OVER the next few weeks, and especially after the presidential debates due to begin in Miami on September 30th (after The Economist went to press), the American election will cease being a national contest and morph into 50 statewide races—or, more precisely, into a dozen races in those “battleground states” whose votes in the electoral college are not a foregone conclusion.
Over this summer, we have looked at 16 swing states individually (see map). But if you consider them collectively, surprising conclusions emerge. George Bush's greatest political advantage may be the current power of cultural resentment in battleground states. Yet long-term trends are helping John Kerry's party, meaning that the 2004 election may prove one of the last stands for the Republican Party in some places that have formed part of its core constituency.
For the most part, the list of swing states in 2004 is similar to that in 2000: Florida, the rustbelt, the south-west. As Mr Kerry's chances waxed in the summer, new battlegrounds popped up—Arizona, even North Carolina. As his fortunes have waned, others have taken their place—Iowa, even New Jersey (see article).
But battleground states form two groups, not one. Bill Frey of the Brookings Institution (using a slightly different list from ours) divides them into six whose population has grown faster than the national average since 1990 and 11 which have been growing more slowly (see chart). The slow-growers have 115 electoral-college votes, compared with 65 for the booming battlegrounds. The slow-growers are all on or east of the Mississippi river; all the fast-growing states except Florida are in the west.
The demographic features of the two groups are dramatically different. Though there are fewer of them, the fast-growers have added 1.9m foreign immigrants since 1995 compared with 1.1m for slow-growing states. In terms of domestic migration, Americans are pouring out of one set of swing states and into another. Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa and West Virginia have all seen a big outflow of people, but the fast-growing states have attracted more than 2.2m. The contrast between Ohio and Florida is especially sharp. Between 1995 and 2003, Ohio lost 19 people per 1,000 to domestic migration; Florida gained 67. Ohio gained 15 immigrants per 1,000; Florida gained 59.
In demographic terms, the slow-growing swing states look like the solidly “blue” (Democratic) parts of America: both are seeing substantial domestic out-flows offset by even larger international inflows. The fast-growing battlegrounds look more like red (Republican) America: both are seeing international and domestic inflows. That chimes with historical voting patterns: in presidential contests Democrats have tended to carry slow-growing unionised states like Minnesota and Wisconsin, while the Republicans have done better with fast-growers.
So you would think Mr Bush should be doing better among (reddish) fast-growing battlegrounds than in (blueish) slow-growing ones. You would be wrong. First, Mr Bush has been doing well everywhere. He is ahead by an average of two points in all the battleground states, fast and slow, and has improved his position in both by about five points since July.
But second, if you look at the largest, vote-rich states of the mid-west—politically the most important slow-growing region—you will find that Mr Bush is doing particularly well: he has jumped by ten points in Wisconsin, by more than six in Missouri and Pennsylvania, four to five in Ohio and Iowa. In the rustbelt, Michigan is the only state where Mr Kerry is holding on to a solid lead. Why should this be?
The main reason has to do with age and race. If you take out Florida (the nation's retirement home), the slow-growing states are older than the fast-growing ones. In all but three of them, people over 65 account for at least 13% of the population, and, in four cases, considerably more. More important, the slow-growing battleground states are also whiter: 86% of their population is white, compared with 70% for fast-growing states.
As a result, the slow-growing battleground states have disproportionately more white women (45% compared with 36% in the fast-growing battlegrounds); noticeably more ageing baby-boomers (white baby-boomers make up a third of the voting-age population in the slow-growers, compared with only a quarter in the fast) and dramatically more whites with only a high-school education (42%, compared with just 28%).
And who are the most significant swing voters in this election, the people whose shifting support has been the main factor behind Mr Bush's recent rise in popularity? Answer: white women (“security moms”), people with no or a little college education, and non-Latino Catholics. The first two groups are disproportionately represented in slow-growing swing states, and Catholics are strong in the industrial towns of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
This augurs well for Mr Bush this year, but what about the longer term? Republicans say demography favours them. Taken as a whole, the Bush states in 2000 have gained population and electoral-college votes. But if you look just at the swing states, the situation is almost reversed.
Florida and the western states have been picking up the usual conservative retirees from the rust belt. But they are also attracting more Democratic folk—college graduates from the rustbelt, young families squeezed out of expensive housing markets in California and New York and, of course, Latinos.
This year, these migration patterns seem to be helping Mr Bush. Democrats are not arriving in sufficiently large numbers to tilt Republican strongholds such as Arizona and perhaps Florida (though they have made them more competitive). Meanwhile, their departure has given more prominence in states like Wisconsin to older, whiter, less-well-educated groups for whom the cultural issues of God, family and country matter more than economic ones. These “left behinds” have warmed to Republican claims to defend “old-fashioned values” from the evils of multiculturalism and secularism.
There is another factor that is probably helping Mr Bush and muting the effect of demography: regionalism. James Carville of the Kerry campaign once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia at one end, Pittsburgh at the other and Alabama in between. Small they may be, but New Mexico and West Virginia both contain five distinctive regions. Florida has four. Swing states are often battlegrounds because their regions cancel each other out.
Sometimes, migration can tip the balance quickly in small states. West Virginia is becoming more Republican as workers desert the Democratic coalfields in the south. Migration from liberal Boston is also making conservative New Hampshire more competitive. Sometimes, migration just adds more swing voters to regions that are already competitive, as it has in New Mexico. Usually, demographic trends take time to have an effect. In Florida, migration has eroded the importance of both parties' strongholds—the Democratic south-east and Republican south-west—and turned the I-4 corridor into the swing region; but it has not yet changed the character of the state overall.
Regionalism within the states also puts the pressure on a candidate to appeal across a wide range of places. National politics is not just a matter of picking up “security moms”, “office-park dads” and the other national groups of swing voters; a president needs to play well in places as far apart as northern Minnesota's “Iron Range” and Florida's Panhandle.
Mr Bush seems to be better at this than Mr Kerry. He almost always scores higher on likeability tests (“Whom would you most like to have a beer with?”). The intensity of support for him is a few points higher than it is for Mr Kerry. And while Mr Kerry's support is concentrated in big cities, inner suburbs and university towns, Mr Bush's is more evenly spread.
Personal appeal could see Mr Bush through this election. But, eventually, demography must make a difference. The fast-growing battleground states are trending Democratic thanks to those younger voters and Latinos. In 2008, and still more in 2012 (when the electoral college will take account of the 2010 census), the effect could be more marked—especially as more Latinos register to vote and more educated families flee New York and California.
By the end of this decade, the slow-growers in the rustbelt will probably have lost even more graduates to the deep blue and fast-growing battleground states, and even more rich families to the deep red ones. Older whites and poorer families will be left behind. States like Ohio and Pennsylvania will still be important—but perhaps not as important as they will be this year.
Audio versions are available of 15 of our swing-states reports
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "The great trek"