Political Science

CHAPTER 9

Dems Find Electoral Safety behind A Wall of Blue

Do you come from a “blue wall” state, a swing state, or a solid Republican state? What do you think accounts for the particular partisan character of your home state? (home state West Virginia)

It is for that reason that Gallup's new partisan ID split, one that mimics what Rasmussen has been saying all along, predicts nothing less than doom for the Democrats and a solid, national win for Mitt Romney this year. Demographically the country hasn't changed in a few years, naturally, but the difference between 2008 and 2012 is in the TEA party. The TEA party happened, dictated the 2010 elections, and has now resulted in a large partisan ID and registration shift in this country since. When Rasmussen Reports noted this, and showed it in polling, Nate Silver and his followers scoffed. Just as they did in [2010] when Rasmussen was first to predict the TEA party driven Republican wave, they criticized and insulted the firm that was first to what turned out to be the facts. That Gallup is giving us a range is not new. They did the same in 2010, when the late Generic Ballot polls offered two different voter models. First there was the high turnout model, one that proved too pessimistic for Republicans, and the low turnout model that was too optimistic. The truth was, as they surely intended, somewhere in the middle.

What do you think might happen if a “blue wall” (or a red wall for that matter) surpassed the 270 electoral vote count needed to win the presidency? Could one of America's two parties become electorally obsolete? How might that alter the political landscape in America?

Electoral fusion was once widespread in the United States. In the late nineteenth century, however, as minor political parties such as the Populist Party became increasingly successful in using fusion, state legislatures enacted bans against it. The creation of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party made this particular tactical position obsolete.

Imagine you're the chairperson of the Republican Party. Faced with the blue wall problem the article describes, write a memo to your colleagues proposing a solution that involves embracing a wider spectrum of opinion on social issues without alienating your socially conservative base.

Small parties significant in large part for their fused ballot lines, include the Independence Party of New York, the Working Families Party, and the Conservative Party of New York State. The Independence Party originally ran its own candidate for governor until 2002, but since then has instead retained its automatic ballot status by running a gubernatorial candidate who was designated by one of the major parties. Previously influential were the Liberal Party of New York and New York State Right to Life Party, which lost automatic ballot access in 2002. The Green Party, which had first achieved ballot status in 1998, failed to gain 50,000 votes and also lost its ballot status in 2002, but regained its line when the 2010 election results were ...