Will Vermont’s 27-Cycle GOP Presidential Streak Ever Be Broken?

6 Comments

1. toto on May 1, 2012 at 11:28 am

   States’ partisanship is hardening.
   Some states have not been been competitive for than a half-century and most states now have a degree of partisan imbalance that makes them highly unlikely to be in a swing state position.
   • 41 States Won by Same Party, 2000-2008
   • 32 States Won by Same Party, 1992-2008
   • 13 States Won Only by Republican Party, 1980-2008
   • 19 States Won Only by Democratic Party, 1992-2008
   • 9 Democratic States Not Swing State since 1988
   • 15 GOP States Not Swing State since 1988
   http://www.fairvote.org/presidential-elections-state-by-state-hardening-partisanship

   Presidential elections don’t have to be this way.

   The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

   Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in more than 3/4ths of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the primaries.

   When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.

   The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.

   In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.

   The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

   NationalPopularVote
   Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via NationalPopularVoteInc

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2. DN on September 7, 2012 at 9:47 am

   Actually a national popular vote would not make every vote politically relevant, but would only shift the power of votes from swing states to largely populated areas like NYC, LA, and Chicago. With a national popular vote, candidates wouldn’t even need to court rural voters because those areas become irrelevant. North Dakota? Who cares about North Dakota, if their say gets diminished without the electoral college.

   Bottom line is that the electoral college works. We are a nation that is made of independent and EQUAL states, and smaller populated states shouldn’t be marginalized. California and Wyoming are equals in this nation, and the electoral college mixes that equality with proportional population statistics in order to elect our president in a way that is fitting for a Republic since that is what we are, not a democracy.

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   • Pippin on July 13, 2016 at 8:15 am

     That’s undemocratic, it’s putting more importance proportionally into hundreds of thousands than tens of millions. Focus on the individual instead of a geographic cluster. If one hopes to be represented they shouldn’t do it from the top down with arbitrary borders which eclipse a petri dish of individuals, they ought to organize from the bottom up a group with similar interests

     Reply
3. business and finance blog on July 24, 2015 at 5:00 am

   Good post. I’m going through some of these issues as well..

   Reply
4. nikoli orr on December 22, 2016 at 2:43 am

   1. AZ’s 11 consecutibe R streak (5 active as of 9 of 11/2016) was overlooked in the text (though, in fairness, not in the chart). What gives?
   2. Thank/blame R Nader for the active 5-cycle R streak; his presence on the 2008 ballot likely cost BHO the then-bellweather state; otherwise, it would now have only 2 3-cycle ones, during the Roaring Twenties and “Greed-is-good” Eighties.

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5. nikoli orr on December 22, 2016 at 6:42 am

   OK, #2 refers to MO. And the 11-cycle by AZ is not an “active” one.

   Reply