Do you think there will be a super landslide election again?

[BaldEagle1991]

Do you think there can ever be another "super landslide" election again? I am talking about the kinds of election back in 1972 and 1984, where one candidate won 49 states, and lost 1, which of course is usually the home state of the opposing candidate.

Do you think this can ever happen again?
1984


1972

[Frodo]

Until the Millennials start to take over the electorate, we will continue to have closely fought federal elections with a few rare exceptions.  The reason being generational -given that they are in the process of retiring, Baby Boomers are now the main voting bloc, and true to form they are as closely divided now as they were in their youth.  And that is reflected in the election results (at least nationally).  It will take another 15 to 20 years before our generation begins to dominate the electorate.  

[cope1989]

Until the Millennials start to take over the electorate, we will continue to have closely fought federal elections with a few rare exceptions.  The reason being generational -given that they are in the process of retiring, Baby Boomers are now the main voting bloc, and true to form they are as closely divided now as they were in their youth.  And that is reflected in the election results (at least nationally).  It will take another 15 to 20 years before our generation begins to dominate the electorate.  

It's still questionable though whether millenials will continue to be as liberal as they are now. Baby Boomers were considered very liberal at one point too. In fact, George McGovern's strident anti war campaign was devised to appeal to Vietnam weary boomers.

10 years from now, though, if the Republican party is still seen as the party of Bush, and the Democratic party is seen as the party of Obama, then we could see a Democratic landslide.

[BritishDixie]

It won't happen until the culture war elections that have been going on since the 1990's end. At this point, both sides see that there is too much at stake to vote for the other side.

[Supersonic]

Not in the next twenty years at least. The US is way too polarised, and it will continue to be more-so. The closest we may see to a 'super landslide' is a 40 state sweep,

[mondale84]

I don't think so. Not for a very long time, I don't think. This is because the "mainstream" right and left, respectively, have reached such "extreme" positions. Extreme not in the subjective sense, but in the objective distance between them. The political gap between the average leftist (or Democrat) and the average rightist (Republican) has widened dramatically over the past twenty years to the point that each side fails to comprehend the intellectual motivations and foundations of their opponents' arguments and are therefore incapable of genuine dialogue and compromise. I say this not as a centrist, I speak as a run-of-the-mill Democrat who would probably never vote for a Republican, but I acknowledge that I am part of the problem because I have simply been unable to understand my partisan counterparts' political motivations. I really can't offer a solution to the problem, but I know that there is one and that - for the good of the nation at least - solving it should be a top priority.

But I digress...

[cope1989]

I don't think so. Not for a very long time, I don't think. This is because the "mainstream" right and left, respectively, have reached such "extreme" positions. Extreme not in the subjective sense, but in the objective distance between them. The political gap between the average leftist (or Democrat) and the average rightist (Republican) has widened dramatically over the past twenty years to the point that each side fails to comprehend the intellectual motivations and foundations of their opponents' arguments and are therefore incapable of genuine dialogue and compromise. I say this not as a centrist, I speak as a run-of-the-mill Democrat who would probably never vote for a Republican, but I acknowledge that I am part of the problem because I have simply been unable to understand my partisan counterparts' political motivations. I really can't offer a solution to the problem, but I know that there is one and that - for the good of the nation at least - solving it should be a top priority.

But I digress...

This makes sense. As a Democrat, I could see myself voting for Reagan in 1984 (but not in 1980 as I'm from Georgia). And if I were a Republican, I could see myself voting for Clinton even.

But those days are gone. For most R's and D's, voting for the other party's guy is seen as almost treason, as it's percieved as abandoning your principles and voting for the party that is fundamentally against you.

If Romney is trying to pull a Clinton this year to try to pick up some blue states, I'd have to tell him to give it up. It doesn't work that way anymore.

[OC]

The Reagan and Nixon landslides are over, but the Clinton 1996 and Obama landslides of 2008 may still  happen, if for some reason or another the unemployment rate turns for the worst or for the better, after what is expected a tight 2012 race, 2016 may turn out to be a good one for Cuomo if the economy gets wildly better