Is 2016 Redrawing the Political Map?
That leaves only five states, with 75 electoral votes, supporting the winning candidates, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in all of the last four elections. You will recognize them as the purplest of purple states: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada.
Current polling, which shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 4 points nationally, suggests it's possible that all 40 steadfast states will stay in the same column next November. Clinton is actually running stronger in 2012 target states than nationally, perhaps because her campaign has been running reams of television ads in most of them and Trump's hasn't.
But there's also something else going on, some significant though not overwhelming (and to some extent countervailing) trends among identifiable segments of the electorate.