Could Trump Be the Force to Redraw the Electoral Map?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/us/politics/trump-electoral-map.html

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Democrats began their most recent era of presidential futility during Hillary Clinton’s senior year of college. They lost the race for the White House in five of the six elections from 1968 through 1988.

In those two decades, Republicans won so many states so consistently that the veteran Democratic strategist Horace Busby gave their dominance of presidential politics a name: the “Electoral College lock.”

Yet in 1992 Bill Clinton picked it, beginning a new era in which Democrats hold the electoral upper hand.

The question in 2016 is whether the political hurricane that is Donald J. Trump can scramble the electoral map again.

The Democrats have won the national popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. Powered by support from the swelling population of nonwhite voters, Democratic nominees have flourished by repeatedly winning a phalanx of states along the east and west coasts and through the upper Midwest.

If Mrs. Clinton can hold the 18 bulwark states in those areas and the District of Columbia, she would have 242 electoral votes. That would leave her just 28 short of the needed 270, with multiple possibilities for finding them.

But as any sports fan or stock market investor can attest, straight-line projections from the recent past can prove unreliable. As Mr. Clinton showed in 1992, demographic trends, exceptional candidates and disruptive forces can tip political outcomes unexpectedly.

The 1992 campaign began with signs that the Republican juggernaut had weakened.

Four years earlier, the first President George Bush had kept the electoral jackpot of California in the Republican column, but by less than four percentage points. He won another Republican stronghold, Illinois, by just two percentage points.

Then the 1990-91 economic recession badly eroded Mr. Bush’s standing. Under fire from both Mr. Clinton and the feisty independent Ross Perot, he lost both California and Illinois decisively in 1992, as well as New Jersey, which he had carried by a double-digit margin in 1988.

What’s happened since?

After going Republican in six straight elections through 1988, California, Illinois and New Jersey have voted Democratic six straight times. Together, they offer one-third of the electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Mr. Trump’s challenge begins with holding the 24 states and 206 electoral votes that the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, captured in 2012. His search for additional states begins with places where President Obama, who claimed 26 states, along with Washington, D.C., and 332 electoral votes, barely won.

The closest were Florida (where the Democratic margin was one percentage point), Ohio (three points) and Virginia (four points). Carrying all three would leave Mr. Trump with 266 electoral votes, still four short of victory.

Next closest, with margins of just over five points, were Colorado and Pennsylvania. Mr. Trump lost several Western states to Ted Cruz in the nomination fight and was shut out at Colorado’s state Republican convention; his hard-line message on immigration suggests he is also likely to struggle in November in that state, where the Hispanic and Latino population is higher than the national average.

His criticism of international trade deals has fared better with blue-collar whites in the Rust Belt states of the Midwest and Northeast. That makes Pennsylvania, another state that Democrats have won six straight times, a promising target.

A recent Quinnipiac Poll showed Mr. Trump virtually tied with Mrs. Clinton in Pennsylvania and Florida, and slightly ahead in Ohio. Other Midwestern states where Mr. Romney finished within shouting distance include Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan.

At the same time, the Clinton campaign sees the possibility of expanding its electoral reach, too. Georgia, where Mr. Obama lost by eight percentage points, and Arizona, where he lost by nine points, have recorded substantial growth in their Hispanic and Latino populations.

If a Clinton-led Democratic ticket breaks the party’s losing streak in Arizona, it wouldn’t be the first time. Beginning in 1952, Republicans won Arizona 11 straight times until Mr. Clinton eked out a win there in 1996.