Reviewing 2004 election coverage

 So this is getting to be some really vintage stuff at this point. Doing 2004 election coverage. This might be the last one as this is getting kinda boring, and the further back I go the more detached I feel from it, and the more boring it gets, but I do have a map for this one, and I remember the 2004 election as it was the first I paid decent attention to (although I couldnt vote in as I was too young). I still MIGHT do 2000 if I feel like it, just because it was such a clusterfudge, but yeah. 

Hours 1&2

They didnt seem to cover the map that well, they're just like "oh we'll call it as we go", without being like "these are the swing states." I mean, I guess Florida and Ohio seemed to be the big swing states, but again, they didn't do as good of a job discussing it. ABC seemed a lot lower budget back then and it felt like an 80s news studio by this point. Like REALLY outdated and low end, even for the era. 2008 kinda felt dated too come to think of it, not sure if it's an ABC problem or if it's just a 2000s problem.

ANYWAY, I have MY map based on polling data, so let's discuss the paths. 

 

So, this was a close one like 2016 and 2024, and the news seemed extremely cautious here. Probably because 2000 was such a nightmare with having to retract calls over florida and the like. But yeah, it's a tossup, but a bush favored tossup. 236-300 Bush is the projection, with a 56% chance Bush wins. 

For swing states, Oregon came up a lot, it's D+4.8, but it kept being mentioned because they do their entire election by vote by mail. More common these days, but back then it was a novelty. Michigan and Minnesota were in play. PA and New Hampshire were tossups in the Kerry column, and kerry needed to secure Iowa and Florida to win as the path of least resistance. other tossups included Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Arkansas. Yeah, radically different map than 2008 onward. Obama realigned the electorate himself, and then Trump/Biden did too in their own ways. And 2028 is likely gonna be another free for all as Trump takes a hacksaw to the republican coalition. But yeah, this map is virtually unrecognizeable in some ways, while it's also recognizeable at the same time. Like, just looking at it, Ohio and Florida were THE big swing states to get. The rust belt still leaned liberal, even if I have wisconsin projected for Bush here (it went to kerry). Virginia, New mexico, and Colorado were all red here. Those states used to be more conservative. It was urbanization and Obama that shifted them left. This is the map that Mitt Romney was trying to run on, thinking he could reverse Obama's 2008 changes and be able to pull off a win. But no, the electorate stayed with Obama, and this map is dead, and feels like it's from a different era in a way. Just think of how 2028 might change the map if republicans get unpopular enough. We're already seeing it in the senate this year. 

Anyway, speaking of Obama, he was a bit of a star of the show too. Kept being mentioned because he won his senate race pretty handily and was a pretty major rising star. Say it with me guys: Abdul El Sayed for president, he could be 2028's Obama. 

Anyway, I do wanna discuss this map a bit more. I see why it comes down to Florida and Ohio, if Kerry couldnt snag one of the two, it doesnt seem to matter what else he could do here. Iowa, 245, Hawaii, not sure why that's even a swing state here but let's give it the benefit of the doubt, 249, Wisconsin, 259, Arkansas, again not sure that should even be a swing state but following the polling data, that's 266, New mexico, 271. yeah. He really does need Florida or Ohio here. Probably florida, I wouldnt count on Ohio. I mean, keep in mind, "wave theory of elections." The results arent entirely random, you got red/blue waves and if one state swings, the rest of the country or part of the country is likely to swing similarly. If Kerry doesnt take Florida, or Iowa, or Wisconsin, he sure AF aint getting Ohio in all likelihood. And if he gets Ohio, he will likely carry most states up to Ohio on the map. So...yeah. 

Hours 3&4

And in hour 3, Florida is called for Bush. The rest of the map is largely non controversial for the time. The results mostly went in line with my map, outside of Wisconsin flipping blue (so kerry DID overperform), and HI too. Again, not sure if the polling data was faulty on HI as its normally safe blue, but again, taking it at face value. So yeah, at this point, it all came down to Ohio, and ABC didnt wanna call it even though other networks did because they wanted to be cautious. Possibly due to PTSD from Florida in 2000. *sigh*

Yeah, like, I kinda would say that Kerry was cooked by this point. We've seen this happen again and again. First 2 hours its just back and forth, by hour 3, we get an idea where the energy goes, and we often see the race called by 4 or 5, depending how fast and decisive it is. While 2004 was a closeish election, basically a repeat of 2000, eh...Bush seemed to have the advantage, and if he could get Florida, eh....Ohio is probably locked down.

The only election we looked at where the candidate the energy was against won was Biden in 2020, and he won because he was projected to romp Trump in an Obamaesque way, and then barely won. He had the runway to underperform whereas Clinton and Harris didn't. And 2004 is a lot like a 2016 or 2024 style election, just less stressful because it was boring and low stakes as fudge. I think I recalled someone called it the most important election in their lifetime, and really? Imagine thinking 2004 is the most important election in my life time. If anything, it's probably the most boring, inconsequential one in my lifetime all things considered. A far cry from 2024's "democracy itself is on the ballot" (because the republican is a psychopath who wants to overturn democracy and be a dictator). And again, this is the thing. I know I'm rough on Trump, but I have to be. Bush sucked, but he was just a standard politician. Like, democracy will live on after him. Not sure about Trump in that regard at this point. But I digress. 

Hours 4&5

There was a lot of discussion here about why the race played out as it did. Some asked if the democrats lost the south "forever", and the real question is "well, how long is forever?" Ya know, because party realignments are a thing. In the 2020s now Virginia and New Mexico are blue states. North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona are swing states. Florida is a red state. But yes, they lost it for a generation after 1968, and I cant believe they're still debating that. It was obvious by this point. 

 There was discussion of culture and values. How big city liberals "don't get" the needs of more southern and rural voters with their guns and religion and blah blah blah. And yeah, most republican voters were driven by values concerns. I mean, I get it, if I could vote at the time, I would've been too. I was a Christian nut back then and I was like, god doesnt approve of abortion and gay marriage and blah blah blah. Again, different era, but these crazies still exist today. But back then, they were FAR more popular believe it or not. Not as dialed up with the crazy, but they didnt have to be because since 1980 they just....dominated culture. Again, we're talking core 6th party system here. The last real election where republicans held a real cultural hegemony over the country. As we know, Obama kinda broke that, and then we got trump as these guys turned reactionary and....here we are...

There was also talk of Iraq. And how some voted for Kerry because they didnt think that we should be fighting such a pointless war, but others were like gung ho die hard in favor of it, so they wanted Bush. 

Kerry voters seemed driven by the economy. I mean there was a 2001 recession and the economy wasnt AMAZING in the 2000s, but clearly 2008 changed things a lot.

Really, if anything, 2008 and 2016 seem like their own respective mini realignments. 2008 broke the republican fever of the Reagan era somewhat. But then Trump led the GOP turning reactionary. And then post Obama the dems crapped the bed with their centrist direction. And here we are. It's hard to tell if we're in like a full on different era or a transition period, but yeah, its clear CORE 6th party system is dead. Like the Reagan conservative dominated era is gone. It's unclear if anything can be said to have replaced it. Obama led to the idea that the GOP was toast, but then Clinton's hubris and Trump managing to realign the country in his own way gave new life to the GOP. Although now 2028 is looking like ANOTHER possible 2008 moment for the GOP, and if we get the right candidate, maybe we CAN end this era for good and turn the page. But yeah. It's been a rough 20 years politically. 2004 seems very quaint and distant now. I see why people are sometimes nostalgic of this era these days, but let's face it, back then we thought the world was on fire too, especially after 9/11. 

 Anyway it doesnt look like they ever called Ohio in these videos. Again, they're cautious because of 2000. Although it seemed like everyone else DID call Ohio, and the Kerry people seemed somber like is often the case for the losing side. Again, Ohio by this point was never seriously gonna go to Kerry. Look at my map, if Kerry wasn't carrying Florida, Ohio was most likely out of reach. I get the whole "let's be cautious" mentality, but by the end of the video, everyone else DID call it. so it was this one network that didn't. There was talk of Kerry possibly contesting the results, but I dont think much came out of that. Nor did anyone die because sore losers stormed the capitol. Ya know, because that was psychotic ####, Don. 

Conclusion  

Anyway, that's 2004. Lessons....not many. Literally the most boring election I covered. Very ho hum. Very quaint. And despite how competitive it was on paper, it was still a bit of a romp for Bush. I recall it at the time and I always felt like Bush would win. Liberals just werent popular back then, and yeah, values voters, Iraq, ya know, people were happy enough with Bush to go along with him. I dont even think the democrats really tried at the time. Like...they were siding with Bush's agenda after 9/11 until it was time to campaign. Then suddenly they started attacking him and it felt very...fake.  I dont think the democrats did a very good job here. Kerry was uninspiring, they largely agreed with Bush until it was time to campaign against him, and people didnt buy it. Bush just was the default option...and he won because not enough people wanted change. It's just...the curse of centrism to some degree. You cant motivate your own side, you cant convince swing voters. You come close, but then you implode last minute. Gore did it too, and Clinton, and Harris. Same crap. 

Anyway, will I do 2000? Again, not feeling very motivated, I run out of polling data going further back so I cant make good electoral maps for predictions to compare my results to, and it looks like back then they didn't have the sophisticated "here's the map, here's the swing states" either. Whole thing felt super low budget. Like, I swear, I've seen podcasters have better presentations than this. Felt like a local station, not a national syndicate. And at that point, i dont really wanna bother. But again, 2000 was a mess so it might be fun just to do one more for posterity's sake. Tbd on that.

If I dont do that, this series is complete. Hope you enjoyed it, was kinda fun going back over elections over the course of my political life, looking at how things changed over time. The world has changed a lot in 20 years. Sometimes for the better but also for the worse. The 2000s kinda feels like the 80s these days, which makes sense since the 80s are as far from the 2000s as the 2000s are from the 2020s. But really, wtf is with these super low budget news presentations. Holy crap. Talk about dated. But I digress. 

Reviewing 2008 election coverage

 So...I'm gonna keep going for now. Kinda getting bored with this, the further back I go, the less attached I feel to the outcome, but I'll likely go to at least 2004, and maybe 2000. 2004 is the limit for the data I have. If I cant follow along with the polling, it kinda destroys half the fun for me. Although I might do 2000 because it was such a dumpster fire with the florida situation. Anyway, 2008, Obama vs McCain, let's go. 

Hour 1

Like always, they go over the map, and I'll do my map here. This is pretty much the prediction I had I think, I know I got north carolina wrong, but I cant imagine getting indiana right, so I'm gonna assume I did get both wrong. At the time, I was in college, I was actually in political science taking a stats class at the time, and we were encouraged to make election predictions. I think the closest one got a prize, but I lost because someone nailed it 100% apparently. But yeah, i did go over RCP data, past voting records, and I even looked at the probabilities based on the MOE based on what I learned in class. That's how I developed the basics for my current methodology btw, I used a 3 point MOE at the time, not 4, I didnt go 4 until 2016, but yeah, that said, this was a romp. it was always gonna be a romp, and with a 3 point MOE, Obama winning was basically statistically significant. With a 4 point, it's slightly less than that, but still close. Either way, mcCain wasn't winning. It seemed obvious.

 

Anyway, I was a conservative at the time, so I was dooming HARD looking at this. It seemed like Obama winning was a foregone conclusion. Come to think of it, 2008 for republicans kinda felt like 2024 for democrats. Might be why we're finally seeing a left wing tea party rise from the ashes. Hope that leads somewhere, but I digress. Anyway, let's look at the map.

On Obama's side, we got all of the usual suspects, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Michigan is basically not even on here as it's SAFE. Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada. And that brings us to 270 by itself. With a margin of 6.5%. Yeah, 95% shot at winning with my adjusted 4 point MOE. McCain was screwed. But then it goes on, we got VA and CO, which i discussed in 2012, we started seeing the suburban realignment here. Ohio and Florida are both in the Obama column as well. I got a projected 339 votes for Obama and 199 for mccain. As I said, a romp.

On McCain's side, the swing states seem so bizarre here. South Dakota? You never see that any more. Then North Dakota was only at 2.5 for the dems. Indiana was at 1.4, and that actually did go to Obama (he overperformed). North Carolina did too. Missouri was a swing state by less of a point. And what are now the sun belt states were red only by 3-4 points. And this was in 2008, crazy, absolutely crazy. This itself felt like a realigning election at the time, and I guess it was. As I said, I feel like each president in the 6th party system minus maybe Bush 1 and Biden were mini realignments, and even Biden was kind of a map realigner himself. This is why Im not sure if it's safe to say trump is a full blown realigner, or simply self contained mini alignment. It's very well possible 2028 could see a further realignment of the map as Trumpism tears itself apart and we see the democratic party in a civil war between the centrists and the DSA types. 

But yeah, for McCain to win, he would need not just everything in his column, but Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, and then either Nevada or pennsylvania. Long story short? Not happening. There's a reason he has a 5% shot. 

Anyway, the first hour mostly talked about the map and also stuff that happened like Joe the plumber on the campaign trail, who I forgot about until this replay.Anyway, what seemed to drive people to vote for Obama? Apparently it was the economy. The great recession just happened, and it is what caused this massive blue wave. Kinda like that meteor from deep impact wiping out the east coast. BOOM. The republicans never had a shot. Honestly, even without that, I doubt that McCain could win. Republican party morale was at rock bottom, even among republicans. Bush's approval was awful, the war on Iraq backfired massively and turned into a quagmire with no end in sight. The deficit was out of control, which alienated a lot of fiscal conservatives. And Obama had this youthful energy of hope and change causing droves of young people to turn out for him. The recession just made it worse. Honestly, the Reagan coalition should've ended right there, but as we know, republicans fight for what they believe in, and democrats...don't. So they were able to claw themselves back to relevance while democrats just kinda roll over. 

Hour 2

We start getting states called that actually matter, like Pennsylvania. And it's called basically as soon as the polls closed, which apparently pissed off the McCain campaign. What do you expect dude? You're down 7.3 with a 3% chance of winning. And it doesnt matter how much time he invested in PA. Maybe he needed it to win, I mean normally when youre down 7.3, I'd say youre wasting your time and you should consider another path to victory, but this actually WAS the path of least resistance for him. He was just at such a disadvantage. And yeah they talked about voters here, and again, it was the economy, they talked about how even a lot of racist white voters voted for him because they thought hed improve their lives. Makes me feel a bit better about El Sayed, although he isnt facing a crippling recession with his campaign in Michigan. Still, thinking back, the attacks on "Barack Hussein Obama" remind me of the attacks on "Abdulrahman Mohamed El Sayed." Ya know, he's a muslim, he's a communist, he's gonna destroy America, blah blah blah. We've heard it all before and Obama won. Hopefully El Sayed will too. Hell, let's go further, Abdul El Sayed is attacked for ties to Hasan Piker who is more radical than he is. Obama had ties to people like Reverend Wright and Louis Farrakan. Reverend Wright is infamous for being like "NOT GOD BLESS AMERICA, GOD DAMN AMERICA!" And yeah, you can imagine how that went over. Again, the more I think about it, the more parallels this guy has, to the point I would almost like to see him run in 2028. Abdul can be the new Obama with better healthcare. 

Beyond that, they talked about how Obama actually was winning both among lower income people, but also higher income people. Again, this is where you start getting the suburban shift idea that Clinton tried to build on, only to end up imploding Obama's coalition. And winning both did allow Obama to win by a comfortable margin. But maybe at the same time the Obama coalition was always unsustainable. Maybe we were either gonna see white working class men or upper class suburbanites leave, since the democrats cant reliably keep both, and maybe the Obama map was doomed to fail like it did. Something to think about. Maybe the implosion of the Obama coalition was inevitable the way the implosion of the Trump coalition may very well happen in the next couple of years. Even if trump has his loyalists, I cant see him keeping independents and swing voters on his side here. There's a reason he's at like -20 approval and the map is swinging so blue. Independents are leaving him in DROVES, causing only his core coalition to back him. Again, each president seems to bring in a mini realignment with their own respective coalitions, and after 8-12 years, they implode. Sure, we got the larger 36+ year cycles, but again, just looking at Bush, Obama, and Trump being their own little self contained eras, and knowing the clinton years and Reagan/Bush 1 years were their own little self contained eras as well gives credibility to this. Maybe each new president has to chart their own path with their own coalition, building on what was done in the past, but not going nuts with replicating the past.  

Hour 3

By this point, it seems obvious that McCain is losing. There's discussion of what went wrong, and it seems to come down to the economy and demographics. The republican party has a long term demographic problem. It's what's driven them to their modern bout of fascism as they're preparing for minority rule. If they cant win through democracy, break it until they can. But yeah, 2008 is where this problem started to be obvious. THe republicans were appealing to a demographic that was aging out. A lot of millennials were voting for the first time around 2008 (including me), and the republican party was out of touch with these demographics. Republicans appeal mostly to whites, and younger demographics are increasingly nonwhite (again, which is why the republican party is going fascist). It's a math problem. And while Trumpism/democratic incompetence pushed back the expiration date of the republican coalition, they still face this looming problem, and 2028 is looking to be 2008 again.

Hour 4

So, this got called pretty early again, and I aint watching beyond this. Sure, there's McCain/Obamas' speeches, but I really am more interested in how the election played out, especially relative to my predictions. When it was finally called, it seemed like they were willing to admit the obvious: McCain was never gonna win. He was DOA. It was like 2024 when Biden was still the nominee. Actually, Biden STILL had better odds than McCain did in 2008. Seriously. It was the economy, it was demographics, it was everything. 

Conclusion

2008 feels like a different world. The video was grainier, there were still phone calls in the news room, it feels like the 80s and 90s do in my head. Which is weird since back then, it didnt feel THAT much different than now at the time. We lacked smart phones but thats about it. 

At the same time, 2008 feels closest to the modern 2026-2028 environment. Here we are again, and the GOP once again feels DOA over the economy, unpopular wars, etc. And while Trump is unique in that he is uniquely incompetent, the root problems with the GOP are the same. They cant govern, but they win when democrats suck. But Obama was youthful, he seemed progressive, and he was himself a bit of a generational change candidate. He was the millennial candidate. And while I still consider the Obama era as part of the 6th party system, he kinda has that nixonesque charm where he could have been the template going forward (Nixon preceded Reagan in that regard).

WHich...incenses me more about 2016. I had to post this in an internet argument, but I was watching this at the time, and hey, looks like the same map just about!

Gee, if only we ran that guy in 2016. Would've had the same energy. And after 2008, it would've wrecked the GOP for a generation. 

Which...brings me to 2028, I know I just talked about suburban strategies and the sun belt, but uh...the map is changing...again. Apparently PA just had a special election out in butler county, ya know, where Trump was shot and the people out there practically worship him, and the democrat won. IN BUTLER COUNTY. For the 2026 senate, we got tons of red states like Texas, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, and Alaska all in play. Yeah, Ohio, which we lost to the republicans due to democratic incompetence is in play again. 

And....an anecdote I heard about James Talarico I heard today reminds me of that anecdote about Obama, how all these die hard conservative white guys who are normally racist AF are gonna be going for the democrat this year. IN TEXAS. 

We got Abdul El Sayed in Michigan, and he's facing the same crap Obama did in 2008. Oh, he's a muslim, oh he's a communist, oh, he has questionable connections to extreme people. And despite whatever moral outrage the centrists had over it, Obama DOMINATED. And you know what? Maybe El Sayed will too.

Hell, Im starting to think El Sayed should run for president. If we want to replicate the Obama phenomenon but with a progressive, he might be a good option. AOC doesnt have the charisma, neither does Ro Khanna. And before people say El Sayed is too young, hes too inexperienced, he wont even serve a full term in the senate, NEITHER DID OBAMA! He won his senate seat in 2004, ran in 2008, and got in. Again, Abdul El Sayed comes off to me as 2028 Obama. Mamdani also has that magic but he wasnt born here, so....yeah, El Sayed for president? I'd be behind it. 

We might have a once in a generation (or at least half of a generation) opportunity to flip things in 2028 and finish what Obama started with the destruction of the GOP and the reagan coalition. But we gotta run a progressive who actually intends to enact generational change. THat's where Obama F-ed up, he had this energy, then did nothing with it, and then the centrists got back in and ran Clinton/Biden/Harris....which brought us back to the dark Gore/Kerry days of the 2000s. 

Speaking of which, I plan on covering both. 2004, I have a map for that one, 2000 I don't, but I wanna reexperience the dumpster fire first hand, because that was arguably wilder than 2020 was. We didnt know who the president was for WEEKS afterward. But yeah, I'll do those next. 

Was the sun belt strategy necessary for democrats in 2016? is it necessary now?

 So....it's no secret at this point, that Clinton and Trump changed the electoral map. We just analyzed the 2012 electoral map, and Obama basically had a rust belt firewall that, as long as it remained impenetrable, republicans were functionally locked out of the electoral college. I mean let's bring up the 2016 election prediction again. 

 We had Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania all firmly in the D column similar to virginia and minnesota in more recent cycles. Obama was a bit less, similar to say, new hampshire. We had iowa. And at this point, VA and CO, which are now democratic mainstays, were just starting to flip blue. Obama's coalition was mixed. It relied primarily on a rust belt strategy, but also started to appeal to a second suburban strategy instead, relying on the suburbanization of previously red and purple states.

This led to the 2016 electoral map:
 

 Here, the rust bely was still important, but Clinton clearly downplayed it. And that's actually why she lost. She literally lost Obama's main firewall that made him invincible. She neglected it. She was so busy on winning the sun belt, trying to win North Carolina, and Georgia, and Arizona, and quite frankly, this was a stupid and suicidal strategy. 

Quite frankly, it's obvious to me why she did this. She was a centrist, she wanted the party to remain centrist, and democrats made a deal with the devil to trade working class rust belt workers for suburbanites, so they could push fiscal moderation instead of economic populism, this proved to be disastrous, and led to the rise of the trump era, and his realignments. In 2024, the map looked like this:

 Now, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are chief swing states needed to win elections, with Ohio being lost, Iowa being lost, Florida being lost. VA and CO on the other hand are reliable parts of the democratic coalition. And the electoral map is a lot more hostile to democrats than it was.

Now, centrists will argue this was necessary, they'll argue that due to demographic shifts, that the rust belt will be a less reliable path to the presidency, and we need to expand to the sun belt. The real question is...is it?

Well....yes and no.

It's no mistake in 2020, the rust belt took a beating as reapportionment took away some population, and democrats stand to take another beating in 2030.  Between blue and rust belt states losing population, we stand to lose a whole 11 electoral college votes, most of which go to republican states.

If we rely on the current WI/MI/PA strategy to win exactly 270, this strategy will fail, because in 2032, those states will be worth less and only net 261 electoral votes, leading to another state to win.

 Map is from 270towin btw. Anyway, The problem with this theory though is it assumes the CURRENT electoral map. The map of 2024. Had we stuck with the 2012 rust belt map, we'd be able to win Ohio and Iowa. Here's what it looks like with Ohio.

See, we didn't need to abandon the rust belt, we just needed to be able to keep winning fricking Ohio. We could lose Florida. Say that still turned into Desantis land due to retirees and Cubans hating "socialism." We'd still be able to maintain the Obama coalition into the 2030s....as long as we could keep Ohio on our side. And this isn't even counting Iowa and Nevada. 

So the idea that this change was "necessary" was complete BS. 

However, at the same time, is it necessary now? Not because it was a looming necessity, but because the centrists butchered our winning coalition and now the map is different to the point that we're not getting Ohio back? Perhaps. 

Right now, Ohio is in the same category as states like Texas, Alaska, Florida, and Iowa. All pretty soft red states, maybe likely R in a neutral cycle. Sure, many of them are in play in 2026 and maybe even 2028, but that's only due to an apocalyptic blue wave on the horizon. In normal election cycles, these would be republican. 
 

So what's the alternative? Basically, we do gotta do the sun belt. Nevada is too small on its own to count and that's been in play for a while, but now the big states to swing are going to be Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona. And here's the catch. My politics HATE the sun belt strategy. While economic populism can work well in the rust belt given the lack of good jobs, the sun belt is more suburban people who are more fiscally moderate. 

Say we get MI/WI/PA/NV, we still need ONE more state. Assuming we can't get IA or OH, we're gonna need AZ, GA, or NC. 

 One might wonder why I threw Alaska in there. Well, it too has been going in a strange democratic direction lately, and even more so, it basically has that oil dividend which is basically pro UBI, so if I wanted to run on UBI and needed THREE more electoral votes, well, that's 270!

 

otherwise, what would I bet on of the three I posted? Georgia. Here's why. I don't believe in going to the rust belt, I believe in the rust belt coming to us. Georgia is pulling a Virgini right now. It's rapidly urbanizing around atlanta, and it's like the one state that still had movement to the left in 2024. I remember a map showing that in a sea of red, atlanta was still moving in a blue direction. NC and AZ have been resisting those trends more, so I see them as harder sells, but I think GA is gonna do what CO and VA did. So assuming we can win that, we can make up for the loss of Ohio. Still, it fumes me we even lost Ohio. The Obama map was perfect for my own electoral strategy. Having to deal with suburbanites with conflicting ideas down south really throws a wrench in the leftward momentum of the party toward economic populism. 

 So, do dems have paths to the white house? Yeah. But without a trumpesque map change to reclaim the rust belt, we're now stuck relying on sun belt states to win. Which compromises an economically populist platform. While during the Obama era, we could win without the south, we didn't need the south, and why oh why do we wanna bother appealing to those conservative guys? Now we kinda do. It's not that this was inevitable though. Had we maintained the Obama map, even with demographic shifts, we could've maintained an electoral advantage that would have shut out the republicans. WI/MI/PA/OH, boom. Done. CO and VA become part of the coalition anyway, maybe eventually we get GA NC or AZ, but let's not push it. 

But....Clinton pushed it, we lost Ohio, and while sun belt states are eventually drifting our way anyway....they should be a bonus, not necessary. I really hate how 2016 shifted our politics, it is a realignment from hell, and we on the left might be screwed. Even if we win primaries, we not be able to win a general election without suburbanites approving of them, and given how these ideas would raise their taxes...well....yay, we got republicans in our coalition now and we cant get rid of them!

*sigh*

I really can't express how much I hate the centrist wing of the democrats for this. I'm only voting for them at this point because, well, Trump's a fascist, and short term, he needs to go. But post trump? Assuming the GOP DOESNT go full groyper? Yeah I might go back to being a purity testy ###hole and voting for third party candidates out of spite. It depends. We'll have to see how the next couple election cycles go.  

Reviewing 2012 election coverage

 So, now I'm going backward. I did 2016, 2020, and 2024, ya know, the modern era elections. But what about the last sane election before the crap hit the fan? Let's look at 2012.

Hour 1

First of all, yikes, 360p, cant tell if it's the uploader, or maybe they just still did only standard def up to this point. Not a huge deal, but eh, looks horrible on my TV. 

Second of all, ok, the impression I get is that America is divided here. They're not happy with either candidate. They seem to prefer Obama, but there is talk of whether Romney had a shot. Honestly? I never felt he did. My election prediction at the time had a decisive Obama win, not by 2008 margins, but still confident enough to project the winner. I know in hour 1, they discussed the map Romney and Obama would have to navigate to win, but rather discuss their stuff, I'm gonna do my own mini analysis real quick, as I made a map up in sheets in the past to discuss it. 

 First of all, this is not the ACTUAL prediction I made in 2012, but it's close. At the time, I used a combination of RCP polling AND looking at past trends, and all in all, I remember getting Virginia wrong, I think I got everything else right, so that means that I predicted Florida would go Obama, but Virginia to Romney. The logic was that Florida was more a bellweather that seems to vote to the left of Virginia, and I knew prior to 2008, VA was quite conservative, voting pretty consistently republican from the 1960s up to the 2000s. Of course VA was shifting left, and is now a soft blue state. It CAN go red in a very red year, I mean, Biden mightve lost it had he stayed in in 2024, but yeah, it was a tossup here.

Anyway, the video discussed the path to victory for both parties, so let's discuss it. First, Obama has the advantage. We see a quite blue rust belt here, as well as a lot of other states that were swingy at the time. THis map projects a 303-235 victory with Obama, with a 76% shot at him winning. Again, I felt quite confident in an Obama win at the time. it was closer than I remembered at the time, but yeah, we can see it's quite an advantage, this was 2008 part 2. 

So let's discuss it from Romney's perspective, how does Obama win? Well, 134 electoral votes are safe safe, and then there's Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Arizona, and South Carolina which are pretty solidly in his column. Indiana did go for Obama in 2008, but that was surprising. And of course, AZ and GA were never going to go blue. This is why in 2016 I was like wtf is clinton thinking ignoring the rust belt to win those states? but again, that's centrism on the brain. Gotta expand into the sun belt, even though it's not electorally viable yet. And yeah we got the rust belt anyway so F those guys, I wanna win over Romney voters. You mean, the voters we didn't fricking need this election? But I digress.

So, North Carolina is next, Obama won it in 2007, but it's a fundamentally red leaning state at this time. Obama had an apocalyptic blue wave in 2008 so yeah, normally? It's red. Florida, one of the big bellweathers. Romney needs this to win. He's expected to win it. It only went as red as it did under trump. It was still swingy here. Virginia, another swing state at the time, before Obama, it was pretty conservative, after Obama, it's become quite reliably blue due to suburbanization around DC. Colorado, similar story, used to be swing before Obama, but suburbanization around Denver has made it reliably blue in the years since. This is btw why the democrats are so interested in NC/GA/AZ/TX, they sense similar trends going on there, although those werent expected to go reliably blue until like the 2030s or something. Clinton was early with it, and demographic shifts would eventually bring those voters to us, we wouldnt need to go to them, as long as we keep THIS MAP or a variation of it, we dont need those kinds of states much. VA and CO are welcome, but again, the sun belt was pretty reliably red until 2020 and I still kinda consider it tilt/lean R. 

New Hampshire, always a weird swingy state that leans blue. it's like new england, but also kinda rural, with a libertarian streak. Even now in 2026 it's D+3 or so, so technically in play, but no one is paying close attention there. 

Beyond that, you get into the rust belt. Yes, we used to win Iowa. It's pretty deep red now, but Obama won it twice. Ohio used to be the bellweather of the country, and the news coverage I'm watching for this one really pushed Ohio as the bellweather deciding state. It's basically what Pennsylvania is now. Like....as goes Ohio, so goes the nation. It wasn't JD vance land. And yeah, Nevada, another swing state. My model has it where Nevada is the real deciding state, but to be fair if Romney could flip Ohio, and Obama keeps Iowa, he could win. Alternatively, Obama can keep Ohio but lose Nevada and Romney can win. So it's not quite the bellweather, but if we get a R+3ish overperformance for Romney, and the election actually IS close, well...yeah. That's what it would take for him to win. He'd need to take every state he needs to win, and then VA, CO, NH, IA, and either NV or OH. Again, it would take a 3 point overperformance to do it, possible, but yeah, Obama was clearly the favorite. 

Beyond that, you get the blue wall. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota. States that Trump was able to flip minus MN, which ALMOST flipped to trump in 2016. Again, the map was different back then, if you controlled the rust belt, you won the election, and the democrats were able to control the rust belt back then. To go back to the narrative, it's not because people in the rust belt trust the democrats, but they sure AF didnt want republican. Why? because trickle down economics doesnt work. 2008 and 2012 were Great recession elections, with jobs at the forefront of peoples' minds. And republicans wanted to cut social services to give money to rich people to create jobs, while said rich people were making record profits. So we were expected to give the rich even MORE money, more money than they've ever had, to create the jobs we had before 2008. Make sense? yeah, it doesnt to me either. Actually how I got to where I am now politically. Not that everyone is on the same page as me. But we can see the beginnings of how 2016 started. The great recession crushed peoples' faith in Reaganism, and that led to a 36 year realignment in 2016. It was either gonna be Trumpism or Sanders' politics, and because the dems rejected sanders, we got Trump. 

Anyway, that's the map. I just wanted to lay that down since the 2012 map is quite foreign to us now, although we can kinda see how we got from 2012 to where we are now. Rust belt moved right to trump eroding the democrats' electoral advantage of this era, whereas states undergoing heavy suburbanization are turning blue. That's the summary of the past 14 years or so map wise. 

 As far as other hour 1 stuff....so many bad takes. Acting like Ohio was part of the democrats' firewall, which I guess it was at the time, but that didn't age well. Romney's campaign was out of touch, ignoring polls, trying to argue this was like 2004 again when no....it's not. The republicans were so out of touch and delusional in this campaign. It was astounding. Anyway, that's how things seemed to open. 

 Hour 2

 A lot of discussions about demographics, and how the republican coalition is aging out, while younger populations are more diverse, leading to a demographic collapse in the GOP. This was common logic at the time, but it's also why Trump took off. Like, it wasn't just economics. Trump also tapped into a lot of white anxiety from the conservative types who fear becoming a minority in their own nation, and yeah, that's why they've become so violent and...well...fascist. They fear demographic change and they're trying to fight to preserve their preferred demographics. As I said, a lot of these guys want a world where only they can vote, and they actually are like "yeah, we shouldn't have everyone voting". They literally wanna mass disenfranchise minorities, women, and left winger so they continue to win majorities. This is something we've had to deal with in the years since. And Trumpism is still a last gasp of that conservative minority. it's kinda like when a DBZ villain loses so they try to nuke the planet. But I digress.

Most attention seems to be given to Florida and Virginia at this point. It makes sense, that's where the front lines are. As you can tell by my map, those are the most swingy states. If Obama can carry them, it's over, Romney NEEDS them to win. If Romney carries them, well, then things are probably gonna shift to like Ohio and the like. And of course, right now it's too early.

There's talk about how the democrats seem to have two conflicting coalitions. Working class whites, and suburbanites. Yeah, this is a big flashpoint for future elections. Obama was able to carry both, but as we know, at the time, the working class whites and the rust belt was more essential. The suburbanites were a nice bonus but we didn't NEED colorado, or virginia, or the sun belt. We just needed the rust belt. Again, what the democrats did was monumentally stupid in 2016 and beyond. Abandoning their bread and butter for centrists? Yeah. Pure ideological brain rot. Maybe it makes a little more sense now. Again, rust belt is becoming less important as population decline reduces its margins and the sun belt grows and becomes more purple, but even now, the rust belt a la WI/MI/PA are still more important the GA/NC/AZ/TX. Again, if we can win them, they're nice bonuses, but yeah. It's not really quite ESSENTIAL ESSENTIAL to win those states until after 2030. And even then, if we were able to keep Ohio and Iowa, I still think that the democrats could've held on up there, given VA and CO seem to be shifting left anyway. Again, I dont think we need to go to the sun belt, I believe the sun belt will eventually come to us. And as I see it, GA is likely going to become the next VA. NC and AZ might eventually follow. TX might eventually follow. But as we saw in 2024, nothing is set in stone. Right now the dems seem to be pursuing both lanes...and losing both lanes. It's monumentally dumb. We were so much better off electorally pre Trump, it's ridiculous. The dems dropped the ball HARD. 

Speaking of the rust belt, PA and MI got called pretty early in 2012. Like, Obama had them locked down. And it was like "yeah, Romney's message of wanting to cut government services didn't resonate." Yeah, no crap. Again, look at my map. We had the rust belt LOCKED DOWN, and as long as we did, the republicans wouldnt win. They could take florida, they could take virginia and colorado, we'd still have 281 electoral votes at the time. The suburbs were a nice bonus. We didn't need them. The centrist fixation on them in 2016 was our undoing. It kinda felt like the prophets trading the elites for the brutes to make a halo reference. Like, why sell out some of your more loyal coalition for this new faction? Why treat them like royalty and us like crap? Well...again, that's what screwed the dems so bad. Losing the white working class breathed new life into that dying republican party. Stupid. So stupid. Again I know Im ranting, I keep coming back to this. But yeah. It's something that pisses me off royally, as a rust belt guy from PA who was displaced from the dem coalition to some degree myself. 

  Hour 3

So, like with my of the more recent races, in hour 3, the race narrows. Obama starts winning states Romney needs to win, and it seems clear that the campaign is playing out like the Obama camp predicted, not the Romney camp. While in 2016, 2020, and 2024 this might be somewhat of a surprise given the close races or even advantages that the democrats had in 2020 in particular, in 2012, it's like "yeah, no crap." Honestly, the Romney campaign came off as delusional. They were trying to play this like 2004 for some reason and the map changed. This would be like me trying to run a modern campaign on the 2012 map. Like, that crap aint viable any more given we've lost Ohio, Iowa, and Florida, and now we gotta campaign in Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona instead (I might make a separate article on this). The map changes over time. Every presidency has been a bit of a mini realignment. Reagan swept the country, Clinton reestablished the coasts and much of the south. Bush took back the south, shifting the focus to the midwest. Obama dominated the midwest, making the map look like a generational lockout for republicans. Trump broke into the midwest while the democrats started breaking into the urbanizing south. The next guy in 2028 might shift the map further. Romney was running a Bush era campaign, when the Bush era died when Obama win in 2008. Even then, the Bush maps werent exactly healthy for republicans. They BARELY won. 2000 was even more controversial than 2016, and 2004 had wider margins, but yeah, again, the recession and entrance of millennials into politics kind of killed that era of politics. Again, the Romney campaign was delusional. 

Still, the coalition of the ascendant rhetoric being pushed here hasnt aged well. The republicans didnt quite get choked out of the electoral college, mainly because Clinton herself choked in 2016. She took an easily winnable situation and due to sheer hubris threw away that Obama era map, because she wanted to win the sun belt 20 years early. It was monumentally stupid, and I'll discuss this in detail in the second article I'm thinking of writing. While much of the trump realignment was due to economic anxiety, a lot of it (among conservatives themselves) was due to demographic anxiety and them fighting like a cornered animal. Like, they knew they were in trouble, so they decided to do something about it, which is how we got this terrifying fascist turn. And it really goes to show, the republicans will fight to the last breath for their ideals, while the democrats dont seem to have any, at least none with mentioning. It's a really depressing fact of modern politics. I truly believe if we took a different path in 2016, the world would be so different now. But I digress.

Hour 4

Early on in hour 4, Obama won Ohio, and thus the election. I remember at the time on Fox News, Karl Rove had a melt down over that call, but yeah ABC made no mention of drama, focusing only on their coverage. And I'm not gonna lie, their coverage is very dry and relatively objective, but sometimes too much so. I appreciate trying to give both sides their air time, but the republican party was just so delusional this election, and this grand theory Romney and the republicans had ended up imploding. Because it literally ignored reality. And while it was easy to dunk on the republicans in 2012 for this kind of delusion, quite frankly, it reminds me of the Biden 2024 people who went all in with the theory of Allen Lichtman's keys even though the polling data was wrong. But the polling data was right. That's a lesson I've learned from observing multiple campaigns, dont ignore polling. Im not saying there can't be error involved, and I guess if youre on the losing side, you kinda gotta delude yourself a little to keep morale up and stay motivated, but holy crap the GOP was delusional here. Obama was gonna win, he was always gonna win, I'm actually surprised in retrospect it was as close as it was, as it seemed the republican coalition was still quite robust, he only lost by a few points, this wasn't like a 1936 or 1984 style loss, but let's face it, it was a romp, and the polling was darned near dead on. 

There was talk about the future of the republicans after this. The talking heads pointed out there's no leader of the republicans now and that this is gonna create a vacuum for 2016. And we all know what happened next. Funnily enough, they seemed to be touting Marco Rubio as the leader of the republicans in 2016, while he was a player, he lost. Still, we clearly havent heard the end of him and him and Vance are looking to be the successors of the Trump movement in 2028. In that one, I would have to cheer on Rubio as he's more establishment, sane, and not quite fascist. He's working for Trump, I dont think he's happy there, he's just tolerating it, hoping it will elevate his future political career, but yeah. In the future republican party civil war of who succeeds trump, I'd rather see Rubio than Vance. Of course, knowing the republicans, they'll either choose vance or go full young republicans group chat at this rate. I have no faith in them whatsoever. Whatever can get worse DOES get worse. 

There was also talk of the democrats and Obama, and how this might end up being bad for the democrats as they have nowhere to go. Often times, second terms go worse than the first, and while Obama's second term wasn't bad, he certainly didnt accomplish anything, given the stuff republican opposition he faced, and he was a lame duck. And this is what gave rise to Sanders style populism. People want democrats to DO THINGS, not to just sit there making excuses about why they cant and virtue signalling compromise and incrementalism. Clinton tried to run as an Obama third term no one wanted, and got trounced because of it.

Speaking of which, why did Obama win? There was talk of Bain capital (a financial firm Romney was in charge of at the time), the 47% comments, you saw union people not liking he was for right to work, you saw people who wanted universal healthcare. But it seemed like the media here was just ho hum on it. They even seemed to be encouraging clinton to run in 2016, saying she's not too old for the job. Really, I know I'm biased, but I kinda dislike the enlightened centrism of ABC sometimes. It makes them more dry and "objective" i guess, but sometimes that just leads to giving credibility to narratives that dont deserve it. 

Conclusion

 There was like another 1.5 hours including Romney and Obama's speeches, but I kinda saw what I want to see and I want to wrap it up. Basically, this was a romp. Obama came in like a wrecking ball and cleaned the republicans' clocks. And while the coverage was drier and more nonpartisan than I would be, yeah, republicans were delusional on this one. Romney was trying to run on a political map that no longer existed, and he just couldnt pull it off. While the news leaned into coalition of the ascendant more than the economics, and if anything giving romney credit for his economics (his economics were a joke tbqh), yeah....he had a terrible campaign strategy IMO. I really wish people would stop glazing this guy. Just because he's moderate in the current political environment doesnt mean he was a good candidate. Honestly, this is how us normies saw him at the time. 

Either way, yeah, one thing I want to visit separately, to avoid making the same mistake he did, is designing a political strategy for the modern era. It's clear the 2012 electoral map is done. And sadly, a lot of my political knowledge is based off of that thing. I'm a rust belt guy, I believe we should pander to the rust belt, and as you guys can tell I got REALLY strong views on that. But...the map is different, and the strategy might be different too. So I wanna look at whether a rust belt strategy will be viable in the 2030s. 

Reviewing 2024 election coverage

 I might as well do it. I mean, I did report my feelings of election night as they came generally speaking in part of the WTF happened series I did on 2024, but I did 2016 and 2020, I might as well do 2024.

So...2024 was a coin flip. This was my official projection:

 As we can tell, its 46-54 in Trump's favor, and yeah, anything could happen. Biden kept the odds down most election cycle, but Harris brought them up to around 50-50....then 60-40....before they crashed down to 40-60 in October, and to narrow and recover before election day. I felt pretty good on election day. I know my predictions are never DEAD on, error tends to favor one candidate or the other, and I believed it would favor Harris. That MSG rally seemed to piss off latinos in my area, and my area was one of the most pivotal for the election in the country. The Ann Selzer poll gave us some hope the rest of the industry was overrating Trump's odds. And yeah, it really did feel like Harris got a second wind and was going to be able to cross the finish line. 

With that said, let's do this.

Hour 1

I stuck with ABC for consistency's sake here. Going to watch 7 PM-2 AM, similar to the others. 

So, first hour seemed optimistic. There was once again talk that no, the election wasn't rigged, and a reference to not wanting what happened 4 years ago again, and if you knew nothing else about the era, you might be wondering "oh god, what happened?" The big issue of this cycle seems to be the future of democracy. That psychopath who in the previous one claimed it was rigged ran again, against Kamala Harris, and the whole thing had a dark, forboding aspect to it. Like something happened after the 2020 election, and now we're dealing with this AGAIN. We know what happened, and that's why even I became a blue no matter whoer. Regardless of what I think about democrats, we need to keep this guy out. I also believed (and still believe) that democracy is at stake as long as this guy's in power, and part of me fears what he might attempt later this year in 2026 and in 2028 to keep power. 

Anyway, the anchors talked about a lot of the factors that I did, how the last day of the campaign was spent in PA in my neck of the woods, and how the harris campaign was feeling good, believing latinos were pissed at Trump over his campaign's racism and that they felt confident in a win. 

As the hour went on though, Florida results started coming in, and it started being obvious Trump was overperforming. At first, this came off as possibly anomalous. maybe it's just florida, but it really was the first sign something was going wrong for Harris.

Hour 2

Going into hour 2, it became obvious that Trump was overperforming and Harris was underperforming. Trump was hitting benchmarks while harris was failing to hit hers. This is NOT the news you wanna hear if the race is 50-50, or slightly less than that. You need to match/overperform to win, not UNDERperform. Harris was UNDERperforming, Trump was overperforming. Not good.

Hour 3

By this point it started being obvious the sun belt was lost for Harris. While nothing was called yet, the gaps in performance were too large for her to reasonably have a shot. It all came down to the rust belt at this point. Which is where it always would. I knew that the sun belt was a hard sell for Harris. While it was never quite out of reach, given she OVERperformed, Trump ALWAYS had an edge there, and Harris's big path to 270 was Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, given 226 safe electoral votes. She gets all 3, she wins 270. Which wasnt going to be particularly hard for her, but who knows? if she was underperforming, how much of a shot did she really have?

It should be noted that "hour 3" translates more to hour 4 in the real world, ie, 10-11PM or so. Which...im gonna be honest. I started full on panicking by this point. Harris was just underperforming everywhere and it seemed clear this was a systemic country wide problem. States that were supposed to be R+9 went R+13, states that were tossups were overperforming for Trump, Virginia was struggling, VIRGINIA. It felt like we ended up with an R+4 type scenario of my 7 major scenarios. In reality, it was a bit less, but again, red mirage made it appear more severe than it was. Still, given what harris needed to pull off a win, even R+1 was devastating and wouldve pulled the rust belt out of reach. Not a good night. 

 Hour 4 & 5

Much of hour 4 on the ABC stream ended up being local coverage, but when it was on the doomering continued and Harris's path continued to narrow. It ultimately came down to whether the vote in the cities in places like Philadelphia would be able to overcome the 2-3 point advantage that Trump had. And....it looked increasingly like they wouldn't be able to.  Trump was just overperforming, and remember my own map. Harris needed to functionally overperform in order to win. It didnt need to be a big underperformance. Even D+0.4% would do it. But...yeah, you cant lose ground in this race. 

Hour 6

By this point, the discussion shifted to what went wrong, and its the economy stupid. Biden inherited the COVID recovery, as we know, inflation happened due to supply chain issues, imbalances in supply and demand, and sheer corporate greed. No matter how good the numbers were on paper, people didnt FEEL it. And if you ask me, I dont think people want a "normal" economy. A normal economy, ie, a nominally healthy economy with good metrics driven primarily by "job creation" and a laissez faire approach to economic matters hasnt benefitted average Americans in DECADES. We're in a GILDED age. We dont seem to understand that, or more accurately, the people with the power to do anything about it don't care. They're in the pockets of the wealthy and they're there to opposed a progressive agenda that would fix this. So Biden governed like a moderate, he lost the people, Harris promised more of the same, and the people said no.

We live in an era of populism. Trump promised jobs in 2016. He promised to "make america great again." In 2024, people looked at the economy and when asked the question if they were better off than they were 4 years ago, they werent thinking 2020, but 2019. So they were like "Trump wasnt bad in the first term, I want more of that." Did they get it? HAHAHAHAHA! No. Between insane tariffs, horrible health policies, and the Iran war, he's just caused MORE inflation, and the country has turned on him massively.

Which brings us to the next point. The news was discussing around this point the idea that the map shifted so many points since 2020. You shift some states the whole map shifts. And that's what we were seeing, and that's why we were losing. I knew roughly where Harris had to be to win, and at the time it seemed like we were getting a roughly 4 point overperformance relative to my model, with my model being several points below 2020 benchmarks. Keep in mind, all of 2023 and 2024 I was like "hey, the public shifted 6 points to the right, we're screwed", and when Biden dropped out, harris reduced the gap more to like....idk, 2-3 points or so, with some variation on the state level that still made winning viable on paper, but then she underperformed those benchmarks. So it seemed increasingly obvious through the night she was gonna lose. And I was panicking in the real world from hour 3-4 on. 

Just for fun, what does this map shift idea mean now? Well, currently, based on the generic congressional vote, the public has shifted about 9.5% since 2024. Trump has alienated and lost darn near 10% of the electorate that voted for him. In 2026, we can see what that means. States that shouldnt go blue are looking awfully blue. Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, and Iowa are all in play. In reality, it should take a D+13 shift for that to happen, BUT....sometimes this stuff isnt uniform, we got micro shifts in various states. Some are going a bit more left, some are less elastic. But yeah, we're getting something in the ballpark of D+10 relative to 2024, and it's devastating for republicans and opening up paths that shouldn't exist. 

What could 2028 look like? Well, let's look:

 This isn't a perfect analogue, but we're kind of seeing the trends here. While the 7 swing states from 2020 and 2024 will be in play, states like Iowa, Texas, Alaska, Ohio, ME2, NE1, and maybe Florida are back on the menu. Heck, I know this map doesnt extend that far, but states like Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, South Carolina, and Montana will start coming into view in my model. I doubt THOSE states will flip, but yeah, we could be seeing crazy things happen in 2028. That's how much Trump is losing the country right now. But I digress, this is about 2024, which we lost. Ya know, THIS map:

 

 Anyway, after this point, they shift to Trump wanting to speak, and people waiting for him to speak. THey didnt show it in this video, but I remember this part of the night. I was like oh god are they gonna call PA? Like every call by this point was giving me anxiety. And yeah, eventually he won, and he spoke, and I was like oh god, I gotta listen to this guy for the next 4 years wtf did we just do?!

Conclusion

So watching 2016, 2020, and 2024 feel like three chapters of the same saga. In 2016 the race was close but the media was overconfident in a Clinton win, causing a rude awakening. The mood was uncertain and while liberals were freaking out, most people didnt know what we were getting into, and were like, well, let's give him a chance. By 2020, the picture got darker. The country was on fire, Biden was expected to romp, and then Trump overperformed again, with Biden winning 3 days later by the skin of his teeth. 2024, close race, but the mood even darker, with "democracy" on the line, and thr psychopath who denies elections he loses and starts riots somehow won again. 

It's hard to tell if Trump is a realigning candidate. In a way he does, but considering the three chapter saga here, and how I expect the saga to break in 2028 with a massive blue wave, it's unclear what his legacy will be. This could just be a self contained dark chapter in American history, with 2028 being a real realigning election. If anything, each presidency minus biden seems to be a self contained mini realignment. The map looked bad for republicans during the Obama era, it was close during the Bush era, and much bluer during the clinton era, after the Reagan-Bush 1 era being a blowout. Once in a generation, we get a blowout, but Trump may not be that. Still, we are not in the Obama map era any more, that's clearly gone. Trump and the democrats have changed it, and it's going to clearly continue to change as time goes on. 

Still, what lessons can we learn from this? First of all, trust the data, and dont get overconfident. Overconfidence is a huge part of the problem. Democrats always seem super overconfident and then they underperformed all 3 times. With that said, next point. Democrats are fundamentally unpopular. All 3 elections told the same story. They prefer trump to democrats, and democrats gotta figure out why. I got my theories but yeah, they lost twice, and only won 2020 because the country was on fire. At the same time, trump is super popular, we gotta know why. Some of it is appealing to his base, but the real question is the swing vote what is driving people to vote for this guy over democrats? It's the economy stupid. In 2016, people didnt feel they recovered from the recession. In 2024, they didnt feel they recovered from the subsequent inflation after COVID. In 2020, the people trusted democrats, but the race was still very close. Trump has a very loyal fan base that is ride or die on the guy, and it took the democrats pulling out all the stops just to stop him. I think trump fever is finally breaking, but yeah. It terrifies me that people like this guy so much. 

Anyway, that's my analysis of 2016, 2020, and 2024. Next I might go back and do past elections like 2012, 2008, 2004, etc. Idk how many I'll do. I got maps and polling data back to 2004, but things get spotty before that. Also, before 2004, I really didnt pay much attention to elections so...yeah. 2000 might be interesting to cover though given how much of a nightmare it turned out. made 2020 look tame in terms of figuring out the results. But yeah. 

"Electability" bros need to chill

 Ok, so....centrists are so insufferable with the "electability" argument. They act like they have a monopoly on being able to be electable. And it's not even true most of the time. And apparently, some socialist won Florida's democratic primary for senate in an upset and now they're acting like they're DOOMED, DOOMED I say. Looking at the polling data...the republican is up 9.5% here. That makes it basically safe, with the democrat having a mere 1% chance of flipping it. That is doomed. 

Except....what did the more moderate candidate have? R+8.4%? A 2% chance of winning? My god, we totally blew our chances. We cut our chances in half from 2% to 1%, the horror.... 

Alternatively, the republicans went from a 98% chance to a 99% chance. Let's face it, the dems were never gonna win florida anyway. But the centrists are like WATCH WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU NOMINATE A SOCIALIST IN FLORIDA! As if they'd do SOOOO much better. Guess what? You're losing either way. It doesnt matter if you chose Nixon or Vindman, Florida is a soft safe seat. it barely makes it on my chart. I used to only keep seats under 8 points in play on my charts. Basically, with a 4% MOE, anything within 8 points is roughly within my 95% confidence interval. That means, in a one tailed environment, it's actually a roughly 97.5% confidence interval. Actually comes out to 97.7% because a Z score of 1.96 or so is the 95% mark, but meh, I just round to 2 like a normal person, so that amounts to a 95.5% confidence interval instead, or 97.7% in a one tailed environment. Anything beyond that is a long shot that's barely worth looking at. I havent even considered Florida a serious swing state, so idk why the "electability" people are making such a big deal. I honestly think they just hate DSA types. 

Anyway, let's have a realistic discussion about electability this election cycle. It's been all over the place, but generally favors the moderate slightly. In Maine, Janet Mills was at R+0.5, while Graham Platner was around D+7.4% in the same cycle. Platner was the socialist, while Mills was the establishment backed candidate. Mills was LOSING to Susan Collins, while Platner was BTFOing her until his scandals came out. Even Troy Jackson is at a modest D+2.3, beating Collins, but far more narrowly than Platner was at his peak. So that's a race the leftist is MORE electable in. 

In Michigan, Abdul El Sayed tends to trail Mike Rogers. At winning the nomination, El Sayed trailed Rogers by 0.3%. Stevens was up 1.7%, and that was a relatively large gap. For a while, El Sayed and Stevens were both at D+0.5% for a while. But let's say its 2 points, okay, Stevens is a little more electable, but that's why I said that if El Sayed loses by more than 2, it doesnt matter, because electability doesnt matter a ton unless the race is really close. 

The same can be said here. R+8.4 vs R+9.5% doesnt matter. Youre gonna lose anyway.

heck, the only race where I really felt electability mattered was the Wisconsin governorship where Mandela Barnes was up by 3-4, while Hong was down by 3. At a 6-7 point gap (5 with crowley, who is at D+2), yeah, that's significant enough IMO to say that Hong actually disadvantaged the democrats. You can argue a mild effect with el sayed and how that could matter, but yeah, again, for most races, it's only gonna matter if it comes down to a 1-2 point gap or something. For the most part, the fundamentals of the race and mood of the country matter A LOT LOT more than the actual candidate, given the candidate is competent. So...generally speaking, Im gonna encourage you to vote your conscience unless youre dealing with a Francesca Hong like situation. Dont freak out too much about electability. It honestly doesnt matter a ton. And sometimes a leftist actually is more electable than a centrist, in which case the centrist will likely intentionally ignore the data. Because I've seen them pull THAT before.  

But yeah, in Florida, its not gonna matter. It's safe R either way.

No, appealing to the other side through their language is a terrible idea

 So, there's a common statement I've seen recently among some moderate types that basically goes something like this: progressives lose because they dont appeal to Americans using their language. Americans are religious and patriotic, and if left wingers cant coopt these aspects of language into platforms, then theyll turn off American voters and lose elections. 

I just....strongly dislike the statement. Probably because I dont buy into those values at all, and because if anything, when politicians try to appeal to them, it turns ME off. But then I get statements like "well if you don't, you get Kamala Harris", which is weird because she performed about the same as Hillary, who DID appeal to that kind of language and I found it offputting and alienating.

Here's the thing. There are two camps in politics, with two worldviews. The right is religious, patriotic, and the left is just...all over the place. My own stance is the right SHOULD be more secular and analytical, but I keep being told by moderates this is bad, and we gotta appeal to them instead. So what we get is this weird mixed bag of sentiments that make no sense and seem to have no coherent ideological backing. THe right doesnt trust them because it isnt as authentic as their version, and I DONT wanna try to out conservative a conservative. And liberals end up losing enthusiasm, because...what's the point of voting for someone who cares more about appealing to the other side? This is a problem with both Clinton, who went hard into the conservative framing of things in 2016, and Harris who was a bit more secular, but performed the same. It's the uncanny valley of suck. 

Even if you have a masterful religious progressive using that rhetoric, look at James Talarico. Sure, you can argue he can win texas....in an apocalyptically bad year for republicans. In a normal year he'd get wrecked. Texas was R+13 in 2024, it was R+6 in 2020. For it to even start to turn blue speaks to larger systemic effects going on. But anyway, we discussed him before in terms of his policy and framing, and oh god, I cant stand the guy in a way. I have zero interest in trying to appeal to someone on the basis of the protestant work ethic. Like, I just wanna full on reject the ethic. When we accept our opponents' moral framing of issues, yeah, you can argue the nuances of that and maybe win. But, you'll never make true, lasting moral progress. Because the progress you made is tied to this dysfunctional conservative ethic that we shouldnt even continue to accept in the first place.

I swear, centrists are so braindead sometimes. Well, not really. The thing is, they dont WANT a lot of moral progress. They're conservatives who are fine with tweaks around the edges, and think anyone who dares actually challenge the underlying moral justification of the existing way of things as too radical. 

But....for me, keep in mind, I'm both radical and moderate. Im not a marxist, but I am willing to challenge the conservative ethic head on and support an alternative to it. I have zero interest in watering down and compromising my message in that regard. And maybe that loses people, but so be it, that's what I'm here to do, and I refuse to let the other side define the terms of debate for me. 

When I think about the left failing to connect to people, it isnt because they dont explicitly appeal to conservative values. It's because they get so lost in their own sauce they can't appeal to people at all. Like....say the goal is economic populism. You want policies that make peoples' lives better. I try to appeal to people in the universal language of self interest: this will help you, you should be for this. But....the left often doesnt. They expect people to be selfless, arguing that "selfishness" itself is a conservative virtue, they expect people to be altruistic and care about everyone else's issues, and they get so wrapped up in bull#### divisive issues like Palestine on foreign policy and identity politics on domestic policy, that somewhere, the core appeal to the left is just lost. 

At the end of the day, people want what helps them. Maybe people get wrapped up in religion, but let's be honest, religion was a tool of domestication of humans to be obedient little wage slaves who DONT care about their self interests instead. It was literally a mechanism designed to control people. If people use religion to cause you to ignore your self interest, thats a BAD sign because it means someone is taking advantage of you in order to get you to sign away your self interest to their benefit. And this is another reason I wont appeal to religion. Again, why should I debate on the terms of my ideological opponents? If religion was created and/or is used to control people, by appealing to religious sentiments, I'm compromising my own moral stances and appealing to language that was intended to control us in the first place. My goal isn't simply to appeal to religious sentiments. It's to counter religion and liberate people from its way of thinking. Only then can we look at these issues CLEARLY and decide WITH REASON what we should do and where we should go.

Again, you can make incremental compromises within that system, but youre still drinking from a poisoned well. Id rather NOT do that and just advocate for what I want. Im not gonna out christian a christian, and Im not even gonna try. I'm too honest and autistic for that crap. if you want a politician who is honest and doesnt sound like a politician, then you should support people who speak honestly, not punish them for it and expect people to sound like a polished turd instead. 

And yeah. I feel like centrists like this stuff BECAUSE they're centrists, but honestly, anyone who isnt is just like...no, wtf is this? 

And again,, to the person who argued that Harris lost because she didnt appeal more to religion, I'd counter with Clinton who made religion very much a central part of her identity and language.....and....it alienated the fudge out of me. And she lost anyway. 

Again, it's not religion, it's not patriotism. You gotta connect to people on a level of making their lives better, and you gotta make a convincing case you can actually do so.