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.
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.