AHC: Enduring East/West political divide in U.S. politics

For most of the last 50 years, American politics has shifted from prior schemas to one in which the divide between reliable Democratic and Republican states is, grossly, one of North vs. South (excluding the west coast), or perhaps Coasts vs. Inland. For example, these are the voting patterns in presidential elections since 1968:

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However, at various times during the unstable period of the 60s and 70s, when the coalitions of the Sixth Party System were somewhat unstable, a few unusual and intriguing maps emerged, such as those of 1960 and 1976:


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Most prominently, there seems to be the possibility of a political divide between the western states and the eastern ones, although some minor hiccups, like the Republican strongholds in New England, don't quite fit the pattern. Now, in general the population east of the Mississippi has always been greater than the population to the west, although that imbalance is smaller than ever with the skyrocketing populations of California and Texas, which now have more electoral votes than they did in this time to the tune of double digits. So in one sense an East/West divide seems to favour the political party of the east at baseline. However, making the border states of the Midwest the primary swing states could keep elections competitive.

What kind of changes could occur along the way in the 20th century to unite the Deep South, the Mid-Atlantic, and New England against the western half of the country, or vice versa? What would the coalitions that produce these outcomes look like? Is there an urban/rural divide? A racial divide? Just from these maps, it seems easier to make the Republicans the party of the West, but you could have said the same about the Democrats and the Deep South before Nixon and Goldwater. Is there a way to turn the tables here as well? Most of all, how do you make these coalitions stick long enough to be the defining political division of a generation?
 
Libertarian GOP vs Populist Democrats would probably do this.

To elaborate

If the Democrats are a coalition of catholics, unions, and southerners then you have the rust belt and south pretty solidly in the Democratic camp.

GOP meanwhile retains social liberals while still moving to the right economically. Considering folks like Kemp and Rumsfeld, who were big supply-siders, and Goldwater were hardly big social conservatives it isn't that hard to have the GOP go that way. Reagan was divorced and was the first governor to legalize no-fault divorce too.
 
I think it was more of a "within his own interests" thing. For instance, Reagan pushed for gun control as Governor because of the BPP

Law and Order politics lends towards Gun Control. Look at how Bloomberg in NYC was a big gun grabber.

I don't think it's a social moderate thing. That the GOP became the pro-gun party and the democrats the anti-gun party is a divide that sort of came out of left field.
 
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