Despite that history as a blue state lodestar, Trump nearly pulled off a victory there that would have been the shocker of a shock election. Even Walter Mondale-who was also a native son-won Minnesota in Reagan’s 49-state 1984 reelection landslide. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were part of its foundation-but so was Minnesota, which Hillary Clinton won by just 45,000 votes after nearly a half-century of Democratic top-of-ticket dominance. Going into the election, it seemed almost unbreachable, which was a key factor driving the belief that Hillary Clinton was on a glide path to the presidency. The most immediate consequence was to blow up the idea of a “Blue Wall,” a term applied to a northern tier of 18 states, stretching from coast to coast, that appeared to provide a structural advantage for a Democratic nominee. With that feat, Trump shattered the presidential map we’ve grown accustomed to. In 2016, Trump lost a majority of them.īut Trump still won the two biggest, Florida and Ohio, and he also pulled off a feat almost no one predicted: He flipped Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a 46-electoral vote trio that hadn’t voted Republican-individually, much less together-for president since the 1980s. In 2008, Obama won every one of those states. Of the last 28 presidential elections in those states, 27 were decided by single digits. While there were other competitive states-among them Iowa and Pennsylvania-that warranted some level of care and feeding, these seven were the closest and most hard-fought. For roughly a generation, the most consistent members of this group of states have been Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. That elevated a relatively small universe of core battleground states that were within reach for either party-typically eight to 10. For five consecutive elections, from 1996 to 2012, the nation had been locked into World War I-style presidential trench warfare, with 37 of the 50 states voting for the same party at the presidential level. The pre-Trump electoral map was fairly static. Trump has thrown the battleground state map into flux, and punctured long-held shibboleths about the potential paths to the White House. It’s something short of a historic realignment, but more than just a hiccup. And it’s very much on the mind of campaign strategists who, in conversations, acknowledge the reconstituted map and the unique challenges it presents for both sides. That’s clear from the polling that’s being conducted by the parties and independent groups, from the battleground-state forecasts issued by political handicappers and major news organizations, and the early allocation of resources from the parties, campaigns and other interested entities. But one thing seems increasingly inarguable: This presidential race will be fought on electoral terrain that would have been unthinkable four years ago, before Trump blew everything up. Or whether Texas-where Republicans hold all nine statewide elected offices, both Senate seats and both chambers of the Legislature-will truly be in play in November. You can argue about whether Minnesota-a cradle of liberalism that produced Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Paul Wellstone-is a pipe dream for Trump in 2020.
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