Purging Dissent is not the Answer
Posted by David Darlington on 28 January 2009 | 4 responses
The only word for this map is yikes.
See the related fivethirtyeight.com article.
4 Responses to “Purging Dissent is not the Answer”
Some of the southern states are only Democratic on the local level. For instance, Kentucky is in the blue, but has two Republican senators and voted for McCain last go-round. There are a lot of conservative (or at least center-right) Democrats who vote Republican on that national level.
Florida is much the same, especially when you get into rural areas of the state, where they might vote for Blue Dogs on the local level and Republicans on the national; my old area of Florida east of Tampa would have a Democratic registration advantage but sent a conservative Republican, Adam Putnam, to Congress.
It’s going to take a few years for the GOP brand to recover from too much power used too freely and for the Democratic brand to come down a peg from over-governing. Hang in there and have hope.
Along the lines of what Mark wrote, I don’t think things are as dire for the GOP as this map suggests. Rather than voter registration, the map is based on the party which respondents to telephone polls identified with last year. It’s easy to imagine that a lot of people who lean Republican might have identified themselves to as Democrats last year, but that that might not be a permanent change for them.
Also, McCain won Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and W. Virginia (identified as “strong Democratic” in the map), and Tennessee (identified as “leans Democratic”).
Last year was a horrible year for Republicans, without a doubt. But the elephant is not in danger of extinction just yet.
Oops, the phrase in my first paragraph should have read “might have identified themselves to pollsters as Democrats last year”
Mark and Eric are right; however, the 538 article touches on many of the issues they bring up. This map, not unlike ones bandied about by many right leaning pundits after the 2004 elections lacks context.
That being said, Nate may lean left, but his numbers, methods, and conclusions are unusually free of personal opinion.