Close elections the only elections possible anymore?

[Cochise]

I was just thinking to myself about this election being close, the last one being close, etc., and I wondered, will they all be this way from now on?

On either side you have to have a huge chunk of voters who wouldn't vote for the other party's candidate if their life depended on it. I realistically can't see myself ever going for a Democrat, for example, I ad mit that. I generally vote for Republicans but if that candidate was so odious that I couldn't stand him I think I would be more apt to go Libertarian or just stay home. How big are those unmovable voting blocks? Maybe approaching 40% on each side?

How big could a landslide ever be anymore? Is it possible that a candidate could get to 60% again?

So I got to thinking, what was the biggest presidential butt-whooping ever, and I guess it probably was 1984, at least in the later half of the 20th century. Reagan carried every state but Minnesota, won 97.7% of the electoral vote (525-13), but the national percentage was only 58.77% for Reagan. Mondull still pulled 40.56% of the vote.

If you think in terms of standard deviation, if you we could somehow do a huge number of test elections with any combination of candidates, Reagan/Mondale would have to be like 2 standard devations out. That is to say, a bigger variance from the average than 95-99% of all the test outcomes. Even with Bush/Dukakis, Bush won about 80% of the electoral college, and it was only 53%-46%

So what can we expect in the future? Should we really consider a 51-49% election a 'close' election, or by modern standards would that be pretty much an average margin of victory?


2000
Bush - 47.9
Gore - 48.4

1996
Clinton - 49.2
Dole - 40.7
Perot - 8.4

1992
Clinton - 43.0
Bush - 37.5
Perot - 18.9

1988
Bush - 53.4
Dukakis - 45.7

[Cochise]

Correction: the biggest recent beating I now see was Nixon over McGovern. Nixon 60.7, McGovern 37.5 (though McGovern won more electoral votes in '72 than Mondale did in '84)

But, if I remember my history correctly, this might be an exceptional situation. Wasn't the Democratic convention marred by fistfights and such? I know it was a disaster and that he didn't even get to give his speech until really late, because of some squabble over California's votes. I know he was the only candidate until this time around not to get any bounce from a convention. Plus there was the Eagleton fiasco too.

So, outside of a diastrous campaign of McGovern proportions, I guess my point with the thread is, can an election NOT be close anymore?

[Pitt Gorilla]

It's not about issues anymore; it's about my team beating yours. People seem to have simply lost their ability to think critically, or possibly to "think" on their own at all. It represents a sad trend, but it's certainly not surprising.