How the Democrats Can Win in '92
RUSSETT, DAVID MAYHEW AND BRUCE
Perspectives HOW THE DEMOCRATS CAN WIN IN '92 BY DAVID MAYHEW AND BRUCE RUSSETT The November 8 election results show clearly that a Democratic Presidential candidate can win in 1992, and...
...a more progressive tax structure) would be well received...
...Perspectives HOW THE DEMOCRATS CAN WIN IN '92 BY DAVID MAYHEW AND BRUCE RUSSETT The November 8 election results show clearly that a Democratic Presidential candidate can win in 1992, and how...
...The key is not held, as some conservative pundits contend, by the once-Democratic South...
...If there ever was a Republican "lock" on the electoral college, that lock is now open...
...Perhaps Dukakis could not have added so much this time...
...Lloyd Bentsen—a Protestant and a political centrist—provided needed balance as the Vice-Presidential candidate...
...Michael S. Dukakis trailed George Bush by 8 percentage points (46 per cent to 54 per cent) in the popular vote...
...Economic issues will remain especially viable in the rust belt...
...Nor will Congressional reapportionment after the 1990 census necessarily be a boon to the GOP Although Northern states vulnerable to the vote shift above will lose around 11 seats, California will add about five...
...Liberalism is not such a dirty word in the Far West and the North...
...Thus, in terms of gaining electoral votes, the most efficient Democratic strategy would be to concentrate on the states the party carried in 1988 and on those within the4 per cent range...
...The Democrats can find it in the North and West...
...But in 1992, another 4 per cent of the popular vote should be within reach of a competent campaign...
...For insurance, a few other industrial states should perhaps be targeted as well, like Ohio...
...Not one is in the South...
...Even an ethnic Presidential candidate could effectively press them...
...probably could have done as well...
...just a century ago, in 1888, Benjamin Harrison won despite running second in the popular vote...
...A combination of liberal social policies (day care, environmentalism, not criminalizing abortion, respect for civil liberties) and/or liberal economic programs (money for education, health care, housing...
...Bui his status as a Southerner did not in itself bring any electoral votes...
...To regain the White House in '92 the Democrats must focus on California and a smattering of other Western states...
...This would have brought him even or ahead in states with 168 electoral votes, for a total of 280—10 more than needed to win...
...The South can be ignored...
...The Democratic hold on the South did the national party little good...
...Some Mountain states are likely to be more winnable because the Republicans will no longer be able to run Ronald Reagan under a 10-gallon hat...
...Republicans did so, most often successfully, from 1860 through 1928...
...The best prospects are almost exclusively in the Northeast, the Midwest and the Far West, except for a few Mountain and Plains states (economically depressed Montana and South Dakota, heavily Hispanic New Mexico, urbanized Colorado...
...A Northerner possessing the same attributes (John Glenn...
...And most of them—accounting for 125 electoral votes, including California, Pennsylvania and Illinois—kick in with only about a 2 per cent increase in popular support...
...the Republicans' current hold on the South may not help them much more...
...Neither side has an advantage...
...But there is no approach that can carry the whole Sunbelt...
...In addition, because he is mature, self-made, intelligent, and has a national reputation, according to opinion polls the contrast with his GOP counterpart, Dan Quayle, was probably worth a couple of percentage points...
...The themes that play in the West are not the same ones that play in Dixie...
...In sum, a winning Democratic strategy can be crafted for '92, without trying to confect a surrogate Republican to appeal to those Southerners who would rather have the real thing anyway...
...The real interest is the location of the states the Democrats would then pick up...
...The state-by-state popular vote and electoral college counts tell all...
...David Mayhew is Alf red Cowles Professor of Political Science, and Bruce Russett is Dean A cheson Professor of Political Science, at Yale University...
...The Democrats still have to avoid going to extremes, of course...
...The Dukakis forces finally recognized this in thelasl two weeks of the '88 campaign, when they pulled out of most of the South and trained their sights on more receptive regions...
...Imagine that he had won another 4 per cent, breaking exactly even, and that the increment was distributed uniformly across the country...
...If the Democrats must imitate a Republican, Benjamin Harrison would certainly be a better model than George Bush...
Vol. 72 • January 1989 • No. 1
