Right, but I’d say this is a point in favor of my argument that the election was super-close and not yours of “Trump was soundly beaten”.
I really hope I’m very wrong about the future. I’ve been wrong before. After the 2018 elections, I was VERY bearish on the Democrats getting to 50 senate seats in 2020.
I think we might be okay for the senate in 2022. I’m a little scared of a few states, but Democrats might even pick up a seat or two. But the governors races are pretty scary. Losing some of those (specifically in the midwest) will not be good at all.
And the senate map for 2024 is a straight up horror show.
I think Virginia should be safe. The state has turned hard blue over the past decade or so. Nevada is similar, but less secure.
All of the rest of those are possible to probable losses.
And there aren’t even good opportunities to pick up seats to offset any losses.
The best red-to-blue opportunity might legitimately be Florida. (Yes THAT Florida)
All of this happening with the excitement and interest of a presidential election on the same ballot.
Forgive me for being pessimistic. I’d like nothing more than the Republicans to be wiped out across the board. I just don’t see it happening. 2018 and 2020 just were not good enough.
That doesn’t make any sense. The fact that the states are not randomly distributed means that most of those elections weren’t close at all. I suppose that it’s a definitional game, but if you’re saying that Obama 08, Clinton 96 and Bush 00 are all ‘super close’ then ‘super close’ means absolutely nothing.
As much as I love pointing and laughing at the GOP, I think it is wildly destructive for the country to have them implode to this degree. Dominant political parties are bad news, period. And within the next 10 years or so I think we’re going to see a permanent Democratic majority at the federal level, including and especially in the executive branch.
If that’s your standard at least it’s consistent, but again, those states are not coincidences. Those results are linked to one another and with the overall national outcome. That link is strong.
And what I’m saying is that every single state could have shifted +4 points in the R direction for Bush 41 in 1996 or for McCain in 2012 and it wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference.
If every single state shifts +4 points (or even half that) for Trump in 2020, he is president right now.
This is why 2020 was close, while 2008 and 1996 were not.
Not to be the bearer of bad news, and boy is it ever, but Trump would have won the election with only a ~.5% increase in his popular vote total. I’ll post the statistical analysis tomorrow, damned if I can find it now, but this election was barely won by Biden.
The GOP presidential primary process ensures that no moderate or even semi-reasonable candidate can ever be the nominee, and there is no indication that this is going to change.
Demographics. People who vote Republican are either dying or having fewer children than people who vote Democratic.
Echo chamber. Of course you have the Jeb Bushes who see the nuttery, but within gerrymandered districts and in the pockets of idiocy like Utah, there is absolutely no understanding of just how much the GOP is turning off non-nuts.
Incentives. There is no incentive for any powerful party to change, which one possible exception, the ultra wealthy, who don’t seem to want to. Republitard wingnut congresspeople are going to keep getting elected, what do they care. Wingnut media members rake in the dough the nuttier people get - they aren’t moderating. Think tank types are necessarily partisan and are driven by the politicians and donors, not the opposite. You could say the incentive is ‘winning the presidency,’ but that’s the wrong way to look at it. To get nominated a moderate has to court the people with the wrong incentives.
So what is the result? The best the Republican Party can do at the federal level over the next 10-15 years is to block stuff. Now that’s not all bad, gridlock and be really productive. But if the Democrats ever take the House I think there are some real potential problems on the horizon.
What he is saying is that the margin for the tipping point state was very close. For 2000, 2016, and 2020 less than 1%. For the other years you listed the tipping point state margins were 9% or 5% except 2004 which was 2%.