While Ds and Rs are interspersed within states, I feel like there is a lot more acrimony between states than within them. I feel like Ds in Maryland wouldn't be so upset if they were just dealing with Rs in Maryland (and vice versa).

How would this be represented in the "purple state" craze which started about 10 years ago?

The "purple state" deal seemed "within state purple" on a county level some comments around here seem that that this type of "purple" may erupt into a "next level purple" on a national level as if we don't have that already in terms of "swing states".

So we have "the purple" on the county level, and we have "the swing" on the state level. Out of this combined whirlwind, is there any sense to be made or had?

The fallacy of the "purple state" is that it assumes that red in Maryland is the same as red in Alabama, which is just untrue.

Nobody really takes the time to understand the political situation outside of their immediate surroundings. But the most important part of this is, the geography of partisanship is changing. States change "partisan affiliation" all at once. There are supposedly-blue states that will be red soon, and, in the medium term, several southern Atlantic states are going to go blue.

I think things are too fluid to predict any kind of clear geographic fault line.

What would be interesting would be if a state somehow broke up.