How to Create a Blue State in Eight Easy Steps

Topic: Elections

In these pages, I have reviewed many electoral concepts:

Diseases – we have electile dysfunction, in which we have difficulty maintaining an election.

Investigations – we know what happened in the run-up to, and during the execution of the 2020 quasi-election, all the way down to the calling of Arizona, which preceded the stalling of counting in remaining “battleground states” in which President Trump had commanding leads.

Villain stories – the “who’s who” of election bad guys, much more refined than pointing out the Sorosboogeyman.

Hero stories – profiling those who are among the few and proud standing up against the national elections crisis, including names you may not (yet) know, like Robert Beadles of Nevada, or Harry Wait of Wisconsin.

Myth – one of my recent favorites, a deep-dive into the so-called “blue wall,” and how unlikely it is that a giant bloc of once-competitive states all decided in unison to become permanently “blue,” despite having a two-decade history of almost always supporting Republicans, or at least their reelection campaigns.

I think it is time we include recipes within the friendly confines of this journal.

If you were tasked with turning a state into one that produced only Democrat electoral votes, all the time, as sure as sunrise, what would you do?  Here it is, in eight simple steps.

I.               Initial Landing

All residents of permanently blue states, if old enough, remember a time in which they lived in either a Republican stronghold, or a competitive state like New York that enjoyed some semblance of political balance.  You’ve surely, by now, heard the legend of Republican California – it is true, California voted for every Republican nominee from 1952-1988, with the only exception being Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 national landslide.

Colorado residents experienced the initial blitzkrieg in 2006, in a Democrat tidal wave midterm, when the Democrats took over the governorship, giving them a trifecta (control of both legislative chambers and the governorship) for the first time in over four decades.  In 2008, Colorado ran a mail-in presidential election and produced Democrat electoral votes for just the second time since 1964, and hasn’t looked back since. Arizona is enduring this sort of takeover right now, with Republicans clinging to narrow majorities in both legislative chambers, and the top offices in the state being held illegitimately by Democrats.

Whether swept into office legitimately, or by less than honorable means, an initial foothold is required.  In some states, like Wyoming or Idaho, this isn’t possible – so the best bet for the unipartyis to entrench controlled opposition Vichy Republicans in positions of power.  Watch out for Texas next.

II.             Relax Standards

Once the initial foothold is gained, urban strongholds take precedence.  No one worried about Maricopa County, Arizona, when it was reliably Republican (which it still should be), or Dallas County, Texas.  Now firmly under Democrat control, Dallas County does what it wants.  Need more hours for the polls to be open when the rest of the state is closed?  Want to dodge this regulation or this standard in the name of equality? Consider it done.  This is what is called a paradigm shift – one that will deliver sweeping change if applied consistently and strategically. 

III.            Flood Voter Rolls

I don’t care what the rah-rah faction of the GOP or Conservative, Inc., says.  Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) is a death wish for the populist MAGA coalition, and even most conservative Republicans in general.  The reader can see below that President Trump carried just 2 out of 20 states operating AVR in 2020 (Minnesota, Delaware, Hawaii, and Pennsylvania have added AVR since that quasi-election).  For those keeping score at home, 243 electoral votes for Biden, and 9 for Trump (2020 AVR states only).