Tonight I was looking at an electoral map, pondering the possible outcomes of the 2012 election. I was dividing the country into different regions, trying to figure out what the Republican states have in common. The first thing my eye always notices is that red stripe down the middle of the country, from North Dakota to Texas. But I ended up with three categories – The South, The Mormon States, and The Missouri River – which I will blather about if you follow me below the orange fleur-de-Kos.
To Begin: The Red and Blue States
First, here’s the current map (August 27th) from electoral-vote.com. This website is reasonably fair. You have the option of subtracting Rasmussen polls, which is good. And they have something called “Tipping-point state,” which is kind of fun to check out. They currently say Obama is ahead by 297-212 electoral votes (and 29 extra electoral votes in Florida, which is tied).
Here’s what the electoral vote map looks like (according to electoral-vote.com):
Based on this map, I see three different sections: The Southern States, The Mormon states, and The Missouri River States. More maps below.
The Southern States (Confederacy/Bible Belt)
The first, most obvious way to define Southern States is to look at the Confederate states from the Civil war. I found a map on Wikipedia. The Confederacy stretched from Virginia to Texas. Note: The light-green areas were “claimed” by the Confederacy, including OK territory, MO, KY, and WV. Oklahoma wasn’t a state yet. And West Virginia seceded or split from Virginia in the middle of the Civil War.
Here’s the map of Confederate states:
There’s a slight problem. Virginia is leaning Democratic and Florida is considered a tie. So they’re exceptions. However I found another map that’s very interesting.
What about the “Bible Belt?” Here’s a map based on a 2009 Gallup poll that shows the states with the highest percentage of Protestants (not Catholics, Jews, Mormons, or other religions). That dark green section defines the Bible Belt, where over 70% of the residents say they are Protestant. Note that Virginia and Florida are less Protestant than the rest of the South. Maybe that’s why they’re swing states.
The South has a long history of claims of states’ rights, attempts at nullification, slavery and racism, rebellion against the federal government (including civil rights laws of the 1960s). This part of the country was solidly Democratic until the 1950s (look at the 1956 election, for example). Then, when LBJ and the Democrats started passing civil rights legislation, Nixon’s Southern Strategy was successful in converting the South to Red (plus, they’re very religious, so they dislike abortion rights and LGBT rights and women’s rights).
That part is easy. Everyone knows the South is mostly Republican. What makes Virginia and Florida unique is that they’re not as religious and they have more urban areas.
The Mormon Belt
From the same 2009 Gallup Poll, here’s a map of the Mormon States (states with the highest percentage of their population being Mormons):
According to one source I read, Utah has by far the highest percentage of Mormons (as expected), followed by Idaho, Wyoming, and Arizona, in that order. And all four of those states are solidly red. The Mormon church is against LGBT rights and women’s rights and abortion, plus Romney is a Mormon. No surprise there.
The Missouri River States
The Missouri River runs from Montana through the Dakotas, then between Nebraska and Iowa, a corner of Kansas, then through Missouri. Here’s a map:
This is a geographic rather than a cultural definition of red states. But consider the people in these states: mostly white, mostly rural (farms or relatively small towns and cities). They hunt and fish. They worry about the price of gas. They listen to Rush Limbaugh when they’re driving long distances. Perhaps they’re less religious and more libertarian (except that they sort of like the agricultural bills that help out farmers and they like the government-built infrastructure, like roads and bridges).
I realize that defining it by a river makes it sort of a catch-all miscellaneous category. But it ties together the states in that part of the country.
The outliers: AK and IN
Back to the original map:
Which states are red? Confederacy/Bible Belt, Mormon Belt, and Missouri River. That leaves two outliers: Alaska and Indiana. Alaska is sui generis. It’s not contiguous with other states. I guess I’d say that politically it’s more like Montana or North Dakota (more libertarian/frontier mentality, definitely not a Mormon or Bible Belt/Confederacy state). Indiana is interesting. In the 1920s, the second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan ran the state for several years. I would probably lump it in with the Southern States.
And that’s the end of my diary about the three categories of Republican states. Any comments?