{"id":31129,"date":"2012-11-05T06:04:37","date_gmt":"2012-11-05T13:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/05\/the-battleground-states-and-what-to-do-about-them.html"},"modified":"2012-11-06T09:43:19","modified_gmt":"2012-11-06T16:43:19","slug":"the-battleground-states-and-what-to-do-about-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/05\/the-battleground-states-and-what-to-do-about-them.html","title":{"rendered":"The Battleground States, and what to do about them"},"content":{"rendered":"

An interesting look at how fast the whole "battleground" \/ "swing" focus on just a handful of states has happened.<\/p>\n

The problem is not, though, the Electoral College system itself. \u00a0That's been around a couple of hundred years. \u00a0My question would be — why have so many states become so homogeneous in political make-up that they are no longer "battlegrounds".<\/p>\n

Note that this doesn't just affect the presidential elections, either. \u00a0Statewide offices and Senators both are directly impacted by solid majorities in a state for one party or the other (though there are occasional exceptions, e.g., Scott Brown winning the replacement race in\u00a0Massachusetts). And that has a role as well on statewide ballot propositions, and the majorities of House delegations …<\/p>\n

But as you dig in closer, a lot of that homogeneity starts to vanish. \u00a0You get local state legislatures that swing one way, then another. Personality begins to play a role. \u00a0Politics becomes more local. \u00a0Not that it's easy for a Democratic politician in Alabama, or a Republican one in\u00a0Massachusetts\u00a0… but there are exceptions, and opportunities.<\/p>\n

So what makes the aggregate, in the presidential race, so seemingly monolithic that it drives all the advertising dollars and campaigning to a handful of locations?<\/p>\n

\n

Embedded Link<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Vanishing Electoral Battleground<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe shrinking electoral battleground has altered the nature of American self-governance.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Google+:<\/strong> View post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting look at how fast the whole "battleground" \/ "swing" focus on just a handful of states has happened. The problem is not, though, the Electoral College system itself. \u00a0That's been around a couple of hundred years. \u00a0My question would be — why have so many states become so homogeneous in political make-up that … Continue reading “The Battleground States, and what to do about them”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,99,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-elections-2012","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7061,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/04\/by_the_numbers.html","url_meta":{"origin":31129,"position":0},"title":"By the numbers","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 4-Nov-04 9:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"Some interesting stats on the Election Season, via the NYT. A few fun excerpts: The money race was fueled by changes in the campaign financing law that allowed individuals to...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37755,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/10\/majorities-actual-and-perceived.html","url_meta":{"origin":31129,"position":1},"title":"Majorities actual and perceived","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 10-Jun-13 10:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"While a majority of Americans actually support same-sex marriage, most of them think of themselves in the minority.In some ways, this is an effect of the remarkable social cascade of same-sex marriage support -- the change in public support over the last decade has been breathtaking, even wihile\u00a0the public perception\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135654,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/13\/alabama-example-gerrymandering.html","url_meta":{"origin":31129,"position":2},"title":"An Alabama Example of Gerrymandering","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 13-Dec-17 2:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This is why politicians -- primarily, at the moment, GOP ones -- like gerrymandering. Also an example of why some conservatives want to get rid of the 17th Amendment and move US Senate elections back to the (gerrymandered) state legislatures. Jones won 49% of the state-wide vote; Moore won 48%.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/alabama-jones-moore-gerrymander.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9739,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/08\/jaccuse_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":31129,"position":3},"title":"J’accuse!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 8-Nov-06 10:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"Aha! The reasons the Republicans lost the House (and, maybe, the Senate) wasn't because of Tom Delay, or Bill Frist, or Mark Foley, or Karl Rove, or Jack Abramoff, or...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2006"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2006","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2006"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133183,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/31\/party-majorities-as-minority-coalitions.html","url_meta":{"origin":31129,"position":4},"title":"Party majorities as minority coalitions","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 31-Mar-17 10:44am","format":false,"excerpt":"The article is correct in noting that, at least in some areas, the GOP majority in the House (and Senate) are less solid than the simple numbers and red-vs-blue maps make them seem, as the AHCA debacle demonstrates. There are multiple and fluid subgroups within the Republican party that make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29830,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/15\/youth-going-blue-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":31129,"position":5},"title":"Youth going blue","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 15-Aug-12 6:58am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a bit hard to read unless you download the full size, but essentially it shows voter turnout (by circle size) and presidential voting results (more blue or more red) for young voters from 1992 - 2008 in a group of key battleground states.So it should be no surprise that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}