There Are 17 Democratic States And 15 Republican Ones

Back in 2008, there were a lot more Democratic states than Republican states. That was because of the dismal failure of the Bush administration. Since then, things have returned to a more normal situation -- and currently there are 17 solidly Democratic states and 15 solidly Republican states. The other 18 states are considered competitive.

That's according to the Gallup Poll. Between January 2nd and December 30th of 2014, Gallup surveyed 177,034 adults in all 50 states. They subtracted those saying they were Republican from those saying they were Democratic in each state -- and states that had at least a 5 point average favoring one party was considered to be solidly in that party's sphere. Any state with less than a 5 point difference between the two parties was deemed to be a competitive state.

The states in each party's column are listed in the charts below. When you just look at the number of states considered solid for each party, it may seem it is pretty even. But in presidential politics, it is not at all even. Note that many of the states in the Democratic column are states with large populations, and that means they have a lot of electoral votes. Meanwhile, the Republican states have are far less populated and have fewer electoral votes.

The solid Democratic states, according to this survey, have a total of 224 electoral votes -- while the solid Republican states have a total of only 80 electoral votes. Since 270 electoral votes are needed to elect a president, you can easily see that the Republicans must win a lot more of the 18 competitive states than the Democrats would have to win.