Swing Between the 1796 and 1800 Presidential Elections in Maryland

Welcome back to the blog, apologies for the unannounced hiatus.  Today I'm sharing Election Cartography Corner's third swing map, by Twitter user @ElpisActual.  She takes us way back to the early days of the United States republic by mapping the swing in the presidential vote in Maryland from the 1796 presidential election to the 1800 presidential election.

Thanks to President George Washington declining to run after his second term, 1796 was the first time the USA had a contested presidential election, with multiple candidates and parties actually trying to win.  Washington was officially non-partisan, but leaned Federalist, so President John Adams who succeeded him in 1797 continued that party's control of the executive.  Therefore, when President Thomas Jefferson beat Adams in 1800, it was the first time in American history that there was a peaceful transfer of power between two parties.

 

 

The map shows dramatic swings, which makes sense given the primordial nature of partisanship at the time, as well as the much smaller voting population.  Maryland as a whole did flip from Federalist in 1796 to Democratic-Republican in 1800.
 

Partisan Control of State Governments: 1938 v. 1939

Today's maps are on a very interesting topic: control of state governments.  And not only that, but it's another set of historical maps!  This pair from @Mill226 on Twitter show the fascinating political time period of the late 1930s USA.  The threat of war in Europe and Asia was growing, while the US continued to suffer from depressed economic conditions.  As the first map shows, the Democratic Party was still riding high on FDR's re-election in 1938.

A point of interest on both maps is Nebraska, which has used a "non-partisan" unicameral state legislature since 1936.

However, after the 1938 midterm elections, Republicans had gained in New England, the Midwest, and the Great Plains.

One thing I really appreciate about these maps is the calculations of what percentage of the US population was governed by each party.  To me, that is a fascinating metric of the parties' relative strengths.  I'm not sure, but I'd guess that the 1938 map shows one of the highest concentrations of state and population control in the hands of single party in the nation's history, perhaps only rivaled by the early-1800s Era of Good Feelings when the Democratic-Republicans were ascendant.

Most Recent Year Each State Elected a Democrat or a Republican to the Senate

Twitter user @realFrosst shows us that Kansas hasn't elected a Democrat to the US Senate since 1932(!), while Hawai'i has the longest streak of not electing any Republican senators, going back to 1970.

If you compare the same state across the two maps, you can get a sense of how competitive the state is in recent history.

Maine is notable as a technicality, due to independent Senator Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats.

Most Recent Year Each State Elected a Democrat to the Senate

Most Recent Year Each State Elected a Republican to the Senate