College:

McCain~ 173

Obama~ 365

2012

President Barack Obama (D-IL) vs Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA)

Popular Vote:

Obama~ 65,915,795 (51.1%)

McCain~ 60,933,504 (47.2%)

Electoral College:

Romney~ 206

Obama~ 332

2016

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY) vs Businessman/Entertainer Donald Trump (R-NY)

Popular Vote:

Clinton~ 65,853,514 (48.2%)

Trump~ 62,984,828 (46.1%)

Electoral College:

Trump~ 306

Clinton~ 227

*seven faithless electors voted for other candidates*

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Democrats won the popular vote in every one of these elections except for 2004.

West Virginia was Bill Clinton’s 3rd best contest in 1992: he won the state by around 13 points. Hillary Clinton would lose the state by 42 points 24 years later.

2008 saw Virginia going Democratic for the first time since 1964.

2016 saw Wisconsin going Republican for the first time since 1984.

Ohio has closely mirrored the national popular vote since 1960… until it didn’t: Trump won the state by 8 points in 2016 while loosing the national popular vote by 2.

I could go on…

Captured in these maps is a timestamp of perceived American values and sensibilities. While political candidates of all kind often strip away their unseen edges when it’s their time to shine in the electoral spotlight, each of these elections represents a choice presented to the country at the ballot box. Do you want change or the status quo? Do you want to move past the sex scandals of the previous administration or stick with the party that bolstered a strong economy? Do you trust the current President to keep your family safe? Do you believe one of the nominees should be locked up?

The intimateness of these questions, the personal ways they’re litigated in your neighborhood or friend groups, all of this tends to mask the brute force electoral math at the heart of campaigning for the White House. Analyzing these results from a geographic and demographic lens, the following points can be surmised about our American electoral sphere:

Zipcode Destiny

Looking at the popular vote, Bill Clinton’s ~5 point win in 1992 is one tick above Obama’s ~4 point win in 2012. However, from a geographic lens, the spread out nature of Clinton’s coalition is apparent to even the casual observer. Clinton, coming off the reigns of being Arkansas’ Governor, wins six states south of the Mason Dixon Line versus Obama’s two. While both Presidents won western states like New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada in their first bids for the White House, Clinton’s capturing of these states is evident of electoral outreach: none of them had gone for a Democrat since 1964, and all of them would flip back to the Republicans at least once before Obama sealed these states up for good. On the other hand, Obama’s domination of urbanized states represents the Democratic party’s increased consolidation of metro voters: Clinton would break ground for Democrats in the state of California with his 14 point win in 1992, but Obama would steamroll in the state 2o years later by a margin of 23 points. Similarly, Clinton captured New Jersey (the state with the highest population density) by a meager 2 points in 1992. Obama would win by 18 in 2012.

Meanwhile, recent Republican gains in rural states is outright shocking. Sixteen years apart, both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote (Clinton by 2 and Gore by 0.5) and lost the electoral college in their respective elections. Gore lost Kentucky by 15 Points while Hillary lost it by 3o. Gore nearly made West Virginia competitive with a modest six point loss. Hillary lost the state by a greater than 2-1 margin. Bush was able to beat back Democrats in the state of Missouri with a 3 point win. Trump won the state by 19 points 16 years later.

Before moving forward, it should be noted that none of these elections exist in a vacuum: the conditions around individual candidacies and individual moments in time are perhaps the biggest factor that goes into reasoning why one person is elected President over another. We could spend hours dissecting the valid reasons why George W. Bush was a better fit for the Boston suburbs in New Hampshire or why Hillary was uniquely bad at getting out the vote in the drift less counties of Wisconsin. Those points will be litigated on forums and in the media until the end of time, and they’re valid discussions. I’m trying to show you the results and attempt to compartmentalize them in the broader scheme of politics.

To that end, the past six elections have consistently shouted one thing with increasing volume each four years:

American politics is leaning into the rural vs. urban divide with the suburbs becoming the ultimate battle ground. No longer do we live in a time where candidates like Governor Kate Brown can rely on rural logging communities on Oregon’s southern coast to get across the finish line in a statewide race. Similarly, Oregon Republicans face historic losses year after year because they are locked out of not only Portland’s interior metro, but populous exurban communities in Washington and Clackamas counties. While there is still room for some candidates or causes to break the mold on the basis of a variety of different circumstances, the prevailing truth is that these trends have continued to dominate with each passing cycle.

A Different Perspective

While these trends are apparent by looking at baseline presidential results, there is room to appreciate the fact that a Clinton plus 9 win may put a different lens on the map than a Gore plus 0.5 result. The truth of the matter is that a close to even election may shed a better light on the geographical barriers that divide our American political and cultural lives into two halves. While it’s impossible to go back in time and make every election a nail biter, it is possible to dial back the state by state results to show what these elections would have looked like if they were more evenly divided.

And I have done just that! Follow along to the next post to see how these skewed election results shine a new light onto demographic trends discussed above.

 

Hello World!

So Goes The Nation is a blog centered around the visualization of the changing American political landscape of the past three decades. From the era of Bill Clinton and down ballot Dem majorities to a new Republican order and the election of Donald Trump, this blog will use maps and media documents as the foundation for analysis that will hopefully put some sense into our political past, present, and future. While I am still toying with the scope of this project, the posts of this blog will almost certainly touch on the following subjects: presidential swing states, congressional majorities, party strength on a state by state level, money in politics, and the electoral power of demographics.

In a time of pandemic anxiety, economic turmoil, and polarization throughout the country, it may seem odd to create on a project that is, at the end of the day, a focus on the prominent political battles of recent times. I don’t really have a great answer for my personal interest… this is just what I’m into! But taking a look at the bigger picture, I fall back on a few foundational lessons I’ve learned from studying this field: politics is about power and knowledge is the key to unlocking that power. Knowledge on the communities you wish to serve. Knowledge on the political players of your state. Knowledge on impact of economic indicators on a President’s reelection bid. Knowledge on how to canvas using your smartphone. All of these are smaller pieces to a larger puzzle about power in America.

While I’m not saying that reading this blog will prepare you enough to run for your state legislature or mount a campaign against your incumbent Congressperson (but I would love it if you did anyways), I hope you leave this project with the power that comes from knowing this material. Maybe it will spark an interest in politics and you’ll setup an email notification for the latest generic Congressional ballot polls (I’ll save you a click: Democrats are up 7.7 points according to FiveThirtyEight.com). Maybe it will inspire you to run for local office. Maybe (i.e. most likely) you will just pick up on more details when a story about Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy plays on NPR. Either way, there’s something for everyone here. All I hope is that you leave with a greater understanding about our current political moment and the power that comes along with that knowledge.