The States He Flipped: an electoral college thread for 2012

This post results from me playing around with the EC map at 270toWin.com

The 2004 election proved to be the high water mark for the post-Reagan Republican Party, if you count the 1988 election as "Reagan Era" (which I think, given the 1992 results is a fair judgment). In Dubya's fall, we sinned all, of course but at least since then actual insanity only seems to have a working majority in the US electorate when the voter turn-out is under 40%. So now I'm thinking about 2012. In the weeks preceding the Mayan Apocalypse, how well does Barack Obama gotta do to ride out the end of the world with relative smile on his face?

His first election was pretty much a measurement of how happy Americans were with being governed by lunatics. The Electoral College said Americans preferred sanity 365 to 173. The popular vote said it was a 52.9% to 45.7% preference, but no one cares what the popular vote thinks. I mean, come on. Still, this comfortingly lopsided 2008 victory was produced by the president flipping a number of states from them to us when compared to the 2004 high water mark. And those states were...?

In the west, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico went from Bush 04 to Obama 08

In the midwest, Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa switched

In the south, Virginia, North Carolina, and Virginia switched

And that's how Dubya scraped out his 286 vote EC victory... just 17 electoral votes over a dead tie.

So the question I'm asking in this thread is: "How well does the president stand in the states he flipped 2½ years ago?" Also, are there any surprises out there? That is, states that stayed put between 2004 and 2008 that may yet flip, like New Hampshire going Red or Arizona or Missouri going Blue?

Here's what I'm looking at. In the West, Nevada & Colorado might be vulnerable, but New Mexico is snugly on our side. Arizona, I just don't think is winnable.

In the Midwest, Ohio and Indiana are at risk, but Iowa's Republicans are gonna go crazy as usual and scare the smart people in the middle over to our side.

In the South, North Carolina is a lost cause and Florida is probably right on the barn top, but Virginia can only be lost if the Republicans can keep the economy down and manage to convince the voters that it's Obama's fault. I assume Obama's still hungry enough to keep that from happening, so count Virginia slightly blue again.

Unless Republicans quit acting like Republicans, I can't imagine any other states flipping one way or another. So, given the worst case scenario... Obama wins by a nosehair next year: 270-268. If he keeps either Ohio or Florida in his column, even losing Virgina doesn't matter, he still wins. He'd have to lose Ohio and Virginia and Florida in order to lose reelection. Even if he lost all three of those, if Obama could somehow pick up Arizona plus just one other wild card Red state like Montana or West Virginia or Nevada, he could scrape out a win.

Someone with some actual wisdom about these places help me. What else do you see as dangers in 2012?

The teabaggers have complete control in those states, and we know what that means.
They will most likely be able to steal Indiana, and Wisconsin certainly can't be
considered safe unless we sweep the recalls.

Virginia is gonna be a cliffhanger.

We have a Republican Secretary of State now (and I can tell you that I know him personally, and he's a major toolbox), and he's dead-set on reversing all the good work Jennifer Brunner did in her time as Sec. of State. That means back to the dark days of Ken Blackwell and rigged voting machines.

However, if you look at Ohio and make the assumption (naive, possibly) that all the votes will be counted accurately, there is no way that the Republicans will take Ohio in 2012. We have THE worst Governor in the nation, and there is a HUGE anti-Republican sentiment here after the whole S.B. 5 Union-busting fiasco. That issue by itself turned the cops and firefighters (a group that is generally very reliably Republican) against the Republicans, and the teachers (who are about 50/50) against them as well. And guess who will be showing up to the polls to voice their displeasure. Plus, there's a MAJOR amount of buyer's remorse going on here (Kasich has record-low approval ratings, and even people who voted for him are wishing we could get Strickland back--thanks for waking up NOW, A-holes).

With neutral voting machines, Ohio is a slam dunk in 2012.

They have stolen Ohio and Florida before, they will do it again. They have even more complete control of those states now than they ever did before.
Indiana will be close enough to steal too. In Wisconsin everything hinges on the recalls. If Walker stays, we're fuku'ed.

This new strategy by the Repig governors of using state takeovers on Democratic strongholds is a huge threat, since that positions them to
do major voter suppression there. They are taking over every aspect of local government in these places, which will allow them to remove
people from the voting rolls, take voting machines out of service or rig them outright, and do whatever they want with the counts.

If Luger wins renomination he'll be on the ballot in the GE
He is very popular with most people in Indiana -- I think in 2006 he had no opponent and in 2000 it was like he didn't have one.

Indiana is a very Republican state. Lake County is the most Democratic county in the state (Obama, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Clinton, Dukakis, Mondale, Carter). I also think it's the only county in Indiana where Democrats outnumber Republicans and outnumber people who claim independent. If they don't come out in force and he he doesn't draw a good number from St Joseph's County (Notre Dame area) and Indianapolis, he'll lose Indiana.

I'd like to think NC is winnable. But I've been a southern Democrat for 47 years. I know my people.

The demographics are changing. If things are moving in the right direction, and the GOP puts up a weak candidate (or perhaps a kook), Obama will easily win a second term. Most likely he will
win the states from 2008 + a few more. A 49 state blowout it highly unlikely, though, it is possible to take 400 electoral votes.

but don't believe it for a minute

play with the map...

http://www.270towin.com/

I look at the number of states with Teabagger governors and Teabagger legislatures (27 out of the 50)
and the state takeovers of Democratic stronghold cities in those states
and the unlimited corporate and foreign money flowing to the Repigs due to "Citizens United"
and their complete control of the Mighty Slime Machine (MSM)

I have no doubt that more people would vote for Obama than for any of the current crop of Republicans,
but will it be a big enough landslide to prevent the Repigs from stealing the election?

I just didn't want to say it :P

This is a Democratic state. The political landscape here is far too dynamic for anyone to declare us a lost cause, so I am not sure how it is you're able to do so now. Here are some poll numbers:

Elon University
4/11-14/11; 630 adults, 4% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
Elon release

North Carolina

Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 48 / 45
Gov. Perdue: 39 / 52
Sen. Burr: 42 / 27
Sen. Hagan: 44 / 34

Note that the president's approval rating is basically 50/50, before the death of Osama bin Laden. Note that more North Carolinian approve of him than we do of our Democratic governor, and that many of the folks who disapprove of Perdue may be doing so because she's not progressive enough.

In a more recent poll, a post bin Laden death poll, out by Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, the president's numbers are 49% approve 43% disapprove.

Here's the link:

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-gets-bounce-but-no-boost-for.html

And a quote:

"More voters may like Obama for the moment, but there aren't more planning to support him next year. Last month Obama led the Huckabee/Romney/Palin/Gingrich quartet by an average of 10.75 points. This month Obama leads those same four candidate by an average of...10.75 points. There's been no improvement in his reelect numbers whatsoever since the bin Laden death and if there hasn't been in the week after the killing it doesn't seem likely there will be 18 months after the killing either. What Obama's approval bounce appears to be is an increase in the percentage of people who say they like him, but still won't vote for him. They appreciate him taking out bin Laden but that's not going to outweigh everything he's done that they don't like over the course of the last 27 months.

Obama hasn't received a big increase in his reelection margins, but he is still in a healthy position against his potential Republican opponents. He's up 5 points on Mitt Romney at 47-42, numbers basically identical to Obama's 47-41 lead last month. The next best Republican is Mike Huckabee who trails 49-42, a shade worse than his 48-43 deficit in April. Obama's 52-38 lead over Newt Gingrich is exactly identical to where that match up was on the last poll. And Obama's up 17 on Sarah Palin at 54-37 and 18 on Donald Trump at 53-35."

So his poll numbers are merely OK in NC, but his numbers against any of the potential Republican alternatives in NC look much better. He beats the snot out of the GOP alternatives:

"Huckabee's favorability is 33/41 and that makes him the most 'popular.' After that it's Romney at 32/41, Gingrich at 29/53, Palin at 33/60, and Trump at 24/65. As long as the GOP field continues to have this little appeal to voters Obama can afford to not be all that popular."

The only reason his overall numbers are so low in the state are that the NC Republicans really, really hate Obama. For some reason.

Also, please note that NC is not just full of southerners anymore. Our biggest source of inmigration is New York, and many of those folks are also Democrats. Also, many of the children of foreign national Hispanics who began arriving in NC about 20 years ago are now going to be able to vote, and we're here to try to get them out to vote for the president: as young, non-Cuban Hispanics, they should add to the president's margin.

I live in Durham, the most solidly Democratic large town in NC. We achieved 76.95% turnout in 2008, up from 73.13% in 2004, 53.29% in 2000, and 60.2% in 1996. Why have the numbers spiked in the last two election cycles? Activism. He have a group of dedicated active Democrats who will do whatever it takes in the months ahead-no, strike that, we have never really stopped.

Here are some fun facts from wikipedia:

"John McCain raised a total of $2,888,922 in the state. Barack Obama raised $8,569,866."

"Obama, however, did not take the traditional Democratic path to victory. Instead, his main margins came from the cities, where he did particularly well throughout the country. While Obama only won 35 of North Carolina's 100 counties, these counties contained more than half of the state's population.

Obama's victory margin came largely by running up huge majorities in the I-85 Corridor, a developing megalopolis which is home to more than two-thirds of the state's population and casts almost 70 percent of the state's vote. The state's five largest counties--Mecklenburg (home to Charlotte) Wake (home to Raleigh), Guilford (home to Greensboro), Forsyth (home to Winston-Salem) and Durham (home to Durham)--are all located in this area, and Obama swept them all by 11 percentage points or more."

"Thus, Obama did not rely on the traditional Democratic base but rather a new coalition of city voters to win North Carolina. Obama would have lost the state by a comfortable margin without the state's five largest counties; instead, he barely pulled off a victory by creating a unique coalition of voters, particularly among highly affluent and educated migrants from the Northeast who traditionally tend to vote Democratic, as well as among African Americans and college students, the two voting blocs that overwhelmingly supported him during the course of the 2008 Democratic presidential primary."

"According to exit polls over 95% of African Americans cast ballots for Obama. This played a critical role in North Carolina, as 95% of the state's registered African American voters turned out, with Obama carrying an unprecedented 100% of African-American females and African Americans age 18 to 29, according to exit polling. Comparatively, the turnout statewide was only 69%."

Obama won NC by 14,177 votes. If you want to know how, and how he will win it again, consider the 76.95% turnout in Durham, the largest majority minority city in the state. It is not a tough sell to get African American voters to vote for the first black president in Jesse Helms' home state. You don't have to explain anything to anyone--OK, maybe some technical things regarding voting, and you have to make sure folks are registered, but it is not a tough sell. We have early voting, and we know how to get people to the polls.

We have a plan: win the big cities, win Down East, win the state. I could go on all day about how we turned NC blue, and how it will go for the President again. Much of the credit goes to volunteers, and to the common sense of our Tarheel voters, but credit should also go to the Obama campaign itself. The Kerry-Edwards campaign gave up on NC waaay too early in 2004: the Obama campaign won NC in the primary, and knew they could win in the general--having the professional resources we did not have in 2004 was very helpful, though, when you have an election decided by 14k votes out of over 4 million cast, everything is decisive.

CO, NM, IA, and NV. He could even lose IA and still get to 271. Let's face facts here if Reid and Bennett can win their respective states in a republican wave just imagine how well Obama can do.

Which he won't.

They won't. His actions have pissed off a lot of people.

The Republicans will stay home if they nominate a Mitch or Mitt yawner, but then that won't scare the Democratic base out. On the other hand if the Republican nominate a fire breather who brings the loonies out from under their rocks, then that should scare a few more lefties and fence sitters to come out and play in what I assume will be a very pessimistic election.

Of the flipped states, allow him to maintain only those he won by more than 5% - Obama loses only Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Indiana
Obama wins, 285 to 253

If there is substantial improvement to the economy, toss the narrow margin states back in - add Georgia and Montana (states he lost by 5%)
Obama wins, 377 to 161

If Obama pulls off some amazing victory for Hispanics, like an Executive Order "Dream Act" surrogate - add Arizona
Obama wins, 388 to 150 - it ain't ever gonna get better than that without a miracle

Early races to watch: Pennsylvania & New Hampshire - we have trouble there, we've got trouble everywhere, and North Carolina - if Obama is stronger there than 2008, possible blue blowout!


http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html
http://www.270towin.com/

Particularly long term, but there has already been substantial change since the last presidential election.

http://www.soicc.state.nc.us/soicc/planning/c2a1.htm

"In-migration has been an influential force in North Carolina’s past growth patterns. In-migration during the first half of the 1990s steadily increased from around 75,000 to nearly 120,000 annually. In the second half of the 1990s, it steadily declined from 120,000 to around 85,000. With the decline in the birth rate, in-migration will remain an important source of the state's population growth."

"Between 2004 and 2014, North Carolina's white population is expected to grow from 6,378,000 to 7,260,000, while the nonwhite population is projected to expand from 2,162,000 to 2,628,000."

The continuing transplant of northerners has meant a net gain for Democrats in our state. The local white population has always been split between Democrats and Republicans anyway, and is going to remain fairly stable. The larger proportional increase in the nonwhite population will also probably mean a net gain for Democrats.

Certainly not an auto-win, but doable, provided nothing drastic changes and it turns out the president had a child with a member of his staff a decade ago.

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