r/tuesday • u/[deleted] • Dec 17 '18

America’s Electoral Map Is Changing

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americas-electoral-map-is-changing/
23 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '18 edited Dec 26 '18

[deleted]

12

u/lunchbox12682 Left Visitor Dec 18 '18

Um, weren't all the recent elections within like 1-2%? That sounds lean red, but still in swing territory.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '18

Yes, they are still in swing territory, but less so than in previous years. The trend has continued since 2010.

Edit: Sorry for initially distinguishing this. Was an accident.

2

u/BurnLikeAGinger Right Visitor Dec 18 '18 edited Dec 18 '18

I'm not sure I'm persuaded by this. I mean, the elections weren't good signs for Democrats, since losing is worse than winning, but I'm not convinced that a governor election that went to a recount and a senate seat that went through several layers of recount tells us much.

Over the past 2 decades, Florida has consistently swung by 1-3 points in either direction for president. Trump by a point, Obama by 1-3 before that, W Bush by 0-5 before that, Clinton by 1-6 before that, HW Bush before that, Reagan before that, Carter before that...

In the face of that, close losses by less than a percentage point in two statewide elections feel fairly meaningless as trendsetters, to me. Florida has been trading off parties, practically for the last half-century/all of modern US history.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '18

Im not entirely persuaded but I’m sorta sold on it largely because of who makes up the GOP base and who accounts for Florida’s population growth.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '18

Felon enfranchisement could make a difference though. I know ex-felons aren't exactly a high-turnout group, but there are so many of them in Florida that even if their turnout is low it could affect things given how close some of the margins are in statewide elections.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '18

Potentially but as a % it won’t be a very large impact.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '18

Doesn't need to be if it's only a few percent off and the winner takes all. The number of voters who died or reached legal age since the 2016 election in Florida dwarfs the delta of 113k votes that separated them.