Democrats retreat to coastal bases

Michael Barone:

Here's an exercise for some evening when you're curious about big nationwide trends in this year's elections.

Get an outline map showing the 50 states and take a look at the latest poll averages in pollster.com in each race for senator and governor. Color in the percentage (rounded off; no need for tenths) by which either the Republican or Democratic candidate is leading (I use blue for Republicans, red for Democrats) in each state.

The results are revealing, even breathtaking.

The map of the Senate races shows Republicans leading over almost all the landmass of America. Democrats are ahead in the three West Coast states and Hawaii (though not by much in California and Washington) and by 1 point in Nevada. They're also ahead in four states along the Atlantic Coast -- Maryland, Delaware, New York, Connecticut -- plus Vermont.

Republicans lead in all the other Senate races, from Philadelphia to Phoenix and Boca Raton to Boise. True, their candidate leads by only 1 point in Barack Obama's home state of Illinois. And they've got narrow leads in some mountain states (West Virginia, Colorado, Kentucky).

The map of governors' races is not much different. Democrats lead in New York, all the New England states except Maine, plus Maryland. They lead in Arkansas where they've got a popular one-term incumbent and in Colorado where the party's nominee has severe resume flaws and former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo is running as an independent. Democrats lead in Hawaii and Minnesota, normally Democratic states where Republicans have held the governorships for the last two years.

Two other big states have close races: In California Republican Meg Whitman barely leads septuagenarian Democrat Jerry Brown, and in Florida the race is tied.

But overall Republicans are doing very well indeed, with statistically significant leads in every other state with a governor contest this year.

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Taken together, all these maps show a Democratic Party shrinking back to its bicoastal base and a Republican Party expanding to take in most of the vast expanse of the continent.

Now, the geography can be a little misleading. The Democrats' Northeast and Pacific Coast bases are heavily populated, and the states where they're leading in Senate races cast 136 electoral votes in 2008. But the states where Republicans are leading cast 274 electoral votes.

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The thing you have to ask is what is wrong with the people on the coasts? People there have to be wise to the Democrat liberal over reach, and to some extent they are with a tighter than expected senate races in New York and California. It is just harder for some liberals to face the reality of the failure of liberalism as delivered by the Obama administration.