An Electoral College Time Capsule

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— The six presidential elections held through the 25-year historical past of the Heart for Politics have been usually shut, though most states voted predictably.

— As a part of a time capsule we’re placing collectively to be opened on the middle’s fiftieth anniversary in 2049, we’re asking our future college students to think about what has modified and what has stayed the identical.

— Had we completed the identical train when the middle was based 25 years in the past, we’d have seen an Electoral School alignment from 1976-1996 that regarded rather a lot completely different than what we’ve turn out to be acquainted with this century.

The previous (and future) of the Electoral School

This previous weekend, we celebrated the twenty fifth anniversary of the Heart for Politics on the College of Virginia. That included breaking floor on an growth of our residence base at UVA and a wide range of different enjoyable occasions.

A part of our celebration was making a time capsule that will probably be opened in 2049, for the Heart for Politics’ fiftieth anniversary. The time capsule consists of all types of political relics, and one of many issues we’re going to embrace is… this text.

So we’re talking each to our present readers in addition to the scholars of the longer term. The subject, naturally for us, is the course of American presidential elections.

There are all types of huge image questions one may ask about what presidential elections may appear like in 2049—there are slated to be seven of them between every now and then, together with the election developing later this yr. From the attitude of 2024, some could ponder whether we even can have common (and actual) presidential elections each 4 years, given modern-day considerations about authoritarianism. Assuming that these fears don’t come to go, will the fundamental technique of presidential elections be the identical? Will the Electoral School nonetheless be in place? It’s exhausting for us in 2024 to think about that it wouldn’t be.

Will nearly the entire states award their electoral votes in a winner-take-all style, except Maine and Nebraska, which award some by congressional district? (As we’re scripting this, there may be an effort afoot by Republicans to make Nebraska winner-take-all in an effort to assist the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump).

Past these big-picture questions, there are the voting patterns by state. That’s what we primarily wished to give attention to right here.

Over the course of the Heart for Politics’ first 25 years, there have been six presidential elections (2000-2020). 5 of those six elections have been shut and aggressive, determined by lower than 5 factors within the nationwide well-liked vote; two of these six concerned the profitable candidate shedding the favored vote (Republicans George W. Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016). The events break up these six elections, with Republicans profitable the Electoral School in 2000, 2004, and 2016, and Democrats profitable in 2008, 2012, and 2020.

Regardless of these shut outcomes, the lion’s share of the states have voted predictably for one facet or the opposite over these six elections. Map 1 exhibits how the states voted from 2000-2020, together with their variety of Electoral School votes following the 2020 census. We analyzed these traits in depth, election by election, in late 2022 at this hyperlink: https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/the-electoral-college-in-the-Twenty first-century/. (Does the hyperlink nonetheless work? Is that this all horribly antiquated for you, 2049 reader? We suspect so!)

Map 1: Electoral School voting patterns, 2000-2020

Among the many questions we’d ask the scholars of the longer term to think about as they examine this map are:

— What number of of those states vote the identical manner they did within the 2000-2020 timeframe? Are there any main shifts? Undergo the elections which have occurred main as much as if you’re opening this—what number of states vote very constantly by hook or by crook?

— It’s practically unattainable for us to think about something apart from a Democratic or Republican presidential nominee profitable a state—from the attitude of proper earlier than the 2024 election, the final third occasion candidate to win a state was segregationist Dixiecrat George Wallace in 1968. Have any third occasion candidates received a state in your period? The Republican and Democratic events have been the 2 main events in the USA since proper earlier than the Civil Warfare of 1861-1865 (please don’t inform us there was a second one). Do these events nonetheless exist? Once more, we suspect that they’ll.

— Main into the 2024 election, the newest election the place a presidential candidate received the nationwide well-liked vote by a double-digit margin was Ronald Reagan in 1984. Has anybody completed that in your period? The twentieth century had many blowout presidential elections; the Twenty first has not (actually, solely Barack Obama’s 2008 win qualifies, and it paled compared to twentieth century landslides).

— Considered one of our spring 2024 interns, Eli Bardash, posed the next query: “How quickly and the way constantly did the ‘Blue Wall’ of the Midwest crumble (if it did, which I presume it can) and has the Solar Belt gotten bluer as a type of trade-off with the Midwest?” The “Blue Wall” refers primarily to the Industrial North states Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, which collectively voted Democratic in 5 of the six elections from 2000-2020; the one exception was 2016, when the area offered the pivotal electoral votes for Trump. Relative to the nation, these states grew to become much less Democratic over the primary couple of many years of the Twenty first century, whereas some key states within the Solar Belt (Arizona and Georgia particularly, which backed Joe Biden in 2020 after voting uniformly Republican within the 5 elections prior) grew to become much less Republican-leaning. The aforementioned states have been a number of the few considered winnable by both facet within the 2024 election, so we’re keenly within the traits in these states. Are these states nonetheless vitally vital within the late 2040s?

We suspect that there’ll in reality be quite a lot of change over the subsequent 25 years, as a result of there actually was within the 25 years earlier than the Heart for Politics opened.

Map 2 exhibits how the states voted from 1976-1996, with the electoral vote tallies listed from the post-1990 census period (because the 2000 census was nonetheless sooner or later). Had we completed the same time capsule again within the late Nineteen Nineties, when the middle opened, these are the elections we’d have included in a glance again on the earlier quarter century.

Map 2: Electoral School voting patterns, 1976-1996

One other spring 2024 Crystal Ball intern, Elizabeth Hardin, checked out Maps 1 and a couple of and contemplated the next: “The primary factor that jumped out at me was the truth that most states have turn out to be extra solidified of their occasion leaning—there have been far much less 3/3 splits in 2000-2020 in comparison with 1976-1996. I’m questioning why precisely this was, and if this pattern will proceed within the subsequent 20 years.”

To Elizabeth’s level, we’d notice that from 2000-2020, solely 15 states voted at the very least as soon as for both occasion. Within the 1976-1996 vary, it was greater than double that, 38.

Right here’s at the very least a partial clarification: Identical to within the 2000-2020 interval, the 1976-1996 interval included three Electoral School victories for every occasion: 1976, 1992, and 1996 for Democrats and 1980, 1984, and 1988 for Republicans. However in contrast to the 2000-2020 interval, the 1976-1996 interval was not broadly aggressive: solely the 1976 election featured a nationwide well-liked vote determined by lower than 5 factors, and that was additionally the one election in that timeframe the place the profitable candidate received lower than 370 electoral votes (nobody received to 370 within the 2000-2020 time interval, though Obama got here shut in 2008, profitable 365). So a larger variety of blowouts contributed to extra variety in how the states voted.

The landslide victories by the Republicans from 1980-1988 additionally give the general map a pink tint, as probably the most states the Democrats received in any of these three elections was 10 (plus the District of Columbia), by Michael Dukakis in 1988. Even of their worst election of the Twenty first century, 2008, Republicans nonetheless carried 22 states.

Right here’s what stands out to us as we examine the 2 maps:

— A number of the state-level patterns of the late twentieth century endured by way of the primary six elections of the Twenty first century. The 5 states working from the northern Texas border all the best way to the Canadian border have continued to vote reliably Republican for president, as have another western states: Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. It wouldn’t shock us if these states continued their Republican streaks for one more quarter century.

— Minnesota was the one state that voted Democratic in each election from 1976-1996 because of its lonely help of home-state candidate Walter Mondale in Ronald Reagan’s 49-state sweep in 1984. So it’s the solely darkish blue state on each maps, though Republicans have come pretty near carrying it a couple of instances regardless of that streak.

— Our residence state of Virginia has turn out to be probably the most reliably Democratic of the 11 states that made up the Civil Warfare-era Confederacy (the basic definition of “The South” in political science), and it’s the one state within the area that voted for the Democrats in a majority of the elections from 2000-2020. However within the 1976-1996 interval, it was the one southern state that didn’t vote Democratic even as soon as (the remainder of the South backed southerner Jimmy Carter in 1976, and several other different southern states backed one other southerner, Invoice Clinton, in a single or each of his presidential victories).

— An interconnected group of eight states, working broadly east to west from Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, voted for the profitable presidential candidate in all six of the 1976-1996 elections. 4 extra states—Georgia, Iowa, Oregon, and Washington—additionally break up three to 3 on this period, though they didn’t constantly vote for the profitable candidate. Within the 2000-2020 period, solely Iowa break up three to 3, nevertheless it voted for shedding candidates twice (Al Gore in 2000 and Trump in 2020). Notably, no state voted for the profitable candidate in all six of the 2000-2020 elections.

— A number of states that we consider as being very firmly Democratic within the early 2020s voted extra usually for Republican candidates within the 1976-1996 interval: California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, and Vermont all voted for Republicans in 4 of these six elections, however they voted Democratic for president in each one of many 2000-2020 elections.

— West Virginia had, by 2020, turn out to be one of the crucial Republican states within the nation, however within the final quarter of the twentieth century, it was one of many states likeliest to vote Democratic for president.

One caveat, and a potential clarification if in reality there may be not quite a lot of change in how states voted within the 2020s, 2030s, and 2040s, is {that a} large story of the second half of the twentieth century was the events changing into extra ideologically cohesive. The conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans that was once extra quite a few steadily grew to become extinct, and the Republican Social gathering grew to become extra constantly right-wing and the Democratic Social gathering grew to become extra constantly left-wing. That ideological alignment of the events has seemingly contributed to this extra secure period of partisan voting, nevertheless it additionally contributed to what many people see as a troubling sample of intense polarization by occasion. One other spring 2024 intern, Tanish Gupta, asks: “What’s political polarization like in 25 years? What has contributed extra to it? Or what resulted in it reducing?”

It’s potential that there will probably be large modifications coming to how the states vote only a few months from after we are scripting this. A minimum of some polling for the upcoming 2024 election exhibits erosion for Democrats amongst teams that sometimes are very supportive of them, like younger folks in addition to Black and Hispanic voters, whereas Democrats are doing a bit higher with older voters, who sometimes vote proper of middle. These are the kinds of demographic questions we’re pondering in 2024—these studying this in 2049 will know whether or not these polls have been selecting up on actual traits, however you additionally can have your individual questions concerning the future form of your individual political period. Maybe you’ll be able to pose them to your successors in your individual time capsule.