Democratic strategist Bob Beckel noted with interest Tuesday that Republicans no longer have a single U.S. House member in the Northeast or in any major city.
The Weekly Standard‘s Matthew Continetti noted similar troubling trends in his recent analysis of last week’s election results.
If Continetti is prescient, North Carolina can also expect to see a lot more of the president-elect:
The two major surprises on our new map are North Carolina and Indiana.
Bush won North Carolina by 12 points in 2004. This year Obama erased
that margin and won by a couple tenths of a point. It’s the first time
since 1976 that North Carolina has voted for a Democratic president. In
Indiana the swing toward Obama was even more pronounced. Bush won there
by a huge margin of 22 points in 2004. Obama made up all of that
ground, eking out a victory of about a point. No Democrat had won
Indiana since 1964.
If I were Obama strategist David Axelrod, I’d–well, I’d probably
be exhausted right now. But I’d also make sure that President-elect
Obama spends the next four years visiting North Carolina, Indiana,
Virginia, Ohio, and Florida. He needs to deepen his support in all five
states. And I’d also make sure Obama visits Missouri, where at this
writing it appears he barely lost; Montana, where he lost by 2.5
points; and Georgia, where he lost by 5.5 points. If Obama holds all
the states he won this year and adds those three to his column in 2012,
he’ll be reelected in a landslide. That’s a big “if,” of course. The
key is a successful first term.