The Blue Wall Goes Red

Later this week, and continuing through at least Christmas, I’ll begin offering articles looking at how party strength has dramatically changed in certain states over the past two decades. Some of these changes are shocking, and most predate Trump’s rise (although in most, it appears as though his candidacy accelerated the trend considerably).

But for now, I’ll content myself with a single broad observation. Trump, after arguing during the primaries that he could expand the map and win in places where Republicans hadn’t won in decades. The Midwest, in the end, provided Trump’s winning margin in the Electoral College, with his wins in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, three states that hadn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the 1980’s. (I know there is currently a recounteffort underway, but that will not change the final results enough for Clinton to end up winning any of the three.)

Consider this: Going into 2016, there were eighteen states (plus D.C.) which had voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election since 1992. These states totaled 242 electoral votes, only a few short of the 270 needed to win the presidency outright, and while a few of them were usually close, conventional wisdom had it that they would all come home in the end. And that figure didn’t even include states like New Mexico and its five electoral votes, which George W. Bush won narrowly in 2004 but has otherwise been fairly Democratic at the national level.

Over the same period, by contrast, Republicans had won just fifteen states consistently, totaling 102 electoral votes. And while former Democratic strongholds and battlegrounds like Arkansas, West Virginia, and Missouri had since become reliably Republican, they only represented a handful of votes between them.

Now, the tables seem to be turning. Obviously Trump’s margin of victory in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania was extraordinarily close, and all three will likely be battlegrounds for a long time to come. But the three states represent forty-six electoral votes between them, and it is clear that Democrats will no longer be able to rely on any of them. Furthermore, Trump’s margins in Iowa and Ohio (9.6 and 8.6%, respectively) are the largest margins of victory in those states in recent history, with his margin in Ohio being the largest in at least twenty-four years. Whether those results were a fluke or a taste of things to come, only time will tell.

But for now, Republicans have consistently won 180 electoral votes since 2000, while Democrats have won 195. Add Ohio and Iowa to the Republican column, as well as even one of the former members of the Midwestern Blue Wall, and it is suddenly the GOP that starts out with a (slight) advantage in the Electoral College.