Replies

“Didn’t Al Gore win Rahall’s district? Dave Leip’s atlas thinks so. They appear dead their at the Presidential level now.”

You’re right, I misremembered the year that WV-01 flipped (it was 2004). As you stated, though, it’s really academic, since the RATs aren’t competitive at the presidential level in any CD or even in any conceivable CD were they to redraw them.

“If we carry PA and MI aren’t we winning by enough that losing a few of the E votes from those 2 states wouldn’t matter? That must be true at least for MI which is less Republican than PA in POTUS voting (seems to have a higher ceiling for Republicans in statewide office though). If they both did it the extra votes from Michigan would have more than offset the loses from PA in your scenario of Romney carrying PA.”

Yes, if both PA and MI switched to the ME/NE method it substantially would reduce the risk of the Republican failing to get to 270 due to missing out on a few PA EVs. But the greater number of Dem-leaning states that switch to ME/NE, the higher the chance that a Republican would win, and one can think of scenarios in which the GOP candidate may carry PA but not FL and thus we would need all 20 of PA’s EVs if we received 0 from FL.

“Certainly we would never want Florida to do it unless the state becomes less Republican.”

I wouldn’t say that. As it stands right now, it is nearly impossible for the GOP to win the presidency without carrying FL (and OH), and thus we are at the mercy of how effective Democrats are at turning out their urban base. In the past 5 elections, we’ve carried FL only twice, and one of those times was by 0.01%. FL is no longer a solidly GOP state—it is certainly very winnable for us, but it is also eminently loseable. Having FL remain winner-takes-all if PA, OH, MI, WI and VA all switch to the ME/NE system would mean that we are putting all of our eggs in one basket, and it would become even clearer that we would not be able to get to 270 without carrying FL.

Let me put it this way: with PA, OH, MI, WI and VA switching to ME/NE and FL staying put, Romney would have needed to carry all 5 of those states (in which Romney got between 44.6% and 47.6%) plus CO (where he got 46.1%) in order to get to 270 EVs, while if FL, PA, OH, MI, WI and VA all switched to ME/NE Romney would only need to carry one of those states to get to 270. So unless we are prepared to lose the election whenever we fail to carry FL, we should include FL among the states that switch to ME/NE.

OK, here’s the trial by ordeal: how would President Bush have fared in 2000 had all 6 of those states used the ME/NE method of allocating EVs. The 2000 election certainly is the poster-child for an election that we won almost exclusively to the fact that FL was winner-takes-all (Bush barely got over the top at 271 EVs), and we cut it as close as we possibly could (Bush’s 0.01% victory margin is the smallest percentage margin in any U.S. presidential election ever, even closer than the time that Henry Clay beat Andrew Jackson in MD by 4 votes), so if Bush could have won in 2000 despite FL not being winner-takes-all then having those 6 states switch to ME/NE would seem to be an optimal strategy.

Well, I looked at the votes by CD in Leip’s site, and had FL, OH and VA (which Bush carried) used the ME/NE method it would have cost Bush 22 EVs (of course, I never would have recommended that Republicans change VA to ME/NE back then, given that the state voted for the GOP nominee in 13 of the 14 presidential elections between 1952-2004, but let’s include VA as a worse-case scenario for Bush). 271 minus 22 equals 249, so Bush would have needed to pick up at least 21 EVs in the three states that he didn’t carry—PA, MI and WI—in order to get to 270. Would you believe that Bush carried exactly 21 CDs in those three states? So even in 2000, Bush would have been elected president despite FL not being winner-takes-all, but only if the other 5 states also used the ME/NE method.

In truth, had those six states adopted the ME/NE syetem for 2000, we would have had recounts all over the place, since not only the FL statewide result (now worth only 2 EVs, not 25) but also the presidential results in VA-04 (Bush by 0.20%), FL-08 (Bush by 0.28%), MI-10 (Bush by 0.53%) and PA-21 (Bush by 0.90%) could have flipped the election to Gore; and because of the possibility of 1-6 EVs flipping to Gore it would mean that Bush would have requested recounts of statewide results in NM (Gore by 0.06%), WI (Gore by 0.22%), IA (Gore by 0.31%) and OR (Gore by 0.44%), as well as CD recounts in FL-02 (Gore by 0.97% according to Leip, but a lot of votes favoring Bush that were unallocated among North FL CDs that could have flipped the FL-02) and MI-11 (Gore by 0.36%). So it would have been even more of a custer-fluck than it was in real life.

Anyhow, had FL, PA, OH, MI, WI and VA used the ME/NE method in 2004, Bush would have won with 294 EVs instead of 286 (and losing OH would not have been fatal). And in 2008, Obama’s drubbing would have resulted in a more respectable 215 EVs for McCain, and had McCain done 1% better (and Obama 1% worse) across the board (allowing McCain to carry NC and IN and countless CDs, but not FL or OH) McCain would have reached 248 EVs.

Having FL, PA, OH, MI, WI and VA switch to the NE/ME system would place the GOP in the catbird seat in the next two presidential elections, and under almost any realistic scenario would place the party in a better position than if those states stayed winner-takes-all. The real danger to the GOP would come if only one or two of those states chose to switch, since it would reduce the number of “base EVs” with which the Republican candidate would start off, making it necessary for him or her to carry more of those swing states than if all six switched allocation methods.