Some Quick Thoughts On Where the Parties Are Strong (and Weak)

I'm going to be doing a few posts over the next week or so on the regional strengths and weaknesses of the Democrats and Republicans. For a quick first post on this, above is the geographical distribution of our country's governors. To get a sense of how broad the Dems' regional strengths are, consider the following: one could walk from Canada to Mexico--beginning your destination in each of 5 different states (Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Michigan, and Montana)--and not pass through a state with a Republican governor. The longest of these routes takes you through 10 states.

For Republicans it's only possible to make this trip via one route through three states (ID-->UT-->AZ). We should note, too, that this is only possible because Arizona's Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano resigned to become Secretary of Homeland Security and was replaced by the state's Republican Lieutenant Governor. Looking at elected Republicans, this trip can't be done.

**Also note that Kathleen Sibelius, upon becoming Secretary of HHS, was succeeded by Kansas' Republican LG. Thus, we could have colored both AZ and KS blue if we based our map strictly on which party was elected to the seat.