In the Fix, Chris Cilizza of the Washington Post describes the daunting task facing the Tea Bagging Republican Party: the electoral history past, present, and future haunts the Grand Old Party
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
In the past six presidential elections, including 2012, the Democratic nominee has averaged 327 electoral votes while the Republican nominee has averaged just 210. (A candidate needs 270, a simple majority of the total of 538 electoral votes, to be elected.)
In addition, of course, Democratic Presidential candidates have won the popular vote in five of the last six elections: Clinton (1992, 1996), Gore (2000), and Obama (2008, 2012). Of course, the popular vote is merely the swimsuit competition, but the trend merits consideration.
More below the fold
Cilizza continues by indicating that the past twenty years has been dominated by Democratic electoral politics and is the yang to the previous twenty years of Republican yin.
During those two-plus decades dating back to 1992, the most — repeat most — electoral votes a Republican presidential candidate has won is 286, when George W. Bush claimed a second term in 2004. In that same time frame, Democratic nominees have received more than 300 electoral votes four times: Barack Obama in 2008 (365) and 2012 (332) and Bill Clinton in 1992 (370) and 1996 (379). The lowest total for a Democratic nominee during that period was Sen. John Kerry’s 251 electoral votes in 2004; Republicans’ floor during that same period was 159 electoral votes in 1996.
That Democratic electoral-vote dominance is the mirror image of the huge edge Republicans enjoyed in the six elections prior to 1992. From 1968 to 1988, Republican presidential nominees averaged a whopping 417 electoral votes per election while Democrats managed just 113. The most electoral votes a Democratic nominee won was 297, when Jimmy Carter claimed the presidency in 1976. Ronald Reagan, in beating Carter four years later, rolled up 489 electoral votes — and followed that up with a 525-electoral-vote victory in 1984. From 1968 to 1988, Democrats never broke 300 electoral votes, while Republicans broke that barrier five times: 1968 (301), 1972 (530), 1980 (489), 1984 (525) and 1988 (426).
Rather than seeing redistricting and gerrymandering as an overwhelming problem, I see the 2010 census and redistricting as a challenge that can serve to reshape the political terrain for the next decade.
Remember, in 1990, Pennsylvania Republicans redistricted the state to significantly change the party alignment of the state's Congressional delegation. However, by the end of the decade, Democrats had whomped the Republicans and dominated the state's Congressional delegation.
Similarly, I see that by continuing the gains made by OFA and its allies in voter registration and turnout, we have a similar opportunity to rise like a Phoenix from redistricting ashes and to maintain the current trend in the electoral college.
As Obama and the Congressional Democrats take the lead on the economic recovery, immigration reform, progressive social values and policies for women, gays and lesbians, and ethnic and cultural minorities, we can and will swing not only Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina into the progressive Democratic camp, but we can also convert Arizona and Texas.
In conjunction with the delfowering of the Republican Party (aka, the de-Tea Bagging of the GOP), the Democratic Party will dominate until the next census.