Purple America

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2008 Presidential election, county-level results displayed as shades of purple
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"Purple America" refers to those states on the red/blue political map currently in vogue which have a demographic make-up that's similar to the country as a whole. They're also referred to as swing states because they could go either way in any given Presidential (or Congressional) election. These states usually attract the vast majority of campaign spending by both sides, because the return on investment is considered the best — a dollar spent on ads in Ohio, for example, is more likely to have an effect on the overall result than one invested in Utah or Massachusetts.

It may also be a description for the country as a whole that's more fitting than the contrived red/blue state divide, as most states only have a relatively marginal preference for a single party, turning all of the map into shades of purple.

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[edit] In election campaigns

Due to ongoing demographic changes, the area considered "purple" is constantly shifting. Migration, general change in attitudes and the perceived importance of specific issues all affect how close a state's preferences are to the overall platforms of the major parties. The individual appeal, origin and policy priorities of specific candidates also have an influence on the color of the map, making it even more elusive.

For instance, until the 1980s, much of the Northeast would have been considered "purple," seeing as how it was a battleground between the Democrats (the party of labor and "white ethnics" like the Irish, Italians, and Poles) and the Republicans (the party of white-collar workers, business owners, and WASPs). Since then, though, the Republicans' turn to religious populism has turned the Northeast, even formerly Republican-heavy states like New Jersey and Vermont, into a Democratic stronghold encompassing both groups. Meanwhile, the Rocky Mountain states have gone from being a battleground in the mid-20th century, to being a Republican stronghold with the rise of the anti-government, anti-environmentalist "sagebrush rebels"[1] in the '80s, to being a battleground again with the growth of the region's Latino population.

In the 2008 Presidential Election, Purple America included Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado, Missouri, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, and a few other smaller swing states. Except Missouri, all of these were ultimately won by Obama. More surprisingly, he also won Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia, all of which had been considered reliable red states and had not been won by a Democrat in decades. While the Obama campaign did not pursue a genuine "Fifty State Strategy" like the one proposed by former DNC chairman Howard Dean, this still represented a substantial expansion beyond the main battlegrounds of the 2000 and 2004 elections.

The campaign focus on "purple" states may be blessing for those living in Blue or Red America, since they're mostly spared from the onslaught of campaign commercials, robocalls and personal visits from staffers. However, the disadvantage for all Americans is that issues affecting primarily that small handful of states will command outsized attention at the national level. For example, since Iowa is both an important swing state and traditionally holds the first caucus in a presidential election cycle, candidates are best advised to come up with a plan for ethanol and corn subsidies.

The most comparable areas of the United Kingdom are London commuter-belt constituencies around the M25. Some are reliable indicators of the national swing; the town of Gravesend has been won by the winning party in every UK election since 1945, except 2005.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. See the Wikipedia article on Sagebrush rebels.
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