Translate Media Markets Into Electoral Votes
Robert David Sullivan: “ Electoral votes follow state boundaries, but populations don't, and the social characteristics that influence politics spill over jurisdictional lines. Rural sections of adjacent states often have more in common, culturally and politically, with each other than with the urban and suburban population centers of their states. If political campaigns can translate media markets into electoral votes, why not regional identities that cross state lines? Furthermore, upstate-downstate divisions are well-established dynamics in elections for statewide offices, such as governor and US senator. Why should it be a surprise that they play a role in the Electoral College tally for president?”
Near the end of the essay is this this quote: “if the trend toward partisanship feeds the perception of the US as a 50/50, or red-blue nation, it's unwise to assume that this is a permanent condition. American voters also have a habit of rebelling against one-party states. In 2002, on a district-by-district basis, the results of congressional elections were eerily close to the results of the 2000 presidential race. But in governor's races, where candidates are less closely identified with their national parties, several states rejected their "red" or "blue" labels: Republicans won in overwhelmingly Democratic states such as Hawaii, Maryland, and Massachusetts; and Democrats took such GOP strongholds as Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.” It does counter this article arguing that America is heading towards a one-party state, because the latter ignores the fact that America is a federal system with state-level representatives (i.e. state assembly members, senators and governors).