|
Edited on Sun Nov-02-08 02:24 PM by liberalpragmatist
Southern California used to vote HEAVILY Republican. Also, the Hispanic and Asian populations were significantly smaller. Even today, actually, Southern California whites vote more Republican than Democratic.
Moreover, throughout the '90s, suburbanites switched from voting Republican (for Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and even for Ford), to voting for Democrats or at least splitting their votes. Some major reasons: (1) decline in racial polarization, which used to pit (black) urbanites against (white) suburbanites, (2) GOP descent into religious fundamentalism which boosted the GOP in rural areas to the detriment of their standing in suburbs, and (3) Clinton fiscal policies in the '90s, which made lots of moderates more comfortable with voting D.
The result? California and Illinois are now reliably Democratic. New York, which actually voted for Reagan, Nixon and nearly voted for Ford, is now almost as Democratic as Massachusetts. New Jersey, which was more Republican than the national average in '92, is now reflexively Republican.
The same process is what's turning Virginia from a solid GOP state to a tossup or even lean-Dem state, and turning North Carolina into a tossup. It's also what turned Florida into a tossup state.
By contrast, Dems have fared worse in rural areas as their base solidifies as northern and suburbanite. The rise of the religious right and the death of old New-Deal-era voters have made several states in the South and near-South much less Democratic these days. That's why Missouri is only a tossup or even slight lean McCain, despite the fact that Dukakis barely lost it. That's why West Virginia is now a reliable red state, and why Tennessee, historically the most moderate Southern state, is now nearly as Republican at the presidential level as Alabama.
It's silly to think a nationwide swing will be uniform across states. In different years, there are different conditions in different states. '88 is a good illustration of that. States like Missouri and even Montana and South Dakota were closer (and more D) than states like New Jersey and Illinois.
|