Showing posts with label 1992 election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1992 election. Show all posts

Monday, December 3, 2012

The 1992 Electoral College Spectrum

From 1988 to 1992:

The 1992 Electoral College Spectrum1
MA-12
(15)2
WA-11
(173)
IA-7
(263)
NH-4
(357/185)
IN-12
(64)
RI-4
(19)
HI-4
(177)
TN-113
(274/275)
GA-13
(370/181)
AL-9
(52)
AR-6
(25)
MO-11
(188)
LA-9
(283/264)
NC-14
(168)
SC-8
(43)
NY-33
(58)
OR-7
(195)
WI-11
(294/255)
FL-25
(154)
OK-8
(35)
VT-3
(61)
PA-23
(218)
CO-8
(302/244)
AZ-8
(129)
MS-7
(27)
IL-22
(83)
NM-5
(223)
KY-8
(310/236)
TX-32
(121)
AK-3
(20)
MD-10
(93)
ME-4
(227)
NV-4
(314/228)
SD-3
(89)
ND-3
(17)
CA-54
(147)
DE-3
(230)
MT-3
(317/224)
VA-13
(86)
ID-4
(14)
WV-5
(152)
MI-18
(248)
NJ-15
(332/221)
KS-6
(73)
UT-5
(10)
MN-10
(162)
CT-8
(256)
OH-21
(353/206)
WY-3
(67)
NE-5
(5)
1Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. The darker the color of the cell, the higher the margin was for the winning candidate (Light: < 5%. Medium: 5-10%, Dark: > 10%).

2
The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked up to that state. If, for example, Bush had won all the states up to and including Tennessee, he would have gained 275 electoral votes. Bush's numbers are only totaled through the states he would have needed in order to get to 270. In those cases, Clinton's number is on the left and Bush's is on the right in italics.


The electoral votes for Washington, DC are included in the first cell at the top left. Conveniently, the district is historically the most Democratic unit within the electoral college which allows FHQ to push it off the spectrum in the interest of keeping the figure to just 50 slots.

3
Tennessee is the state where Clinton crossed the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

NOTES:
1) Again, the movement of the color lines from cycle to cycle is not as important as the ordering of the states. Though there are some southern and border states that were pulled into a more competitive area on the spectrum (due to the nomination of Clinton), they are all with the exception of Arkansas to the right of the tipping point state.

2) Tennessee was the tipping point state in 1992. George H. W. Bush would have needed an approximately five percentage point (4.65%) swing in his direction to bring enough states with enough electoral votes to surpass the 270 threshold in order to have claimed victory. Despite the post-1990 reapportionment, the tipping point state stayed in the same position as it had been in 1988.

3) Looking at the 2012 swing states, Pennsylvania and Iowa continued to be on the left side of the tipping point state and the partisan line. Iowa, however, shifted considerably toward the center, occupying the space just to the Clinton side of the tipping point state. Similarly Nevada and New Hampshire jumped from the column furthest to the right in toward the center. Both were on the Clinton side of the partisan line separating both candidates' shares of states. Florida followed Nevada and New Hampshire, but reverted to a position closer to where it was in the 1984 ordering. That position in 1992 was much closer to the partisan line and tipping point than was the case in Reagan's reelection. Colorado, as in 1988 but not 1984, laid claim to slot in the order in the middle and typically most competitive column.

4) North Carolina and Virginia, unlike the other 2012 swing states above, are among the stickiest of states. Across the three election cycles from 1984-1992, neither states moved all that much in the rank ordering. To put it in Silverian terms but in a slightly different context, North Carolina less elastic than Virginia, but both are comparatively inelastic compared to the other 2012 swing states. North Carolina only moved one spot across the three elections. Virginia oscillated within a five spot radius across the three cycles.

5) Notably, Ohio was closer to the partisan line than the tipping point in 1992 as compared to the two immediately prior cycles. The Buckeye state was on the winning side of the partisan line, and it was more a part of a national swing than a state that put Clinton over the top in the electoral college. That is quite a bit different from how we have grow accustomed to viewing Ohio.

6) With few exceptions, this spectrum looks a lot like -- in order and in color on the left side of the figure -- the spectrum that we have witnessed in the time since 1992. West Virginia is still off to the left side, "protected" by the nomination of a southerner on the Democratic ticket. The same can be said, though to a lesser extent, about Missouri. Arkansas, obviously as a home state of the candidate at the top of the ticket, moved well off to the left of where it had been in 1984 or 1988.

7) If one caveat could be added to the discussion, it is that Ross Perot's candidacy and general election success (19% of the vote nationally) could cause problems in the analysis in terms of the comparability to the two earlier elections examined. It is not a perfect solution, but if we exclude Perot and look at just the percentage of the two-party vote that Clinton and Bush received (and the resulting margin between them), the picture does not differ all that substantially (see below) from the spectrum above. There is some movement -- particularly in terms of the shading of cells -- but no state shifted more than three cells and no state changed columns. There was continuity, then, in the clustering if not ordering of states. It is worth pointing out that under that scenario Colorado becomes the tipping point state.


The 1992 Electoral College Spectrum (Two-Party Vote)1
MA-12
(15)2
WA-11
(173)
IA-7
(263)
NH-4
(357/185)
AL-9
(64)
RI-4
(19)
HI-4
(177)
CO-83
(271/275)
GA-13
(370/181)
IN-12
(52)
VT-3
(22)
OR-7
(184)
WI-11
(282/267)
NC-14
(168)
SC-8
(43)
AR-6
(28)
MO-11
(195)
LA-9
(291/256)
FL-25
(154)
MS-7
(35)
NY-33
(61)
ME-4
(199)
TN-11
(302/247)
AZ-8
(129)
OK-8
(28)
IL-22
(83)
PA-23
(222)
KY-8
(310/236)
TX-32
(121)
AK-3
(20)
CA-54
(137)
DE-3
(225)
NV-4
(314/228)
SD-3
(89)
ND-3
(17)
MD-10
(147)
NM-5
(230)
MT-3
(317/224)
VA-13
(86)
ID-4
(14)
WV-5
(152)
MI-18
(248)
NJ-15
(332/221)
KS-6
(73)
NE-5
(10)
MN-10
(162)
CT-8
(256)
OH-21
(353/206)
WY-3
(67)
UT-5
(5)
1Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. The darker the color of the cell, the higher the margin was for the winning candidate (Light: < 5%. Medium: 5-10%, Dark: > 10%).

This rank ordering of states excludes Ross Perot, examining the vote percentage margin between Clinton and Bush in the two-party vote. 

2
The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked up to that state. If, for example, Bush had won all the states up to and including Colorado, he would have gained 275 electoral votes. Bush's numbers are only totaled through the states he would have needed in order to get to 270. In those cases, Clinton's number is on the left and Bush's is on the right in italics.

The electoral votes for Washington, DC are included in the first cell at the top left. Conveniently, the district is historically the most Democratic unit within the electoral college which allows FHQ to push it off the spectrum in the interest of keeping the figure to just 50 slots.

3
Colorado is the state where Clinton crossed the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.



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Thursday, February 19, 2009

1992 Presidential Primary Calendar


January
January (late): Hawaii Republican precinct caucuses

January - March: North Dakota Republican precinct caucuses

January - May: Virginia Republican local meetings


February
Sunday, February 2:
Nevada Republican caucuses (through February 29)

Monday, February 10:
Iowa caucuses (both parties)

Tuesday, February 18:
New Hampshire primary

Sunday, February 23:
Maine caucuses (both parties)

Tuesday, February 25:
South Dakota primary


March
Monday, March 2:
Alaska Republican caucuses

Tuesday, March 3:
Colorado primary
Georgia primary
Idaho Democratic caucuses
Maryland primary
Minnesota Democratic caucuses 
Utah Democratic caucuses 
Washington Democratic caucuses

Thursday, March 5:
North Dakota Democratic caucuses (through March 19)

Saturday, March 7:
Arizona caucuses (Both parties, but the GOP caucuses had no presidential preference. Those
    delegates selected at those caucuses went to the state convention -- 5/10/1992 -- where national
    convention delegate allocation took place.)
South Carolina primary (party-run)
Wyoming caucuses (Both parties, but Republicans meet through March 11)

Sunday, March 8:
Nevada Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, March 10:
Delaware Democratic caucuses
Florida primary
Hawaii Democratic caucuses
Louisiana primary
Massachusetts primary
Mississippi primary
Missouri Democratic caucuses 
Oklahoma primary
Rhode Island primary
Tennessee primary
Texas primary (& Democratic caucuses)

Tuesday, March 17:
Illinois primary
Michigan primary

Tuesday, March 24:
Connecticut primary

Tuesday, March 31:
Vermont caucuses (both parties)


April
April - May: Hawaii Republican regional caucuses

Thursday, April 2:
Alaska Democratic caucuses
North Dakota Republican convention (through April 5)

Tuesday, April 7:
Kansas primary
Minnesota primary (Republicans only)
New York primary (Republicans had no presidential preference on ballot; just delegates)
Wisconsin primary

Saturday, April 11:
Virginia Democratic caucuses (& April 13)

Tuesday, April 14:
Missouri Republican caucuses

Monday, April 27:
Utah Republican caucuses

Tuesday, April 28:
Pennsylvania primary


May
Tuesday, May 5:
Indiana primary
North Carolina primary
Washington, DC primary

Saturday, May 9:
Delaware Republican convention

Sunday, May 10:
Arizona Republican convention

Tuesday, May 12:
Nebraska primary
West Virginia primary

Tuesday, May 19:
Oregon primary
Washington primary (Republicans only)

Tuesday, May 26:
Arkansas primary
Idaho primary (Republicans only)
Kentucky primary

Friday, May 29:
Virginia Republican convention (through May 30, no formal process for presidential preference)


June
Tuesday, June 2:
Alabama primary
California primary
Montana primary (Democrats only)
New Jersey primary
New Mexico primary
Ohio primary

Tuesday, June 9:
North Dakota primary (beauty contest for both parties)


July
Thursday, July 9:
Montana Republican convention (through July 11, no formal process for presidential preference)

[Primaries in bold; Caucuses in italics]

*States that are split vertically had different dates for different party contests. The shade to the left of that line corresponds with the month in which the Democratic contest took place and the right side represents the Republican contest.

[Source: Congressional Quarterly and news accounts from 1992. The latter was used to double-check the dates or discover missing ones.]

A few notes:
1. This map has been altered slightly from the one that was in the chronological slideshow previously. The reason for this is that I wanted to add in the dates of the Republican primaries and caucuses as well. I touched on this in the calendar post for 1984, but didn't account for the uncompetitive Republican contests that year because the data were harder to come by. For 1992, I was able to track those dates down. The result is a lot of split states.* And though these uncompetitive Republican contests don't factor into my specific research question regarding frontloading, their movement from cycle to cycle could open the door to an alternate set of questions.

2. The frontloading witnessed in 1992 was a product of, similar to the situations in 2004 and 2008, the window being widened to allow for earlier contests. In 2004 that meant February contests, but in 1992, national party rules allowed for contests to take place during the first week in March. Furthermore, Iowa and New Hampshire were joined in 1992 by South Dakota and Maine as states exempted from the Democratic Party's window rule (No contest could be held before the first Tuesday in March unless exempted by the party.).

3. Several states made the transition from caucus to primary in 1992. Though, oddly enough, none of them stuck. Colorado, Kansas and Minnesota all were previously caucus states, were primary states in 1992 and by 2004 were all caucus states again. Those 1992 shifts were countered by the opposite move in a couple of border/Southern states. Both Missouri and Virginia went from being primary states in 1988 -- for the Southern Super Tuesday -- to being caucus states in 1992. South Carolina, on the other hand, moved to a primary in 1992 and in the case of the Republican Party has kept that primary in place ever since.

4. And what about frontloading in 1992? Compared to 1988 there wasn't that much movement forward on the calendar. South Dakota, with its exemption, jumped the most -- from June to February -- but, on the whole, the '92 cycle was marked by backloading more than frontloading. Several Southern states reverted to prior positions (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina). The frontloading that did take place was much less pronounced, movement measured in weeks instead of months (Colorado, Georgia and Maryland). The result is that this calendar is essentially equally as frontloaded as 1988 if not slightly less so.

5. The Republican contests were difficult to nail down in some cases. The map reflects the point at which the earliest step in the process occurred. So though Hawaii, North Dakota and Virginia didn't allocate delegates until their conventions, there were early (and staggered) meetings that took place in January.


Recent Posts:
The 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar (2/19/09)

Beebe's Signature Makes It Official: Arkansas Back to May

North Carolina Bill to Move 2012 Primary to February