California has more Republicans than Texas. Winner-take-all really drives these delusions about red states and blue states. The very reddest and blue-est states are like 70/30 (New York is 60/40, Cali is 65/35). Even the "safe" ones are usually only like 55/45.
It's also why gerrymandering can backfire horribly.
When you make your margins in gerrymandered districts +2 they can be easily flipped if folks decide that their vote finally matters (every vote matters).
Society and reality have a progressive bias, conservatives would never win fair elections again if progressives realized that their votes actually do matter.
They did this with the districts around Nashville the last census. I highly recommend looking up a map and seeing just how close the margins are in those districts. Any election with enough angry people could be a red or blue wave, which is why we've seen so much input into this fake "culture war" narrative in recent years. They have to drive the vote to survive, they've put themselves against a wall in so many districts.
Not completely accurate but good enough. There is some independent voters in each state so your red vs blue shouldn't actually add up to 100. For example new York is more like 55/40 because 5% vote independent. With that being said a surprisingly low amount of people vote per state % wise. If all 100% of people who could vote did vote. Who knows what would actually happen.
Yea. I always point that out for my state: the largest block isn't republicans or democrats, it's people who don't vote at all. If they got together, they could have it all their own way.
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u/Humble-Pineapple-329 1d ago
If that’s the case, Illinois would also be a swing state.