| 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%). 2The 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.
3Tennessee 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. 2The 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.
3Colorado 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. | ||||
