this article is part of the opinion today newsletter. you can sign up here to receive more briefings and a guide to the section daily in your inbox. vermont has a claim on being the most liberal state in the nation <u+2013> home to bernie sanders and howard dean and the site of president obama<u+2019>s largest 2012 victory outside of his native hawaii. and yet vermont<u+2019>s blueness is recent. in every presidential election from the 1854 founding of the republican party through 1960, vermont voted republican. on the flip side, today<u+2019>s solidly republican deep south never voted republican for much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. as recently as 1988, west virginia was one of the nation<u+2019>s 10 most democratic states. the point is, politics can change more radically and rapidly than we often assume. this year<u+2019>s titanic struggle of an election, in particular, could accelerate change. white voters without a four-year college degree are becoming increasingly republican, as my colleague nate cohn and others have noted. everyone else <u+2013> whites with a bachelor<u+2019>s degree and non-whites <u+2013> is becoming more democratic. fivethirtyeight published a fascinating map on wednesday highlighting the places where these trends may matter most. in the simplest terms, donald trump may fare better in the northeast and industrial midwest than other recent republican nominees, while hillary clinton may do better in the deep south, the southwest and the great plains. it<u+2019>s possible that pennsylvania will change from blue to purple in coming years and that iowa and ohio will switch from purple to red. (already, the clinton campaign is treating ohio and iowa as nice-to-have rather than must-have.) at the same time, north carolina, georgia, arizona and florida could become bluer. on net, these trends favor the democrats. their groups <u+2013> non-whites and college graduates <u+2013> are growing. but there are also risks for the democrats. the country still has a lot of whites without a college degree, and the democrats have actually won support from many of them who live outside of the south in recent elections. if the party writes off these voters <u+2013> viewing them, to use clinton<u+2019>s distasteful word, as <u+201c> irredeemable <u+201d> <u+2013> it will struggle to hold the house or senate and to accomplish its goals for the country. the odiousness of trump<u+2019>s campaign should not trick the democrats into making that mistake. you can join me on twitter (@dleonhardt) and facebook . i am also writing a daily email newsletter until the election and invite you to subscribe . follow the new york times opinion section on facebook and twitter (@nytopinion), and sign up for the opinion today newsletter .
how red states turn blue (and vice versa)
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