AHC: Make Alaska a Democratic state, and Hawaii a GOP state, but....

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I would say either a flooding of whites into hawaii rather than alaska, that mainly being filled with inuit, or perhaps dole forces hawaiians and alaska gets trade unions
 
Hawaii was a swing state in 1960. The prime cause of Hawaii's Dem solidity is due to the 1954 revolution. Take that out and they become a state much later if at all. Hawaii was dominated by Republican elites before then, so if they become a state the elites would probably keep a stranglehold on its politics.
Alaska has the inuits meanwhile. If the Dems tried harder in 1960 and later in there they could mobilize enough voters to make it Democrat and keep it that way. Keep in mind that most people are concentrated in the urban areas. If they can make those vote more Democrat they could pull off a win.
 
I think gets lots of old whites in Hawaii instead of Florida and get US Government steer Cuban refuggees to Hawaii. Alaska a more heavily unionised and regulated oil industry might help
 
The GOP remains a big tent party that values conservatism and national pride over ethnic nationalism. Native Hawaiians and Japanese Americans are surprisingly very socially conservative. A lot of them are Christian as well too. This attracts a lot of native Hawaiians into the party and they vote en masse for the "Family Values" party.

The family values mantra of the big tent conservative movement alienates a lot of libertarian minded Alaskans. Thus, they become marginally Democratic.
 

Wallet

Banned
Alaska and Hawaii were extremely close in 1960. Hawaii was 0.06% democratic and Alaska was 1.88% republican. They only voted republican because Nixon campaigned in all 50 states (big mistake)

Let's say he doesn't go to Alaska, and makes an extra stop in Hawaii. Now you flipped the states.

Make living in Hawaii much cheaper so you get all the retires to go there instead of Florida and Arizona.

Alaska has a much smaller population that depends on heavy federal aid.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Alaska and Hawaii were extremely close in 1960. Hawaii was 0.06% democratic and Alaska was 1.88% republican. They only voted republican because Nixon campaigned in all 50 states (big mistake)

Let's say he doesn't go to Alaska, and makes an extra stop in Hawaii. Now you flipped the states.

Make living in Hawaii much cheaper so you get all the retires to go there instead of Florida and Arizona.

Alaska has a much smaller population that depends on heavy federal aid.

So does West Virginia, but the economies of both states are based around energy and mining which causes them to lean Republican for national elections.
 
Neither of them are big states population-wise, you could probably make both of them at least swingy by importing some hundred thousand white retirees to Hawaii and non-white immigrants to Alaska.
 
What's the POD? If it's 1901, it becomes pretty easy. The later it gets, it's harder to accomplish.

I'm probably not doing the histories of Hawaii and Alaska justice, but here are a few ideas:

Make Alaska a tech hub. From what I've heard, computers operate more efficiently at cold temperatures and are less likely to overheat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cooling. This was a big issue for mainframe computers. If say, U Alaska Fairbanks becomes a university of some renown in the tech industry in the 1960s to take advantage of the cold climate, then maybe you could attract more educated (and presumably more liberal) people.

A large number of Asians (particularly Japanese) move to Alaska rather than Hawaii. Perhaps, much like Dole in Hawaii, early 20th century fishing companies might plausibly hire them.

Alternatively:

You could make Hawaii more conservative by making it more into a big retirement destination (how you take Florida out of the running, I don't know). Then you would have a steady supply of older white Americans (who generally vote Republican).

Have Hawaii become an even larger military hub (possible if Japan or China are viewed as hostile nations).
 
Have FDR say "go North young men to Alaska the last frontier" discovering oil would create jobs in the 1930s,something desperately needed.Alaska would have a higher population and statues so FDR everywhere as well as a city and several schools named after him.
Just have one of Hawaii's islands become a retirement community for the wealthy," the silver island" silver because of the wealth and hair color.
 
http://www.eurasiareview.com/200520...truggle-to-make-peace-with-settled-existence/

So according to this article, about 1,300 Afghan Kyrgyz applied to move to Alaska as refugees in 1978, but were denied by the US government (they went to Turkey instead). Let's say the government accepts them. Other Kyrgyz in Afghanistan also move there during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. After the Cold War, other Kyrgyz move to Alaska, perhaps from Tajikistan or from Kyrgyzstan itself assuming their post-Soviet transitions go horrifyingly bad. Alaska ends up with a major population of Kyrgyz (maybe about 20-25,000 by the 2010s), who, as a reliable bloc, help make Alaska a swing state, although you'd probably have to apply a few of the other suggestions in this thread as well to make Alaska reliably blue.
 
Alaska and Hawaii were extremely close in 1960. Hawaii was 0.06% democratic and Alaska was 1.88% republican. They only voted republican because Nixon campaigned in all 50 states (big mistake)

Let's say he doesn't go to Alaska, and makes an extra stop in Hawaii. Now you flipped the states.

Make living in Hawaii much cheaper so you get all the retires to go there instead of Florida and Arizona.

Alaska has a much smaller population that depends on heavy federal aid.

Frankly I don't see Hawaii becoming a favored retirement home because it is so far away. Part of that is undoubtedly psychological due to Hawaii being a series of islands rather than a continental part of the US, but it is still going to be difficult to attract retirees at the end of a fairly long plane journey even from California.

I've always been surprised that Hawaii is so strongly democratic given the military presence at Pearl Harbour, maybe that angle could be exploited somehow...

teg
 
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