Purple Haze
Rick comes in late with this one:
What is the most deeply purple state in the USA?
Deeply purple? That’s a tough one. I’d say every state is a shade of purple if we’re going to go colors as no one state is entirely Democratic or Republican. Sure some states are a deeper shade of red or blue compared to others, but none are 100%. But that’s the easy answer.
Which state is the most deeply purple, though? I guess you’d have to look at the swing states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and, yes, Virginia. Arguments could also be made to include West Virginia, Missouri, Colorado, etc, but we’ll go with the big four.
An argument can be made for each given its demographics and voting records. Florida with its retirees, military, immigrant, panhandle populations all mixing to create an odd batch of electoral crazyness is pretty purple.
Ohio and Pennsylvania are similar in that you have a rural or suburb base that would typically be considered Republican except that the union presence is pretty big (coal, steel, industry) and the urban areas offset any deep red rural areas.
Virginia would have folks point to the Northern Virginia split from the rest of Virginia, showing a very blue area outside of a gradiant blue to red rest of the state. But that doesn’t hold up when you look at Virginia’s historical tradition supporting both parties here and there. For years it was Democrat Chuck Robb and Republican John Warner representing Virginia in the Senate. Virginia would vote Republican for President but then vote for a Democrat for governor or keep Democrats in the statehouse for decades. While the statehouse may have been gerrymandered districts keeping one party in power, Virginia still went along with it for the most part.
But to say Virginia is the purplest of the purple is to ignore the type of Democrats Virginia has embraced in the past. Virginia likes their Democrats with a bit of a conservative streak to them. Pro-business, pro-second amendment, pro-life, any number of typically Republican issues are things elected Democrats in Virginia have tended to lean toward in the past. You may start to see that change in some areas (already Democrats are looking to cannibalize their “moderate” members in Northern Virginia for more liberal alternatives) but for the most part a Democrat has to trend to the middle in order to be elected in Virginia while Republicans can run to the right in many areas and still succeed.
So I guess it’s a toss-up between Ohio and Pennsylvania. But my ability to really nit-pick between those are limited by my knowledge of their politics on a state level.
If anyone else can answer this better, please do. I’d be interested to hear what others think.
(This is a response to “Ask Me Something“, a feature where you the reader gets to ask me the writer a question and I answer it. Feel free to join in.)
