Butternuts

Nicholas Beaudrot has a map that shows which states have shifted Republican and which have shifted Democratic since 2004. This is computed by taking the Bush-Kerry victory margin, and shifting it by 6 points in the Democrats' favor (i.e. the difference between Bush's 04 margin of victory and Obama's lead in the polls right now), then comparing that with current state polls.

As Beaudrot points out, there's no real regional pattern to the shift. A closer look at demographic changes might turn up something, but I'm too lazy to do it. What's worrying is that Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri have all shifted Republican - something that I intuitively realized long before I saw this graph. Those are the big swing states.

This reinforces my basic idea that long-term trends look good for the Democrats, but short-term trends are worrying for Obama. Ohio and Missouri, and potentially Michigan, are what I think of as the "new Butternut" states - places where long economic downturns, de-facto segregation, and a relative lack of immigrants have pushed white people to embrace a more racial and less ideological or nationalist identity. Eventually, those states and many others will experience immigrant waves and will join the new economy. But for now, Ohio, Michigan, and (especially) Missouri are Old Democrat states, and we have a very New Democrat candidate.

Of course, as I always say, polls don't mean anything until after the conventions, so this map might be completely wrong.