Regional Contention in Elections

I remember hearing from some people with more extreme political views that the election of Obama (or sometimes McCain) would lead to riot, civil strife, and possibly all out war between Red and Blue states. This seems partially due to the proliferation of the misconception since 2000 that Red states are totally Red, Blue states are totally Blue, and there's no middle ground between. If this view is accepted, then it's only a matter of time before one of these states gets fed up and decides to leave the Union.

Of course, just looking at election results reveals that elections in individual states tend to be close, it's just a matter of certain regions happen to have more voters of one party than the other, not that the entire region votes monolithically for one party. This observation, plus the fact that there really isn't a decisive issue being handled seems to negate the idea that the US is headed towards destruction. The problems facing the US right now are important, but they are not decisive problems like slavery and civil rights were.

That all said, there were times in the past where states did vote overwhelming in favor of one party, yet the US survived those periods, more often than not with no calls for secession or civil conflict.

Thinking about all this, I decided to make a formula to measure the level of regional division during an election to see how 2008 compared to past elections. The formula is based on the standard deviation of the votes for the two main candidates in each state. A high standard deviation indicates that support for a candidate was highly regional and a low standard deviation indicates that a candidate had level support throughout the country. I chose only to measure the two main candidates for simplicity and the fact that the impact of a third party candidate would still affect the results of the other candidates, particularly if it was a regional candidate.

Here are all election years after popular voting was introduced sorted by what I call their "regional contention score". A high score means that support for the candidates was highly regional and a low score means that the candidates had level support throughout the country.

Election	RC Score	Notes
1824	1.13	First election with popular voting
1860	0.78	The election of Lincoln, two different regions each with its own candidates
1856	0.57	Collapse of the Whigs, appearance of Republicans in the North
1828	0.57
1832	0.50
1836	0.44	Whigs run three candidates hoping to force a draw in the Electoral College
1924	0.44	Democratic vote split between Davis in the South and LaFollette in the North
1892	0.44	Populists win votes in the West
1904	0.41
1912	0.37	TR runs as a Progressive
1896	0.37
1920	0.35
1908	0.32
1916	0.30
1900	0.29	Average regional contention score
1932	0.29
1940	0.28
1948	0.27	Dixiecrats win votes in the South
1936	0.26
1964	0.25	Johnson landslide, but didn't appear on the Alabama ballot
1944	0.25
1968	0.25	Wallace wins votes in the South
1928	0.25
1868	0.23	Reconstruction, median regional contention score
1888	0.23
2008	0.22	Most Recent Election
2000	0.22
2004	0.21
1864	0.21	Only northern states voted
1880	0.20
1980	0.20
1876	0.19
1996	0.19
1992	0.19	Most successful third party campaign with widespread support
1848	0.19
1884	0.18
1972	0.18	Nixon landslide election
1872	0.18
1984	0.18	Reagan landslide election
1952	0.17
1956	0.17
1988	0.16
1976	0.16
1852	0.15
1960	0.13
1844	0.12
1848	0.12

Looking at this, 2008 was not at all unusual and was actually below the average and median scores. Although, it should be noted, it was the highest score in 40 years and the number has been rising fairly steadily since 1988. Of course, this is no indication it will continue to rise, as there are historically few rising or falling trends that last four or more election cycles.

Giving the levels of regionalized voting in the past, it seems that the US can survive much more than some people give it credit for. The only time civil war was started was when the electorate was so divided that there were essentially two elections taking place at once. Other moments of highly regional voting usually indicate a split within a party and not in the nation as a whole. The highest score for an election with only two main candidates was the 1904 election which Theodore Roosevelt won by a huge margin. Part of this could have been that while Theodore Roosevelt raised support in the North, few voters in the South were persuaded to vote for a Republican, thus raising the "regional contention score", but not really indicating an increase in political division.