The meme is not only did they not turn ‘weak’ red states like Texas or Ohio or Iowa or Florida into swing states, but 3 safe blue states instead ended up becoming Swing States and Arizona is now a red state.
Arizona has been pretty solidly red for Presidential elections for a while. It may be considered a swing state because of other aspects, but it’s been almost entirely red for Presidential elections since at least the 70s.
1996 and 2020 are the only times AZ swung blue in presidential elections, and even those were pretty slim. There were a couple that were just barely red: 1992 and 2016 were within 3%. But yeah, everything else within most of our lifetimes AZ was decisively GOP
Virginia and to a lesser extent NJ you could argue were redder then they really are due to factors like Youngkin, an extremely left leaning third party spread(Virginia the worst in the nation for the democrats), and Trump’s local popularity in NJ.
But if you make that argument New Mexico and Minnesota and New Hampshire are the opposite, local factors and third parties were against Trump and he still did really well. If you want my honest 2024 swing state map prediction swap out Virginia for New Mexico
Those are weak red states??
I always hated how ohio was considered a swing state when it’s very clearly red through and through.
There are some big cities, it’s pretty blue
Yeah but most people outside of those cities are redder than the red scare. Like the vast majority of them. Add that with how many people in those cities that are red it’s barely got any blue at all
It’s not really expanding the swing state map when the reasons those states were closer was because of the people who didn’t go out to vote. They’re still solidly blue when people actually vote.
But if people don’t vote, does it matter?
Fair. We really need compulsory voting. No one should not be voting. Obviously it has to come with a bunch of other voting reforms but still.
2020 was a massive outlier and trying to frame 2024 as a low turnout election is dishonest. 2024 is the second highest turnout of any election in decades and the third highest since 1900(only behind 2020 and 1960). The gap you see floating around is days outdated, even in this comment section people are saying Trump got less votes than last time which isn’t true anymore.
Also how do you know some of those people didn’t defect? Trump is beating his 2020 numbers despite losing twice as many supporters to COVID, where did the new guys come from? (Especially that latter point, between old age and COVID Trump probably had another 2 million voters in 2020 who are dead now if not more)
I never said it was low turnout. I said that if more people voted, particularly people who voted in 2020, then it wouldn’t have been as close in those states. Millions of democratic voters sat out the election this time and that is undeniable. And many because they didn’t think it mattered or didnt think the candidate was perfect. If they had voted because of whatever would have gotten them to vote then things wouldn’t been as close in those solidly blue states.
There were definitely people that defected but that doesn’t negate my point. 2024 was high turnout but it was particularly and mainly high for the republican party and that’s a key reason things were closer with the solidly blue states that you are claiming are swing states. And most defectors had a single issue for why, mainly things like inflation and housing costs, and also because they were simply rebelling against the incumbents as others have been doing around the world.
If more people voted in those states then things wouldn’t have been as close and calling them swing states is disingenuous. That’s all I’m saying.
Swing State is 5 point margin or less. Virginia is like 5.1 right now so it’s arguably stretching the definition, but still.
Also as I pointed out, that argument doesn’t hold up nearly as well in New Hampshire or Minnesota. Trump basically ignored NH despite giving Virginia and New Mexico plenty of attention. NJ got more attention. Hell, NY and Cali got more attention. He visited it with Vance once at the literal last minute because of how hard the polls tightened in the last week(see 538). Not to mention the third party spread there was horrible for him, RFK Jr and Chase Oliver both there(and New Hampshire Republicans are very libertarian), and just Jill Stein on the left, no Cornel or Claudia or one of the fringe Socialists.
Take out RFK Jr, add in Claudia or Cornel, get Trump to give them the same level of attention he gave Virginia or New Mexico, maybe make a speech with those clips of Democrats calling to end New Hampshire and Iowas Primary lead spot vowing to protect their first primary role. I genuinely think it would have flipped Red in that scenario.
The other two no, but Minnesota had their Golden Boy as the VP and only held by less than 4 points. Without him? With more Trump visits? Ehhhh. New Mexico was mostly fine, I’m pretty much entirely citing 1.1% of the vote going to RFK Jr. Probably past the Swing State margin without that. Also there’s a new Liberal Party there made from moderate Libertarians.
Every state should be a swing state then. Alls you gotta do is get no one to vote.
I think they’re working on that, actually
They’re still solidly blue when people actually vote.
I mean that’s most of America.
Isn’t this the definition of a swing state?
(If you were to include Arizona, you’d also have to include New Mexico and New Jersey, both of which were closer than Arizona. Maine is also only slightly less close than Arizona)
