CoolBlue71
JUB Addict
When the 2008 Democratic nomination was fought over, in the primaries, between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the latter made a speech that pretty much said, "As I'm sure you are well-aware, the election is won through the swing states."
Of course that's not true.
What the swing states are about are margins. Numbers. Single-digit margins of victory for a candidate in the last cycle. In 2004, George W. Bush was [re-]elected, over John Kerry, with 286 electoral votes. Nine states were in Bush's column by single-digit margins: Iowa (0.67) and New Mexico (0.79) which, for Bush, were Republican pickups; Ohio (2.11), Nevada (2.59), Colorado (4.67), Florida (5.01), Missouri (7.20), Virginia (8.20), and Arkansas (9.76). Obama, as 2008's Democratic pickup, flipped all those states except Mo. and Ark. He shifted 9.72% away from the incumbent party (and its nominee John McCain), easily erasing Bush's 2.46% national margin (historically the lowest for a re-elected incumbent), and won the 2008 popular vote by 7.26%. Making up for not flipping Mo. (bare hold for McCain, at 0.13) and Ark. (one of two states that conspicuously went in opposite direction of the national tide and toward McCain, at 19.86) were Obama winning pickups with North Carolina and Indiana. (Bush carried Kerry's vice-presidential running mate's home state at 12.43, and he carried Ind. at 20.68.)
Numbers are involved. But shifts are all over. And they're easily one sided in elections where we switch the party in the White House. When that happens, as was the case in 2000 (D to R) and 2008 (R to D), the tide goes against the incumbent party and toward the challenging party. And that's true regardless of the specific states visited during a presidential campaign.
Let's not kid ourselves. After N.M. and Arizona joined the union, 100 years ago in 1912, we had our 48 contiguous United States. And from that point forward there were 11 (of the last 25) elections that saw the winner carry beyond 80 percent of the available states. Those came in 1912, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1952, 1956, 1964, 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988. Also during this period, there were 4 elections that saw the winner carry a 70 percentile range of available states. Those came in 1920, 1924, 1940, and 1944. So, 15 of the last 25 elections resulted in the winner carry more three-quarters of the states. In the last five elections (1992 through 2008), no winner has shot past the 60 percentile range. Bill Clinton (1992, 1996) and George W. Bush (2000, 2004) were in the low 60s. (Neither won more than Clinton's 32 states, from '92.) In 2008, Barack Obama won 28, for 56% of available states. But his electoral votes were on par with Clinton's.
What this tells me is that both parties like Hillary Clinton's philosophy. Why? It means not spending the campaign money, as well as the time and energy, on states that are small in population, regardless of whether their voters can be won over. For example, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming were routinely voting for the winner of nearly every election from the 1910s through the 1950s. So was Arizona, in its first five decades of statehood during this exact period. During that time, Utah got it "wrong" only in 1912, and likewise Wyo. in 1944. And that's a reliable record with each. 1960 seemed to mark the period when they could no longer be counted on, and they tilted Republican ever since. (Word is that, for those who believe the 1960 election was bought for John Kennedy, his father didn't want to go too all-out and said, "I'm not trying to buy a landslide.") Nowadays Ariz., with its changing demographics, is being perceived as potentially competitive. Also nowadays, Idaho, Utah, and Wyo. will vote Republican with more than 60% of their states' electorate even in years the GOP loses. Well, in 1992, when Clinton unseated George Bush Sr., Ariz. held for the 41st president by 1.95% while Wyo. held by 5.60%. Perhaps this is nothing, given the trio's combined 13 electoral votes barely outnumbers Ariz. (now with 11 electoral votes; they were close to reaching 12 for this decade).
I say it comes down to both parties figuring there's little importance of a landslide on the scale of 40 states and/or 400 electoral votes and up. That you can just look at the "traditional swing states" of Florida and Ohio, ranked Nos. 4 and 7 in population, and figure those two states are premium examples of determining who will be assured of having won. (They vote usually no greater than five points outside the national margin.) After all, Fla. has been in the column of all winners since 1928 (except John Kennedy, in 1960, and Bill Clinton, in 1992, both narrowly having missed getting it). And Ohio now has the top reputation: it has voted for all winners since 1896 (except 1944, when Tom Dewey flipped it on Franklin Roosevelt, despite having won his fourth term, thanks in part to having Ohio congressman John Bricker as his v.p.; and with 1960, when Ohio, like Fla., said no to JFK).
