59-529: (Redirected from Blue Wall ) [REDACTED] Look up blue wall in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Blue wall may refer to: Blue wall (United States) , states leaning toward the Democratic Party in presidential elections Blue wall (British politics) , a group of Conservative-leaning UK parliamentary constituencies which are seen as shifting away from
118-503: A large margin . Instead, the tipping-point state that year was Michigan , as it gave Reagan the decisive electoral vote. The difference in Michigan was nineteen percentage points, quite similar to Reagan's national margin of eighteen percent. Michigan would have been more relevant to the election results had the election been closer. Similarly, Barack Obama 's narrow victory in Indiana in
177-483: A swing state (also known as battleground state , toss-up state , or purple state ) is any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election, most often referring to presidential elections , by a swing in votes. These states are usually targeted by both major-party campaigns , especially in competitive elections. Meanwhile, the states that regularly lean to
236-458: A Democratic governor despite also voting for Republican Donald Trump . In Maine and Nebraska, the apportionment of electoral votes parallels that for U.S. senators and representatives . Two electoral votes go to the candidate who wins the plurality of the vote statewide, and a candidate gets an additional electoral vote for each congressional district in which they receive a plurality. Both of these states have relatively few electoral votes –
295-479: A Republican senator included Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Maine. Those with a Republican governor included Massachusetts, Maryland, and Michigan. In addition to these 18 states, three others, Iowa , New Hampshire , and New Mexico , had only voted for the Republican once in the same six election cycles, giving their votes to George W. Bush in either 2000 or 2004 by a margin of no more than 10,059 votes. If included in
354-659: A considerable underperformance compared to Obama's margins in these states in 2008 and 2012. Long-term trends seem less favorable to Democrats in these states as they all voted to the right of the national average and many working-class white voters there have been moving towards the Republicans. Biden also broke into the red wall/sea by winning Arizona, Georgia, and the 2nd congressional district of Nebraska. However, Maine's 2nd congressional district voted for Donald Trump. Pundits saw former battleground states such as Colorado and Virginia becoming solidly Democratic-leaning after
413-401: A higher rate with campaign visits, television advertising, and get out the vote efforts by party organizers and debates. According to Katrina vanden Heuvel, a journalist for The Nation , "four out of five" voters in the national election are "absolutely ignored". Since most states use a winner-takes-all arrangement, in which the candidate with the most votes in that state receives all of
472-496: A pre-election 2016 analysis, the thirteen most competitive states were Wisconsin , Pennsylvania , New Hampshire , Minnesota , Arizona , Georgia , Virginia , Florida , Michigan , Nevada , Colorado , North Carolina , and Maine . Nebraska's 2nd congressional district was (and is still as of 2020) also considered competitive. However, this projection was not specific to any particular election cycle , and assumed similar levels of support for both parties . Ten weeks before
531-485: A single party are known as "safe states" (or more specifically as "red states" and "blue states" depending on the partisan leaning), as it is generally assumed that one candidate has a base of support from which a sufficient share of the electorate can be drawn without significant investment or effort by the campaign. Due to the winner-take-all method that most states use to determine their presidential electors , candidates often campaign only in competitive states, which
590-473: A total of 4 and 5, respectively. Nebraska has split its votes since 1992, and Maine has done so since 1972. Each state has split its electoral votes only thrice since implementation: all three times Maine's second district gave one vote to Donald Trump, in 2016, 2020 and 2024; while Obama in 2008, Biden in 2020, and Harris in 2024 obtained the Nebraska's second district vote in their respective races. States where
649-407: A uniform shift among the states. Swing states have generally changed over time. For instance, the swing states of Ohio , Connecticut , Indiana , New Jersey and New York were key to the outcome of the 1888 election . Likewise, Illinois and Texas were key to the outcome of the 1960 election , Florida and New Hampshire were key in deciding the 2000 election , and Ohio was important during
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#1732847660228708-419: Is Georgia , which is a swing state because it has large populations of Republican-leaning evangelical whites and Democratic-leaning Black voters and urban college-educated professionals, thus campaigns often concentrate on voter turnout. Presidential campaigns and pundits seek to keep track of the shifting electoral landscape. While swing states in past elections can be determined simply by looking at how close
767-549: Is a total of 238 votes. Had Al Gore won New Hampshire (4) in 2000 or if John Kerry had won New Mexico (5) or Iowa (7) in 2004 , those states could also have become part of the blue wall states since 1992; New Mexico and New Hampshire would further support the Democratic nominee in 2016, 2020, and 2024, while Iowa would not. Ronald Reagan 's landslide re-election in 1984 carried all states except for Minnesota, which last voted Republican with Richard Nixon in 1972 ; and
826-547: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Blue wall (United States) The " blue wall " is a term coined in 2009 in the political culture of the United States to refer to the several states (along with Washington, D.C. ) that reliably “voted blue ” i.e. for the Democratic Party in the six consecutive presidential elections from 1992 to 2012 . Conversely,
885-619: Is regularly a swing state. Additionally, campaigns stopped mounting nationwide electoral efforts in the last few months near/at the ends of the blowout 2008 election, but rather targeted only a handful of battlegrounds. This is a chart of swing states using the methodology of Nate Silver for determining tipping point states, but including the other states in close contention in recent elections, ranked by margin of victory. In this method, states and DC are ordered by margin of victory, then tabulating which states were required to get to 270+ electoral votes in margin order. The tipping point state, and
944-509: Is usually a swing state that leans slightly towards Republicans, enough to prevent Democrats from winning it except for Obama when he narrowly won the state in 2008 . Former red wall/sea states include Georgia and Arizona , which had been won by the Republicans in nine of the eleven elections from 1984 to 2024, but now considered swing states . Presidential votes in blue wall states since 1876: Bold denotes candidates elected as president Swing states In United States politics ,
1003-508: Is why a select group of states frequently receives a majority of the advertisements and candidate visits. The battlegrounds may change in certain election cycles and may be reflected in overall polling, demographics, and the ideological appeal of the nominees. In United States presidential elections , each state is free to decide the method by which its electors to the Electoral College will be chosen. To increase its voting power in
1062-455: The 2004 election . Ohio has gained its reputation as a regular swing state after 1980, and did not vote against the winner between 1960 and 2020. In the 2024 election , Ohio and Florida had shifted rightward and were considered safe wins for Republicans. In fact, only three people have won the presidential election without winning Ohio since 1900: Franklin D. Roosevelt , John F. Kennedy , and Joe Biden . Areas considered battlegrounds in
1121-608: The 2008 election inaccurately portrays its status as a battleground. Obama lost Indiana by more than ten percentage points in the closer 2012 election , but triumphed anyway as Indiana's electoral votes were not directly needed for a coalition of 270 votes; the same scenario was with Missouri , where John McCain narrowly won by 4,000 votes in the 2008 election , but was won by Mitt Romney by nearly 10 points in 2012 election , indicating its GOP trend. Other lightly Republican leaning states such as North Carolina and Arizona were more plausible Democratic pick-ups in 2012. In 2012,
1180-630: The 2016 election , Hillary Clinton overperformed in educated, suburban states such as Colorado and Virginia compared to past Democratic candidates, while Donald Trump performed above standard Republican expectations in the Rust Belt , such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In addition, gradual shifts can occur within states due to changes in demography, geography, or population patterns. For example, many currently Republican states, like Arkansas , Missouri , Tennessee , and West Virginia , had been battlegrounds as recently as 2004. According to
1239-935: The 2020 election were Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine's 2nd congressional district , Michigan, Minnesota , Nebraska's 2nd congressional district , Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin, with Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin constituting the "Big Five" most likely to decide the Electoral College. In the end, Joe Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, NE-02, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while Donald Trump won ME-02, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. Campaign strategies are not universal in swing states. Statistical analytics website FiveThirtyEight notes that some swing states, such as New Hampshire , swing because they have many moderate, independent swing voters, and campaigning puts an emphasis on persuading voters. Contrasting this
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#17328476602281298-478: The Electoral College , as Trump, the Republican nominee, won the tipping-point state of Wisconsin by less than 1 percent. In 2020, Joe Biden won the popular vote by over 4 percentage points but won the tipping point state of Pennsylvania by only 1 percent. This shows Donald Trump could win the election even if he lost the popular vote by over 3 percent and would have picked up Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin with
1357-628: The South , including Alabama , Mississippi , Louisiana , Arkansas , Tennessee , Kentucky , South Carolina , Missouri , Texas , and West Virginia , as well as Alaska . Democrats usually take the Mid-Atlantic states, including New York , New Jersey , Maryland , Virginia , and Delaware , New England , particularly Vermont , Massachusetts , Rhode Island , and Connecticut , the West Coast states of California , Oregon , Washington , Hawaii , and
1416-906: The Southwestern states of Colorado and New Mexico , as well as the Great Lakes states of Illinois and Minnesota . However, some states that consistently vote for one party at the presidential level occasionally elect a governor of the opposite party; this is currently the case in Vermont and Virginia which have Republican governors, as well as in Kentucky and Kansas , which currently have Democratic governors. Even in presidential election years, voters may split presidential and gubernatorial tickets. In 2020, this occurred in Vermont and New Hampshire , which elected Republican governors even as Democrat Joe Biden won both states, while North Carolina elected
1475-587: The " Solid South " until Republicans implemented the Southern strategy . Ronald Brownstein claims to have coined the term "blue wall" in 2009. After the 2012 presidential election, Paul Steinhauser called "blue wall ... the cluster of eastern, Midwest and western states that have traditionally gone Democratic." The earliest description of the forces creating the blue wall comes from a Houston Chronicle blogger, Chris Ladd. A Republican, Ladd wrote in November 2014 that
1534-483: The 2020 election, partially as a result of demographic patterns. Biden won both of these states by more than 10% in 2020. During the 2024 United States presidential election , Republican candidate Donald Trump was able to regain the White House, largely due to the reclaiming of the battleground states of Wisconsin , Pennsylvania , and Michigan (as well as Maine's 2nd congressional district ). He would also win
1593-803: The 2020 presidential election, statistical analytics website FiveThirtyEight noted that the electoral map is "undergoing a series of changes", with some states moving rightward, other states moving leftward, and two states (Florida, until the 2020 election, and North Carolina ) described as "perennial" swing states. Likewise, an analysis of results of the 2018 midterms indicated that the "battleground states" are changing, with Colorado and Ohio becoming less competitive and more Democratic and Republican, respectively, while Georgia and Arizona were slowly turning into swing states. The Electoral College encourages political campaigners to focus most of their efforts on courting voters in swing states. States in which polling shows no clear favorite are usually targeted at
1652-525: The Blue Wall. The blue wall referred to a perceived Democratic demographic lock on the Electoral College resulting from the Republican Party's narrowing focus on the interests of white, rural, and Southern voters. According to Ladd, the presence of the blue wall means "a minimally effective Democratic candidate" is all but assured of winning 257 electoral votes , just 13 short of the threshold needed to win
1711-968: The Democratic Party had won 18 of these states (as well as the District of Columbia ), totaling 238 of the necessary 270 votes need to win. The "big three" Democratic stronghold states include California , New York , and Illinois . States falling behind this blue wall generally included those the Democrats had carried since the 1992 presidential election until the 2016 presidential election that included (in order of decreasing population and followed by current number of electoral votes): California (54), New York (28), Illinois (19), Pennsylvania (19), Michigan (15), New Jersey (14), Washington (12), Massachusetts (11), Maryland (10), Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10), Oregon (8), Connecticut (7), Hawaii (4), Maine (4), Rhode Island (4), Delaware (3), and Vermont (3), as well as Washington, D.C. (3); this
1770-510: The Democratic Party, at least on the national level. Republican presidential candidates could only contest a small selection of these states, as only a few swing states would have sufficient votes to make up the 270 threshold. States behind this wall lay generally in the Northeastern United States , the West Coast of the United States , and some of the Great Lakes states . In each of the six presidential election cycles prior to 2016,
1829-502: The Democratic Party, citing the close margins in those states in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections and opining that the outsized margins of victory secured by Barack Obama in the elections of 2008 and 2012 may have created a false impression of their safety for Democratic candidates. During the 2020 United States presidential election, Democratic nominee Joe Biden won the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. However, Biden carried these states only by 0.5–3 point margins,
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1888-489: The District of Columbia, which has voted for the Democratic candidate in every election since it was admitted to the electoral college for the 1964 election . As such, the blue wall began to materialize with the 1988 United States presidential election ; states that voted solely for Democratic Presidents since 1988 were New York , Washington , Massachusetts , Wisconsin , Oregon , Hawaii , and Rhode Island . The remainder of
1947-405: The Electoral College and the presidency. Ladd's analysis became popular when MSNBC commentator Lawrence O'Donnell featured it on a post-election episode of his show The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell . George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 because they could only pick up Iowa and New Mexico (12 votes) in 2000 and New Hampshire (4 votes) in 2004 in addition to
2006-426: The Electoral College by only 5 votes. In contrast, 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over 2 percentage points. This meant that Donald Trump would have picked up New Hampshire , Nevada , and Minnesota if the popular vote had been tied, assuming a uniform shift among the battleground states. On the other hand, Clinton would have had to win the popular vote by at least 3 points to win
2065-446: The Electoral College system , every state, with the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska , has adopted a winner-take-all system, where the candidate who wins the most popular votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes. The expectation was that the candidates would look after the interests of the states with the most electoral votes. However, in practice, most voters tend not to change party allegiance from one election to
2124-560: The Republican party. Most of the turnout drop was in Democrat stronghold states, partially due to the perception of being "safely Democratic", resulting in performances such as New Jersey being in striking range of 5%, and San Francisco, California voting more than 15% for Donald Trump in the 2024 election, the highest share for a Republican presidential candidate in San Francisco in 20 years. The states which Republican candidates have won in
2183-487: The blue wall was built in the 1992 United States presidential election : California , Illinois , Pennsylvania , Michigan , New Jersey , Maryland , Connecticut , Maine , Delaware , and Vermont . The Democrats' "lock" on these states had been called into question between 2012 and 2016, as several had been competitive in recent elections, and many had Republicans currently holding elected statewide office, generally either senator or governor . Blue wall states with
2242-418: The blue wall. A similar "red fortress", within which lie states solidly Republican, has also been posited to exist. But, having fewer electoral college votes, it would be theoretically easier for a Democratic presidential candidate to win without breaching it, as had been done in 2012. Behind this "blue wall" lay states, many carrying a double-digit number of electoral votes, which appeared to be solidly behind
2301-569: The election has a close result become less meaningful in landslide elections. Instead, states which vote similarly to the national vote proportions are more likely to appear as the closest states. For example, the states in the 1984 election with the tightest results were Minnesota and Massachusetts . A campaign strategy centered on them, however, would not have been meaningful in the Electoral College , as Democratic nominee Walter Mondale required victories in many more states than Massachusetts, and Republican Ronald Reagan still would have won by
2360-409: The last seven elections (from 2000 to 2024), making more recent additions to the red wall/sea, bringing the total electoral votes up to 154. Other states with a 11-out-of-12 (from 1980 to 2024) Republican record include North Carolina (16) and Indiana (11), whose 27 electoral votes added to the 154 of the preceding twenty red sea states make for a total of 181 electoral votes, although North Carolina
2419-412: The nation. Had the election come out closer, Romney's path to victory would probably have involved also winning Wisconsin , Nevada , New Hampshire , or Iowa , as these states had comparable margins to Colorado, and had been battlegrounds during the election. As many mathematical analysts have noted, however, the state voting in a fashion most similar to that of the nation as a whole is not necessarily
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2478-425: The next 10 states with close margins on each side, are shown as the swing states in retrospect, along with the "bias" which is the difference between the final margin in the tipping point state and final popular vote margin. This takes into account inherent electoral college advantages; for example, Michigan was the closest state in 2016 by result, and Nevada was the closest state to the national popular vote result, but
2537-439: The next, leading presidential candidates to concentrate their limited time and resources campaigning in those states that they believe they can swing towards them or stop states from swinging away from them, and not to spend time or resources in states they expect to win or lose. Because of the electoral system, the campaigns are less concerned with increasing a candidate's national popular vote, tending instead to concentrate on
2596-732: The party Blue wall of silence , an informal code among some police officers not to report wrongdoing by fellow officers "The Blue Wall", an episode of the television series Law & Order (season 1) The Blue Wall , a 2018 documentary film about the Chicago murder of Laquan McDonald, updated in 2019 as 16 Shots See also [ edit ] [REDACTED] Search for "bluewall" , "blue wall" , "bluewalls" , or "blue walls" on Misplaced Pages. All pages with titles containing blue wall All pages with titles containing bluewall Blue (disambiguation) Wall (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
2655-422: The popular vote could flip some of its states to Republican. This was seen in the 2016 election, where voters from manufacturing states traditionally behind the blue wall voted for Donald Trump, providing him the victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Maine's 2nd congressional district. Others have also posited that the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin had never definitively been "safe" for
2714-646: The popular vote for the first time due to a significant collapse of Democratic turnout. Part of his victory in Michigan was attributed to the large population of Arab and Muslim voters who did not vote for the Democrats over their continued involvement in the deaths in Gaza and Lebanon ; Harris saw a drop-off of more than fifty thousand votes compared to Biden's performance in 2020. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania invigorated turnout upwards of 150 thousand votes in that state, and as such Wisconsin
2773-489: The popular vote only in those states which will provide the electoral votes it needs to win the election, as many successful candidates have lost the popular vote but won the electoral college. In past electoral results, Republican candidates would have expected to easily win most of the mountain states and Great Plains , such as Idaho , Wyoming , the Dakotas , Montana , Utah , Kansas , Oklahoma , and Nebraska , most of
2832-415: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Blue wall . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_wall&oldid=1257478524 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
2891-406: The seemingly impressive Republican win in the 2014 midterm elections had overshadowed another trend apparent in the results – a demographic and geographic collapse. For Republicans looking for ways that the party can once again take the lead in building a nationally relevant governing agenda, the 2014 election is a prelude to a disaster. Understanding this trend begins with a stark graphic. Behold
2950-445: The state's electoral votes, there is a clear incentive to focus almost exclusively on only a few undecided states. In contrast, many states with large populations such as California, Texas and New York have in recent elections been considered "safe" for a particular party, and therefore not a priority for campaign visits and money. Meanwhile, twelve of the thirteen smallest states are thought of as safe for either party – only New Hampshire
3009-409: The states of North Carolina, Florida, Ohio , and Virginia were decided by a margin of less than five percent. However, none of them were considered the tipping-point state, as Romney would not have been able to defeat Obama even if he had emerged victorious in all of them. Virginia was most in-step with the rest of the country. Virginians voted for Obama by just under 4 points, almost the exact same as
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#17328476602283068-504: The status of the "blue wall" Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which became swing states in the next three elections. The Trump victories in 2016 and 2024 included flipping these three states. (The 2020 Biden victory won all three states with lower than five percent margins, and Biden was the first Democrat since the 1990s to win the states of Georgia and Arizona.) The Southern United States had previously voted Democratic so reliably that it had been termed
3127-420: The terms "red wall" and "red sea" are less-commonly used to refer to states that Republicans consistently won in the same timeframe; states which have not voted consistently for one party are called “purple” or swing states . During the 2016 presidential election , the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton , was a heavy favorite to win the electoral college , but Republican nominee Donald Trump challenged
3186-457: The tipping-point state. The presidential election in 2016 was a notable example, as it featured one of the largest historical disparities between the Electoral College and popular vote. Additionally, this "split" in votes was much larger in both directions than in previous elections, such as the 2000 election . In that election, Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote by less than 1 percent, while incoming president George W. Bush won
3245-404: The tipping-point. For example, if a candidate wins only a few states but does so by a wide margin, while the other candidate's victories are much closer, the popular vote would likely favor the former. However, although the vast majority of the states leaned to the latter candidate in comparison to the entire country, many of them would end up having voted for the loser in greater numbers than did
3304-456: The total, the votes behind the blue wall numbered 257, just 13 short of what is needed to win. Some in the mainstream media did, however, suspect the Democrats might lose Pennsylvania. Nate Silver had criticized the idea of the blue wall, pointing to a similar "red wall/red sea" of states that voted Republican from 1968 to 1988 . He argued that the blue wall simply represented a "pretty good run" in elections, and that relatively minor gains in
3363-515: The twelve federal elections from 1980 to 2024 are: Texas (40), Alabama (9), South Carolina (9), Oklahoma (7), Mississippi (6), Utah (6), Kansas (6), Nebraska (4) (excluding Nebraska's 2nd congressional district ), Idaho (4), South Dakota (3), North Dakota (3), Alaska (3), and Wyoming (3), giving a total of 103 votes. Additionally, Tennessee (11), Missouri (10), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Arkansas (6), West Virginia (4), and Montana (4) have been won by Republicans in
3422-491: The vote was in each state, determining states likely to be swing states in future elections requires estimation and projection based on previous election results, opinion polling, political trends, recent developments since the previous election, and any strengths or weaknesses of the particular candidate involved. The swing-state "map" transforms between each election cycle, depending on the candidates and their policies, sometimes dramatically and sometimes subtly. For example, in
3481-453: Was hence the most Democratic of the trio, where both candidates made gains. Trump's margin of victory in those states was less than two percent, very close to the national margin, but the victories added 44 electoral votes to his total. In general, the improved Republican turnout coinciding with a severe drop in Democratic turnout presented a nationally weak performance for the Democratic ticket, where over 90% of counties nationwide swung towards
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