2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Republican Party’s Uphill Path To 270 Electoral Votes In 2016
By Dan Balz
A recent conversation with a veteran of GOP presidential campaigns raised this question: Which, if any, of the recent battleground states are likely to become more Republican by 2016? The consensus: very few.
That reality highlights one problem Republicans face as they seek to regain the White House after six years under President Obama. Lots of factors affect elections: the quality of the candidates, the state of the economy, the effectiveness of the campaigns. But in a country whose demographics continue to change, Republicans will begin this campaign with one significant disadvantage.
Over the past three decades, the political leanings of many states have shifted dramatically. What once was a sizable Republican advantage in the electoral college has become a decided Democratic advantage.
One way to look at this is by comparing two overlapping 20-year periods. In the first, 1980 through 2000, Republicans won four of six presidential elections. In the second, 1992 through 2012, Democrats won four of six.
The first period was the era of Republican dominance the start of the Reagan era. In the 1980s, many people suggested that Republicans had a lock on the electoral college. Democrats were in woeful shape. Heres what the numbers showed:
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-gops-uphill-path-to-270-in-2016/2014/01/18/9404eb06-7fcf-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)If we don't win back the House and keep the Senate which is an up hill job, our President in 2016 won't be able to do much.
villager
(26,001 posts)n/t
Dopers_Greed
(2,640 posts)The districts are too gerrymandered. We should have taken it in 2012 based on popular vote.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I think holding the Senate and gaining some in the House is going to be the result, which is not going to help much.
on point
(2,506 posts)otherwise the dlc third way folks are going to chase away voters.
There is no reason for the dems to win if they continue to represent the 1%
UCmeNdc
(9,601 posts)santamargarita
(3,170 posts)"The Republican Partys Uphill Path To STEAL 270 Electoral Votes In 2016"
mvymvy
(309 posts)By 2016, The National Popular Vote bill could guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored
after the conventions.
When the bill is enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. States can, and frequently have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent or past closely divided Battleground states: CO 68%, FL 78%, IA 75%, MI 73%, MO 70%, NH 69%, NV 72%, NM 76%, NC 74%, OH 70%, PA 78%, VA 74%, and WI 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK 70%, DC 76%, DE 75%, ID 77%, ME 77%, MT 72%, NE 74%, NH 69%, NV 72%, NM 76%, OK 81%, RI 74%, SD 71%, UT 70%, VT 75%, WV 81%, and WY 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR 80%, KY- 80%, MS 77%, MO 70%, NC 74%, OK 81%, SC 71%, TN 83%, VA 74%, and WV 81%; and in other states polled: AZ 67%, CA 70%, CT 74%, MA 73%, MN 75%, NY 79%, OR 76%, and WA 77%.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 32 state legislative chambers in 21 rural, small, medium, and large states with 243 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 10 jurisdictions with 136 electoral votes 50.4% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
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struggle4progress
(118,356 posts)modrepub
(3,503 posts)when you divvy up a couple of blue states' electoral votes based on percentage or (gerrymandered) congressional districts. That has been seriously talked about in PA. I would hope that a president elected by EC over popular vote would cause a ground swell to abolish the EC system, which disenfranchises a fair amount of votes from US territories and such.