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I know there is tons of talk about “Electability” when it comes to the current Democratic Nominees and much talk about the Electoral Votes. The main issue seems to be, will their Primary wins translate into Electoral Vote wins? According to the latest Clinton/McCain and Obama/McCain charts, they’re not doing so well in the Electoral Vote area. So, who wants to see some maps?! I know I do! The starting map image was borrowed from Electoral-Vote.com, and I gathered the data and colored them in.

Let’s start with the Wins (and current predicted wins) for Obama/Clinton:

The biggest thing you can see here is that Obama rules the Midwest and South East, while the South West and North East go mainly to Clinton. Sure, that’s a generalization, as there are a few states that don’t fit the mold (Florida, Washington, Maine), but it’s a good sum up of their strengths. So, with seeing that map, most people say that Obama is great at winning Red States, while Clinton can easily pick up the “standard” Blue States. Is this really the case? Let’s go back a few elections and see which (if any) States are really “red” or “blue”. First up is the 2004 Election – Bush v. Kerry:

As you can see here, it’s a little mixed, but Clinton did win a majority of these Blue States, while Obama picked up most of the Red. So, will the next map show the same layout of Red/Blue? Here comes the 2000 Election – Bush v. Gore:

Some very slight differences, but this map clearly shows similarities to the Obama/Clinton map, so it’s settled, right? There are usually the same Red States and Blue States for ever and ever and the only hope exists in these “Swing” states that could go either way. Right? Let’s check another election to be sure. This map is for the 1996 Election – Dole v. Clinton:

What the…? This map is all wrong! Why is there so much Blue? Well, if one thing is for sure, it’s that Mid-Western States like Montana and Colorado are definitely “Red States”, and the entire South East is pure Red as well. Odds are a Democrat couldn’t ever win there, right? Let’s go back 4 years and see, welcome to the 1992 Election – Bush Sr. v. Clinton:

What is going on here? This is just crazy! Let’s check two more elections to see if there is any pattern here. Second to last we have the 1988 Election – Bush Sr. v. Dukakis:

Wow… that’s a lot of Red there. Let’s check one last map, the 1984 Election – Reagan v. Mondale:

There is some blue on that map, right? I think I see some up near Canada, but it could be a smudge.

Okay, so looking at these Electoral Voting maps over the past 24 years (6 elections), what do we have when it comes to “Blue States” and “Red States”? Let’s do blue first:

Consistent Blue States (over the past 24 years):

• Washington DC
• Minnesota

Consistent Red States (over the past 24 years):

• North Dakota
• South Dakota
• Wyoming
• Idaho
• Utah
• Alaska
• Nebraska
• Kansas
• Oklahoma
• Texas
• Indiana
• Missouri
• Alabama
• North Carolina
• South Carolina
• Virginia

So, out of our 50 States (and DC), only 18 have been consistently Red or Blue for the past 6 General Elections. While some tend to swing back and forth more than others, it doesn’t mean the others are neccessarily Red or Blue. Take a look here at two versions of the same map. The first show any state that “Swung” over the past 24 years in Gray, the other shows them in varying shades of Purple, depending on how often they vote one way or the other:

So, what does all this tell us when it comes to electability? What does it tell us about who could be whom in what State? It tells us that if you’re taking your data from the past elections, only 35% of the States are either “Red” or “Blue” and that almost anything can happen. Look at the 1984 Electoral Vote Map and tell me that anyone would predict the results of the 1992 Electoral Vote Map happening only 8 years later.

The best chance anyone candidate has is to just focus on America as a people. If we keep dividing everything up as “Red State” or “Blue State”, we’ll drive each other apart. It’s interesting to go back and look at all of the data, because I think most people imagine there really are set red and blue States, and it seems (for the most part), there really aren’t.

By the way, here’s your “Fun Fact” of the day… did you know it wasn’t until the 2000 Election that the whole “Red/Blue State” started? Check it out:

Early on, the most common—though again, not universal—color scheme was to use red for Democrats and blue for Republicans. This was the color scheme employed by NBC—David Brinkley famously referred to the 1984 map showing Reagan’s 49-state landslide as a “sea of blue”, but this color scheme was also employed by most news magazines. CBS during this same period, however, used the opposite scheme—blue for Democrats, red for Republicans. ABC was less consistent than its elder network brothers; in at least two presidential elections during this time before the emergence of cable news outlets, ABC used yellow for one major party and blue for the other. As late as 1996, there was still no universal association of one color with one party. If anything, the majority of outlets in 1996 were using blue for the GOP and red for the Democrats.

But in 2000, for the first time, all major electronic media outlets used the same colors for each party, most likely as a result of the official colors for the presidential candidates, with Gore’s campaign using blue lawn signs and imagery and Bush’s using red. Partly as a result of this near-universal color-coding, the terms Red States and Blue States entered popular usage in the weeks following the 2000 presidential election. Additionally, the closeness of the disputed election kept the colored maps in the public view for longer than usual. Journalists began to routinely refer to “blue states” and “red states,” even before the 2000 election was settled. After the results were final, journalists stuck with the color scheme, such as The Atlantic’s cover story by David Brooks in the December 2001 issue entitled, “One Nation, Slightly Divisible.” Thus red and blue became fixed in the media and in many people’s minds despite the fact that no “official” color choices had been made by the parties.

Now you know!