I took a look at Cook’s Partisan Advantage Index (PVI) ratings going back to 1994 and ranked the 50 states and the District of Columbia in terms of how much they have changed. The Cook PVI is a measure of how a state or district votes relative to the country as a whole, and it uses the two most recent presidential elections as its baseline. For example, the 1994 PVI was based on the 1988 and 1992 elections, while the 2014 PVI is based on the 2008 and 2012 elections.
What I did was to compare the 1994 PVI to the 2014 PVI. Here are some of things I discovered:
Overall, 25 states have become more Republican in the last twenty years, 23 states (plus DC) have become more Democratic, and two have remained unchanged.
Three states (Arkansas, Missouri, and West Virginia) have moved from a Democratic lean to a Republican one, while four states (Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, and New Jersey) have moved from a Republican lean to a Democratic one. And the movement in the flipping states has been dramatic, as I’ll show next.
The biggest change in the Republicans’ direction was 18 points in West Virginia and 16 points in Arkansas, both of which used to be blue states. The biggest change in the Democrats’ direction was Hawai’i (14 points) and Vermont (12 points), but among flippers New Jersey moved 9 points, New Hampshire moved 7 points, Nevada moved 6 points, and Florida moved 4 points.
The two states that remained constant are Oregon and South Carolina.
Again, this is a measure of movement relative to the country as a whole, which is different than a measure of partisanship. For example, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin have been reliably blue states in presidential elections for the last twenty years, but all of them have grown slightly more friendly to the Republicans relative to the country as a whole. Here’s the list, from most movement to the Republicans to most movement to the Democrats:
1. West Virginia R+18
2. Arkansas R+16
3. Wyoming R+15
4. Oklahoma R+12
5. Kentucky R+11
5. Louisiana R+11
7. Tennessee R+9
8. Utah R+7
8. Alabama R+7
8. Idaho R+7
8. Kansas R+7
8. Missouri R+7
8. Montana R+7
8. South Dakota R+7
15. Texas R+6
16. Iowa R+4
16. Minnesota R+4
18. Alaska R+3
18. North Dakota R+3
20. Arizona R+1
20. Georgia R+1
20. Mississippi R+1
20. Nebraska R+1
20. Pennsylvania R+1
20. Wisconsin R+1
26. Oregon EVEN
26. South Carolina EVEN
28. Colorado D+1
28. North Carolina D+1
28. Ohio D+1
28. Washington D+1
32. District of Columbia D+2
32. Indiana D+2
32. Massachusetts D+2
32. New Mexico D+2
32. Rhode Island D+2
37. Michigan D+3
38. Florida D+4
38. Illinois D+4
40. California D+5
40. Maine D+5
40. New York D+5
43. Connecticut D+6
43. Maryland D+6
43. Nevada D+6
43. Virginia D+6
47. New Hampshire D+7
48. Delaware D+8
49. New Jersey D+9
50. Vermont D+12
51. Hawai’i D+14
There are some things that we know about that have some impact on these numbers. The Clintons were from Arkansas and were much more popular there than your average Democrat. You can say the same thing about Al Gore and Tennessee, although his presidential run isn’t measured here. Hawai’i and Delaware have a Obama/Biden effect. Louisiana was impacted by Hurricane Katrina.
Still, you can see some pretty clear patterns, like a dramatic strengthening of the Dems in the Mid-Atlantic and a catastrophic rejection of the Dems in Appalachia.
What do you see?
