Hispanic Election

One detail I've come across while research election maps is just how static the presidential electoral map has become in last few election cycles. Democrats winning the Northeast and West Coast and Republicans winning the Southeast and most of the West is taken as a given. However, looking at earlier election maps shows that voting patterns varied wildly from election to election.

Here is the 1956 election result:

Eight years later in 1964:

Only five states voted the same way in 1956 as in 1964.

Another way to show just how static the electoral map has become is to "equalize" it. That is to say, imagine what the result would have been if the race had been competitive.

In 2008, a competitive race would have probably looked like this:

In this scenario, the election ends in a 269-269 draw. Notice though, it looks a lot like the 2004 and 2000 result.

Now imagine that the 1984 election had actually be competitive. It probably would have looked like this:

In this scenario, Michigan is left as a toss-up as whoever wins it, wins the election. While there are notable differences between the 1984 and 2008, only ten states actually changed. Meaning in 24 years 39 states have shown a consistent preference for one party over the other (not sure what to consider Michigan).

As far as I can tell, this pattern has only existed for the last 24 years, and looking at previous elections reveals no other pattern so consistent. Clearly 1984 marked a major change in how Americans voted. The clearest distinction is the division between urban and rural voters that doesn't appear in earlier electoral maps.

It doesn't look like the 2012 election will break this pattern. For one, there is an incumbent running, which tends to keep the electoral map static. However, looking to the future, is there a chance that the pattern could be broken? I've been reading a bit lately about how the GOP's stance on immigration is causing Hispanics to abandon the party in droves. Right now, Hispanics just heavily favor the Democrats, but what if they become a solid voting bloc like African-Americans.

So the scenario, in 2016, Republicans continue to rail against Hispanic immigrants while the Democrats nominate a popular Hispanic politician for president, so Hispanics vote 90% in favor of the Democrats. The Republican candidate is popular amongst White voters, making this a competitive election. What are the results?

The lighter states are swing states, won with less than 52.5% of the vote. Surprisingly, not all that much changes. Compared to the equalized 2008 map, Democrats pick-up Colorado and Florida, but don't gain any other heavily Hispanic states. Republicans pick up Minnesota, Iowa, and New Hampshire to replace their losses.

Texas, despite its large Hispanic population stays Republican, just missing the cut-off of being considered a swing state, with Republicans winning 53%. While over one-third of the state is Hispanic, they only make up one-fifth of voters. Also, Texas' White population votes heavily Republican. Similarly, Arizona stays Republican, but only by a slim margin. It's somewhat similar to the situation Mississippi, wherein 33% of voters are African-Americans who vote over 90% Democrat, but the Republican candidate always wins.

While this map makes it look like not much has changed, this is a nightmare scenario for the GOP. Texas is the GOP's only major stronghold, and if it ever starts to favor the Democrats, they would have a great deal of difficulty making up for the loss of 38 electoral votes. Even if the Republicans could hold off a Hispanic voting bloc in 2016, it becomes much more difficult going into 2020 and later elections. Once Texas flips, that's when the map really changes as Republicans will have to pick up several long-time Democratic states to make up for such a loss. The problem is figuring out which ones.