US maps showing the trend is towards blue, not red in the Presidential elections

[lunatica]

We know Teabaggers and Sarah Palin and Glen Beck and the red states passing un-Constitutional laws are getting all the attention, but the real trend in this country is that the red states have been turning blue. The screaming you hear is from a shrinking minority. Remember we also won a majority in both Houses in 2008.

The blue states are also the most densely populated and probably have the majority of the population. I can't check right now because I'm already late for work.

Here's the 2004 Presidential election map


Here's the 2008 Presidential election map

[sharp_stick]

1. Blue States do have greater population

than red States but the idiotic Electoral College system gives runty little States a massive leg up. More or less this is equivalent to each person in Wyoming having the equivalent Presidential vote to 3 or 4 people in New York or California.

[spanone]

2. shhhh. don't tell the media, they think we're gonna get creamed in november.

[NoNothing]

3. I don't really think two data points is a "trend"

States are flip-flopping all the time. Reagan won almost every state back in the day; that didn't indicate a long-term Republican trend.

[HopeHoops]

4. A big factor in that was the use of election maps on TV predicting outcomes.

They were coloring the maps based on exit polls long before the polls closed. It gave the appearance of a sweep of everything west of the Appalachian Mountains early on and many people later admitted that they stayed home because it there was no sense in voting for Carter since Reagan was already going to win. They modified how they handled it in 1984 but it still had a similar effect. After the networks agreed to not call states until after the polls had closed there.

It is still a problem, as evidenced by the 2000 election. They still call states with as little as 3% of the precincts reporting. Since the east closes so much earlier, those "best guess" calls can still influence people who plan to stop to vote on the way home from work in western states. I personally think that the "calls" should wait until every poll has closed in every state. We spend 18 or more months listening to election coverage. I think we can wait a few hours on election day. And that still gives the papers time to get in a headline and the prepared story they have for whichever outcome is declared. You know they have one ready for both outcomes.

[defendandprotect]

6. The computers used by MSM are in play there, as well . . .

as these comments are pointing out --

The large computers used by MSM began coming in during the mid-1960's --

The computers gave them immense new powers to PREDICT and CALL elections --

Prior to that they were only able to report actual vote tallies.

Yes, they could sit around and talk about the way they thought things might go,

but the "computers" gave those predictions new authority!

What we saw in 2000 with Jon Ellis/Fox News was simply a reversal of those new powers.

All computers are hackable -- if anyone keeps at it long enough.

Even Pentagon computers are regularly hacked -- even by China!


Keep in mind also, that the computers -- both large used by MSM and individual voting

computers used by voters -- began coming in during the mid-late-1960's --

coincidentally, just about the time America was passing the Voting Rights Act.


I'd question every election back to Nixon/Humphrey -- and that was a mere 100,000 vote difference!

[defendandprotect]

5. Would be nice to break the mid-year traditional reverses . . .!!!