Much has been written on the 2016 failure of the “blue wall”, the grouping of swing states Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania which Hillary Clinton narrowly lost. This allowed Trump an electoral college victory despite losing the popular vote by almost 3 million, a margin of over 2%. The immediate comparison is of course 2012, where Obama cruised to an apparently easy re-election despite only doing a couple points better in the popular vote than Clinton. But let’s go back a bit further to the last Republican to win the presidency, during the only time in the past 30 years a Republican has actually won more votes. The painful, depressing re-election of George W. Bush in 2004.
It hardly looks like a landslide now, though most of you will remember the talk of “mandates” in the immediate aftermath. But the most stunning thing is seeing Trump getting all of 840K more votes than Bush, while Clinton got 6.8 million more than Kerry. I thought it would be interesting to compare the raw votes in each state between the two elections, to see where both parties gained and lost.
In the first two columns, a positive number means Clinton improved on Kerry, or Trump improved on Bush. A negative number means the 2016 candidates actually got less raw votes than their predecessors 12 years prior. The third column indicates the net change in margin, that is Clinton’s margin vs Kerry minus Trump’s margin vs Bush. Put another way, positive means the state grew Clinton’s popular vote lead compared to 2004, negative means it reduced it compared to 2004.
|
Kerry -> Clinton |
Bush -> Trump |
2004 -> 2016 |
Alabama |
35,614 |
141,861 |
-106,247 |
Alaska |
5,429 |
-27,502 |
32,931 |
Arizona |
267,643 |
148,107 |
119,536 |
Arkansas |
-89,459 |
111,974 |
-201,433 |
California |
2,008,303 |
-1,026,016 |
3,034,319 |
Colorado |
337,138 |
101,229 |
235,909 |
Connecticut |
40,084 |
-20,611 |
60,695 |
Delaware |
35,451 |
13,467 |
21,984 |
District of Columbia |
79,860 |
-8,533 |
88,393 |
Florida |
921,431 |
653,364 |
268,067 |
Georgia |
511,814 |
174,850 |
336,964 |
Hawaii |
35,183 |
-65,344 |
100,527 |
Idaho |
8,667 |
-180 |
8,847 |
Illinois |
199,179 |
-199,931 |
399,110 |
Indiana |
64,115 |
77,848 |
-13,733 |
Iowa |
-88,229 |
49,026 |
-137,255 |
Kansas |
-7,988 |
-65,438 |
57,450 |
Kentucky |
-83,879 |
133,532 |
-217,411 |
Louisiana |
-40,145 |
76,469 |
-116,614 |
Maine |
-39,107 |
5,392 |
-44,499 |
Maryland |
343,435 |
-81,534 |
424,969 |
Massachusetts |
191,396 |
19,784 |
171,612 |
Michigan |
-210,344 |
-34,203 |
-176,141 |
Minnesota |
-77,298 |
-23,744 |
-53,554 |
Mississippi |
27,037 |
15,733 |
11,304 |
Missouri |
-188,103 |
138,798 |
-326,901 |
Montana |
3,999 |
13,177 |
-9,178 |
Nebraska |
30,166 |
-16,853 |
47,019 |
Nevada |
142,070 |
93,368 |
48,702 |
New Hampshire |
8,015 |
14,553 |
-6,538 |
New Jersey |
236,848 |
-68,070 |
304,918 |
New Mexico |
14,292 |
-57,263 |
71,555 |
New York |
241,844 |
-143,033 |
384,877 |
North Carolina |
663,467 |
401,465 |
262,002 |
North Dakota |
-17,294 |
20,143 |
-37,437 |
Ohio |
-347,003 |
-18,763 |
-328,240 |
Oklahoma |
-83,591 |
-10,656 |
-72,935 |
Oregon |
58,943 |
-84,428 |
143,371 |
Pennsylvania |
-11,654 |
176,886 |
-188,540 |
Rhode Island |
-7,240 |
11,497 |
-18,737 |
South Carolina |
193,674 |
217,415 |
-23,741 |
South Dakota |
-31,786 |
-4,863 |
-26,923 |
Tennessee |
-165,782 |
138,550 |
-304,332 |
Texas |
1,045,164 |
158,130 |
887,034 |
Utah |
69,477 |
-148,511 |
217,988 |
Vermont |
-5,494 |
-25,811 |
20,317 |
Virginia |
526,731 |
52,484 |
474,247 |
Washington |
232,517 |
-83,147 |
315,664 |
West Virginia |
-137,747 |
65,593 |
-203,340 |
Wisconsin |
-106,968 |
-72,836 |
-34,132 |
Wyoming |
-14,803 |
6,790 |
-21,593 |
The first thing that jumps out at anyone has to be the California numbers, where Clinton got 2 million more votes than Kerry, and Trump got 1 million less than Bush, for an incredible 3 million net shift in the popular vote compared to 2004. This is of course a big part of how Clinton could win the popular vote while losing the electoral college, something that the more disingenuous pundits will call “wasted votes”, or even argue is “the reason for the electoral college”, an obviously post facto rationalization they would drop in a second if it cut the other way. (On a side note, these votes weren’t quite so wasted in the US House, where this massive shift would eventually cost Republicans 13 of their 20 California representatives!)
You might expect the next one to be Texas, where Bush’s large home-state margin gave way to a single digit Trump win. Indeed, Clinton gained over a million on Kerry, and Trump improved all of 160K on Bush despite the dramatic increase in the state’s population in those 12 years, for an almost 900K change in the popular vote margins. Also a big part of the electoral college / popular vote divergence, but at this point I was surprised to find that other, less-discussed states were cumulatively in the same ballpark. For instance, Virginia + Maryland was about equal to Texas. Missouri + Tennessee + West Virginia also cancels out the popular vote shift of Texas. The ranking of popular vote shifts by state from 2004 to 2016 is not quite what I expected once I got past the first two. States with greater than 200K shifts in margin between the two years are (in order, with italics indicating a GOP gain): CA, TX, VA, MD, IL, NY, GA, OH, MO, WA, NJ, TN, FL, NC, CO, UT, KY, WV, AR. An interesting mix of states, with a few standing out as significant Clinton gains in growing states that failed to secure the electoral votes (TX, GA, FL, and NC), while Trump’s gains were largest in the non-competitive midwest states (OH and MO) instead of the three (WI, MI, and PA) that actually got him the electoral college. The cluster of KY, WV, and AR are also noticeable for being this high on the list despite their smaller sizes.
Going back to the first two columns, it’s interesting to see which margins were the result of both Clinton and Trump gaining over Kerry and Bush, both losing, or only one gaining. For instance Trump flipped Wisconsin while actually losing 73K Bush voters (the problem was Clinton lost 107K Kerry voters). Same story in Michigan. But in Pennsylvania, Clinton got basically the same number of votes as Kerry, but Trump got 177K more than Bush. To an extent a lot of the results are explained by which states are growing or shrinking, with a noticeable third party effect sapping votes from both sides in 2016 which was (as usual for third parties) weakest in southern states. But this isn’t the case across the board.
Other observations: I had actually forgotten that Clinton did better than Kerry in Mississippi, despite what you would have expected from neighboring states. Another interesting pair of states: Kansas and Nebraska, both dark red states in which Clinton got a better percentage than Kerry. Yet Kansas gave less raw votes to both candidates in 2016, whereas Clinton got noticeably more in Nebraska than Kerry. Both states had similar rates of third party voting, and both are growing at about the same rate.
Finally, some maps. First up, 2016 vs 2004, with blue meaning a net shift to Clinton in popular vote, red a net shift to Trump. This is not exactly equal to a map only looking at percentage margins...for example, Trump netted 24K more votes in South Carolina than Bush did, making it red on this map. However because both sides gained so many votes it actually brought Bush’s 17% margin down to 14% for Trump.
Next, comparing only Clinton to Kerry, green means Clinton got more raw votes than Kerry, orange means less:
And last, comparing only Trump to Bush, green means Trump got more raw votes than Bush, orange less: