Bellweather State Mythology

One of the greatest myths that exists in Presidential elections is the idea of a historical bellweather state. Political analysists are always looking for an easy model for them to study that would allow them to make their predictions easier: "So goes Florida, so goes the nation", etc. In each individual election, yes there are probably several states that genuinely reflect the mood of the national electorate, but these states are not static. The national character changes just as state character changes. As such, calling any state a historic bellweather is foolish.

The historic bellweather state of the 20th century was Missouri. Starting in 1904, Missouri has gone for the winner of the national election in every year except 1956 and 2008. Missouri is nominally a southern state, even though it stayed with the Union in the Civil War. But they have enough northern influence that they trended Republican. However, whenever southern Democrats would rise up (or northern Democrats who embrassed the South such as FDR and JFK) and take the national leadership role (Johnson, Carter, Clinton), Missouri would fall back on it's Southern roots.

Yet ever since the 2000 election, Missouri has not felt like a state in play. The state has remained close, but it feels as though Missouri (like much of the south) is now just a red state and they just happened to be right in 2000 and 2004 because the Republican won. John McCain only won Missouri by about 4,000 votes, but with Barack Obama winning nationally by 7 points, if Missouri were a true bellweather, Missouri should have gone Democratic easily.

The only two other states that have a potential track record as a national bellweather are Ohio and Nevada. Going from the same 1904 benchmark that Missouri used, Nevada has had every election correct except 1908 and 1976. Ohio can actually stretch back longer to 1896 and only gets it wrong in 1944 and 1960.

Nevada has had a nice balance between a conservative ranching population, libertarian business folk, and a large blue collar working class population in Las Vegas. This has worked well in nearly every election and even 1976 was something of an aboration as Jimmy Carter failed to win any state west of Missouri save Texas and Hawaii. The only real threat to Nevada's status as a national bellweather is that her population balance has tipped in recent years with the explosion of growth in Las Vegas. This has increased the size of both the blue collar union population and Hispanics looking for work. These two increases have shifted the state to more of a Democratic footing. The only way that this will be tested this year is if Mr. Obama loses nationally but retains Nevada.

Ohio has been an important state to Presidential elections. Going back all the way to 1856, no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. Ohio failed to get it right in 1944 and 1960, although Dewey only won Ohio by 0.37%. Nixon won by a more comfortable margin of 6.56% in 1960, although he lost nationally by 0.16%. The steady loss of manufacturing jobs from the north end of the state has resulted in a steady reddening of the state over the past few years. However there is still a large blue collar population who stick with their Democratic roots. They've also been aided by a small but significant growth in the liberal middle and upper class population around Columbus. Ohio could probably be best described as swinging easily with the economy. If things are going well, it sticks with the party in power. If the economy stinks, lets try someone else. That doesn't necessarily mean that it will go with the winner, although it makes for as good a trend as anything else.

In this particular election, I don't believe any particular state will tell you how things are going to go. It is better to look at things as a whole. 2008 was best defined by the fact that Indiana and North Carolina went blue. 2012 might be well defined as to how the race does in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan (either in that they change or to what percent they stay blue).