Democratic column. It was more Democratic in 2008 and 2012 than it had been since Harry Truman’s victory in 1948. Both presidential campaigns largely ignored the state in 2012, and Obama won it by 10 points.
With its historically large Hispanic population, New Mexico doesn’t look much like the nation. John Petrocik commenting in 1996 on New Mexico’s history of backing winners in presidential elections, noted, “The problem is that New Mexico doesn’t look like anyplace else. It’s too atypical and out of the way for people to take its bellwether status as anything but luck or accident, even though that might not be the case.”13 If Hispanics continue to vote for Democrats at a rate of two-thirds or better—a big if, because such voting patterns are not necessarily set in stone—New Mexico may move to the Democrats as Missouri has shifted toward the Republicans.
Nevada is a different story. From 1912 to 2012, Nevada voted against the winner just once, when it narrowly supported unelected incumbent Ford over Carter in 1976. Its modern bellwether role can be attributed to being “representative of America,” according to Nevada political reporter and analyst Jon Ralston.
Urban and rural, growing Hispanic population, a fast-growing melting pot until the recession slowed us down. Nevada really is three states, which put together form a whole that would reflect the nation’s sentiments. Super-urban Clark County, with the biggest city and all the concomitant problems, issues of a big city, and heavily Democratic; urban Reno, a small-town feel, the swing county that has liberals more liberal than Clark and conservatives more conservative; the other 15 counties, all rural, very conservative, a picture of red America. . . . Why wouldn’t we be representative?14
Demographically, Nevada provides what could be a vision of the nation’s future. According to the 2012 general election exit poll (a survey taken of voters at polling places after they voted), Nevada’s voters were eight points more diverse than the nation’s: 64 percent White (compared to 72 percent nationally), 19 percent Hispanic/Latino, 9 percent Black, 5 percent Asian American, 4 percent Other.15
All in all, there’s a good argument for Nevada as a premier bellwether going forward. But there’s more to determining a bellwether than just whether a state votes with the winners.
OHIO: ALWAYS IN THE MIDDLE
Another way to measure how much a state’s results reflect the national average is looking at how far the state deviates from the national results. For this, let’s return to the presidential deviations explained in the first chapter. As a refresher, the presidential deviation shows how far away from the national vote a state’s results were in a given year, using just the two-party vote. In a 50–50 national election, a state that voted 55 percent to 45 percent for the Democrat would be D +5, and a state that voted 55 percent to 45 percent for the Republican would be R +5. The bigger the deviation, the further a state’s results are from the national popular vote.
Table 2.2 shows how many times from 1896 through 2012 each state had a presidential deviation that was less than five. States that are generally close to the national voting can be considered bellwethers; states that are not are outliers.
Table 2.2. States with presidential deviations less than five in presidential elections, 1896–2012
Amazingly, Ohio’s presidential deviation has been five points or more only three times in the last 30 elections, by far the lowest of any states. New Mexico comes in second, at six of the last 26 (it first voted for president in 1912). Other than those two states, no other has been near the national average in more than 75 percent of the presidential elections over this 116-year time period. In fact, 29 of the 51 states (including the District of Columbia) have more often than not had presidential results that have been significantly outside the national mainstream.
The District of Columbia, with its heavy Democratic lean, has never been within five points of the national voting (it first voted for president in 1964). The formerly Democratic Solid South, which is now staunchly Republican, is almost a perfect anti-bellwether: Alabama and South Carolina have had deviations less than five points in only two of the last 30 elections, and Mississippi only did twice.
Table 2.3 shows the average presidential deviation for each state over the past 30 elections. For each election, it doesn’t matter whether a state deviated in a Democratic or a Republican direction—the average deviation in either direction over the 30 elections is what’s expressed here.
Table 2.3. States’ average deviation from two-party presidential vote, 1896–2012
The results of these calculations offer another strong argument for Ohio as the most accurate bellwether over the last 30 elections. On average, Ohio’s presidential vote deviated just 2.2 points from the national results. New Mexico, noted above as a historic bellwether, was second at 2.8 points.
The deviations calculated above track fairly well with the presidential win totals discussed above, with one major exception. While states like Ohio, New Mexico, Illinois, and Missouri lead this list—just as they do above—bellwether Nevada’s vote has historically deviated much more strikingly over the last 30 elections, placing it in the middle of the pack of both tables 2.2 and 2.3.
Again, Nevada’s strong support of silver bug Bryan, particularly in 1896 and 1900 at the start of this analysis, skews the numbers. Based on two-party vote, the Silver State was 33 points more Democratic than the nation in 1896, and 15 points more Democratic four years later. More recently, though, Nevada had presidential deviations of R +15, R +8, and R +7 in 1980, 1984, and 1988, respectively, before settling into a deviation near the national average moving into the 21st century.
If we narrow the time frame, Ohio’s position as the leading bellwether becomes even more striking. Since 1964, Ohio has been at most just two points from the middle of the country either way, voting with the winner every time. Meanwhile, Illinois, the one-time battleground turned Democratic stronghold, has been at least five points more Democratic than the nation in every election since 1992. Missouri was four and seven points more Republican than the nation in 2008 and 2012, respectively, and was slightly more Republican in the three elections prior to that.
Using two-party presidential deviations can skew some state results. For instance, this method shows Alabama with a whopping R +52 deviation in 1948. Why? Because Truman was not even on the ballot there: conservative Democrat Strom Thurmond was on the ballot instead, so Truman got zero votes in Alabama. Thurmond won the all-party vote with nearly 80 percent, but Republican nominee Thomas Dewey got 100 percent of the two-party votes, or 52 points better than his national share of roughly 48 percent of the two-party tally. As is obvious, the two-party vote is not perfect, but when it performs poorly it is generally in the states of the South, which supported third-party candidates such as Thurmond in 1948 and Wallace in 1968. Nobody would consider those places bellwether states.
The District of Columbia, meanwhile, has never been less than 24 points more Democratic than the nation in its entire electoral history, which began in 1964. That gives it the highest average deviation from the nation’s results of any place with electoral votes, by a significant margin.
Of all the other states (and DC), only two states besides Ohio have never been more than 10 points from the national voting since 1896: Ohio’s neighbor to the west, Indiana, which is currently the most Republican state in the Midwest (and has been more Republican than the nation in every election since 1928), and historic bellwether Illinois, which is now the Midwest’s consistently most Democratic state.
Averaging the presidential deviation over the last 30 elections helps confirm what Ohio’s nearly flawless record in picking presidential winners