When the governor's mansion in Kentucky was won by a Republican last week, many were taken by surprise. Perhaps they shouldn't have been. I began writing a post about the grim political landscape faced by Democrats in this cycle, and the disappearance of moderates in either political party. While it's certainly the case that Hillary Clinton's remarkable week of successes in the middle of October has given new life to her campaign and lifted the spirits of many Democrats around the country, that enthusiasm seems misplaced if you begin looking at races for anything other than President. While the GOP frequently looks like it's in a state of perpetual civil war, Republicans have lots of reasons to be feeling pretty good about themselves heading into next year.
I spent a bit of time last week compiling information and data depicting the grim political landscape for Democrats, but then Chuck Todd stole all my thunder. Since he had better numbers than me, I thought I'd just post what he said:
The post-clip commentary by Chuck's panel suggested that for all the mythic prowess of Obama's political organization in the 2008 and 2012 presidential cycles, those victories were less about the Democrats' use of big data, or cleverly focused campaign messaging than they were about the personal popularity of the President himself in getting people to the polls. Meanwhile, the GOP has been laying the foundation for long-term, nation-wide dominance; increasing their majorities in the House (247R-188D) and Senate (54R-44D), dominating state legislatures (see table), and governors' houses (31R to 18D), permitting control of legislative agendas and the all-important process of Congressional "redistricting."
As just one example of the difficult landscape for Democrats, have a look at this table of all 50 states published by the National Conference of State Legislatures earlier this year. There's a lot of red there.
There are lots of really interesting electoral maps of the United States depicting elements of all this. With one year to go, I thought I'd include just a couple here:
The National Landscape after 2012.
Urban Rural Divide 2012
County By County Popular Vote for President 2012
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