How the states vote in the upcoming presidential election will determine the distribution of electoral votes. The states of particular interest to political prognosticators are the swing states, so-called because they’re labelled toss-ups that might swing either way.
But people want to know in advance which way these states will swing (it’s a human thing) and that provides forecasters of all stripes with a rich vein to mine. Podcasters are vying with corporate media in the popularity stakes with newcomers like Meidas Touch Media attracting over 3 million real subscribers (as opposed to the bot followers that right-wingers pay for to artificially prop up their numbers).
Firstly, which are the swing states this year? The New York Times names eight states, though one of them is just a portion of Nebraska; not all of Nebraska, just one district in Nebraska. So I put that state aside and focussed on the other seven.
How would I determine whether these states are more likely to go red or blue? I decided to look at the most recent results in the top three statewide races – statewide because their electorates can’t be gerrymandered. The big three comprise the races for Governor and both US Senate seats. So how do the seven swing states fare on this calculation?
Every one of these states has Democrats in one, two or all three of these positions and only one of them has a majority of Republicans (North Carolina with two US Senators). Of the remaining six, half of them have two Democrats and the other half have all Democrats elected in those three statewide races.
Sidenote: The table records which party the voters were favouring when they were marking their ballots. When Kyrsten Sinema was elected to the Senate she presented herself as a Democrat so all those who voted for her were voting Democratic. The focus of the table is on the voters, not what the candidate thought or did after the election.
In all swing states, voters are overwhelmingly trending blue and it’s a promising trend. Add to this the extraordinary result of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on April 4, 2023. Judge Janet Protasiewicz won the election by 11.02 percentage points, which flipped the court to a liberal majority.
The Wisconsin Democrats (aka WisDems) figured out an ingenious way to energise the youth vote and that made all the difference. How they did it is explained in this episode of The Bradcast.
It was a turning point in Wisconsin. The new Court majority ruled in favour of redistricting and that decision alone will have a positive impact on this year’s general election.
The patterns and the signs are good – but only if everyone votes! So vote blue, and take everyone with you!
Until the votes are all in and counted, polls mean absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Sorry, post all you want about the tide turning, polls showing VP Harris ahead, etc., but they don’t mean squat until all the votes are tallied and she hopefully wins in a gigantic landslide too large to contest or the gqp to mess with.
You didn’t actually read the article, did you, because if you had, you would’ve discovered that it agrees with you, that polls are not trustworthy. That’s why this article doesn’t cite any polls but looks at other indicators that do show in which direction the majority of votes are trending.
I learned something today about psychics! Thank you for giving me my one thing I need to learn every single day (at least one thing!). I never knew that they were a thing in the political world. I thought they were just crackpots on phone lines lol! Thank you!
So you did decide to read the article after all! I hope you noted that it agrees with you about polls.
Thanks Michelle for the interesting view on this topic. It’s early (for me) in the day so brain isn’t quite “on” yet but I’m having trouble understanding the point about state races being gerrymander proof. Also I thought I read that Kyrsten Cinema of AZ was not seeking re-election so hard to tell what that might mean. And though a Dem, she’s about as blue as Trump’s red rubber nose. Anyway, enjoyed the article.
I agree with Old grey dude’s explanation of why statewide races can’t be gerrymandered. It’s because it’s a whole-state race in which every state citizen votes for the same race. The only races that can be gerrymandered are those in districts that are just a portion of the state – the borders of those portions can be designed to favour one party.
The information in the table is correct at the time that each election took place. When Kyrsten Sinema was elected to the Senate she presented herself as a Democrat so all those who voted for her were voting Democratic. The focus of the table is on what the voters were thinking at the time of each election, not what the successful candidate did years after the election.
OK – got it, thanks.
You’re very welcome and I’m grateful for your comment. I edited the article to better explain the focus of the table and that is thanks to you!
state races cannot be gerrymandered because all voters vote for governor and senator, unlike Congress or state reps which can be drawn to put certain voters together to create unbalanced legislatures