Monday, October 27, 2008

Flipping, Flopping Florida and Upper Midwest Overview

Although the overall vote shares was unchanged since yesterday:

Florida's flipping back into the John McCain column means that McCain is back over the 200 electoral vote total:

The revised current electoral map is:

Among the swing states, McCain saw a very slight improvement in Indiana in addition to his retaking the lead in Florida. Barack Obama's lead in Nevada was unchanged:

However, Obama's leads in the bellwether states of Missouri and Ohio were little changed:

Our regional focus shifts today to the Upper Midwest, a region somewhat dear to my own heart being that Michigan is my native state. This region is highlighted in the map below:

The map below gives a closeup of the six states making up this region:

The region was as reliably Republican as any region in the country between 1860 and 1960. Michigan and Iowa voted Republican 21 out of 26 times in that period, Indiana 20 times, Wisconsin and Minnesota 19 times and Illinois 18 times. This Republican leaning however had a progressive streak as evidenced by Teddy Roosevelt carrying Minnesota and Michigan on the Progressive ticket in 1912 while Robert LaFollette did the same under the Progressive banner in his home state of Wisconsin in 1924. With the transformation of the Republican party into a more libertarian and later religious conservative party beginning with the pivotal 1964 presidential election, the Upper Midwest region became somewhat reliably Democratic leaning. This has especially been the case in Minnesota (the only state to vote Democratic in 1984), Wisconsin and Michigan. Although Illinois and Illinois and Iowa have voted Republican 6 times of 11 since 1964, they have leaned Democratic since the 1988 election. Only Indiana stands out, having remained steadfastly Republican throughout the post 1964 era ignoring the shifting sentiments in adjacent states.

This time around however even Indiana may vote Republican should the national sentiment shift sufficiently between now and election day next week. Indiana is the only state where McCain appears to have a chance of carrying. The remainder of the region, including Obama's home state of Illinois, appear safely in Democratic hands at this juncture:

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