Good old Arizona. I've seen a fair bit of interest on the left in a demographic advantage that Democrats my someday gain in Arizona (and other states, mostly in the South). So when I analyzed Arizona's margins in the last 7 elections, I was expecting to find some interesting wiggles and bounces. I was disappointed.
Aside from a small bounce for Republicans in 2008 (caused by hometown hero John McCain at the top of the ticket), Arizona has had little movement over the past 7 elections. In constructing my simple linear model, I excluded the 2008 data, and got a prediction that in 2016, Arizona will vote about 10% more republican than the nation as a whole. As it always has.
Blatantly screen-grabbing another website that lets me easily make my own little predicted map of the 2016 election, here's what we've got so far:
In this map I've shaded the states red or blue based on my guess as to whether or not a given party has a large advantage in that state. In other words, democrats won't necessarily win Pennsylvania, but if they've lost Pennsylvania, it will be because they've done very poorly in the national popular vote. As I visit each state on this blog, I'll fill in more states on this map, or leave them blank if they're true toss-up states. But as of right now, Democrats seem to be sitting pretty.
Astute readers will note that I have declared certain states without presenting a detailed analysis. For some of those states, I'll visit them in forthcoming posts. For others, I'll just let the history speak for itself (and if you want to gamble that Wyoming breaks blue, I'll take that bet).
Aside from a small bounce for Republicans in 2008 (caused by hometown hero John McCain at the top of the ticket), Arizona has had little movement over the past 7 elections. In constructing my simple linear model, I excluded the 2008 data, and got a prediction that in 2016, Arizona will vote about 10% more republican than the nation as a whole. As it always has.
Blatantly screen-grabbing another website that lets me easily make my own little predicted map of the 2016 election, here's what we've got so far:
In this map I've shaded the states red or blue based on my guess as to whether or not a given party has a large advantage in that state. In other words, democrats won't necessarily win Pennsylvania, but if they've lost Pennsylvania, it will be because they've done very poorly in the national popular vote. As I visit each state on this blog, I'll fill in more states on this map, or leave them blank if they're true toss-up states. But as of right now, Democrats seem to be sitting pretty.
Astute readers will note that I have declared certain states without presenting a detailed analysis. For some of those states, I'll visit them in forthcoming posts. For others, I'll just let the history speak for itself (and if you want to gamble that Wyoming breaks blue, I'll take that bet).
This is really interesting analysis!
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd be shocked if NH voted for the Republican--despite its trend-bucking, "don't tread on me" reputation, it's still in New England and has voted for the Republican only once since 1988 (in 2000).
Based on the 2014 midterms, I'd think VA would be more a tossup than a safe Democrat state, where an incumbent Democratic senator was favored by something like 8 points and ended up winning by less than 1%.
It's true, the midterms went badly for the Democrats. But they also did in 2010, even though 2012 was still okay for them. There's a different electorate that turns out in the midterms than in the - finals? - general election. I didn't include that data in my model for several reasons.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, because I wasn't sure how to calibrate it in cases where, for example, someone runs for congress unopposed, or almost unopposed, or against a third-party candidate who is essentially a two-party candidate in disguise. Some states might have districts that are 35-65, and the minority party might sometimes decide not to even run a candidate. Those 35% wouldn't show up in my numbers, even though they do exist. And if I go by absolute number of senators and representatives the state sends from each party, I'm susceptible to gerrymandering, which might lead me to conclude that Pennsylvania is as safely republican as Texas! And don't get me started on census effects...
Secondly, there's also a lot of personality that comes into play on the congressional level like if someone is implicated in some kind of scandal, or if their opponent is unusually well-funded, or if they had a rough primary. The presidential results in each state can be more cleanly separated and compared with the national average, not least because the presidential candidates lately have had better handlers to prevent any scandal, and because they generally are about as well-funded as their opponent (better or worse depending how popular they are with the general public, especially the shadowy billionaire overclass).
How would you recommend to include the midterm data? The best I can think of at the moment would be a comparison of total votes cast for republican vs democrat, including all elections for representative, and all contested elections for senator.