During 2012, we’ll periodically tweet a trivia question, offering a copy of our iPad app (or something equally wonderful) to the first correct respondent.    To participate in future trivia, follow 270toWin on Twitter.  Only one guess per trivia handle per question.

Here’s today’s question:   Name the last election year where one candidate won the electoral votes of all states with any territory in the Mountain time zone? 

Answer:    In 1984, Ronald Reagan won all the states in the Mountain time zone.    Most of this time zone votes Republican in each election.  In fact, 7 states with some territory in that time zone haven’t voted for a Democrat since 1964.  (See accompanying screen shot from our iPad app’s map library).      The answer would have been 2004, except for the fact that Oregon has a small sliver of territory in the Mountain time zone.   Armed with that information, one could use 270toWin Answers to see when the last time a Republican won Oregon.    It was 1984 and, conveniently, all the other Mountain states (and almost the entire map) were red that year.

During 2012, we’ll periodically tweet a trivia question, offering a copy of our iPad app (or something equally wonderful) to the first correct respondent.    To participate in future trivia, follow 270toWin on Twitter.  Only one guess per trivia handle per question.

Here’s the question we asked on January 31st:   After each of last 7 Censuses, 1 state has gained 2+ electoral votes, one has lost 2+. Name both. 

Answer:   Florida (+2 or more) and New York (-2 or more).        Coming close were California, Pennsylvania and Texas.    California had gained 2 or more in 7 censuses from 1930 through 1990.  However, this dropped to +1 in 2000 and no change in 2010.   Pennsylvania has lost at least one electoral vote in the last 9 censuses, while Texas has gained at least one in the last 7.

During 2012, we’ll periodically tweet a trivia question, offering a copy of our iPad app (or something equally wonderful) to the first correct respondent.    To participate in future trivia, follow 270toWin on Twitter.  Only one guess per trivia handle per question.

Here’s the question we asked on January 30th:   How many presidential incumbents have won re-election?

Answer:   21 incumbents have won re-election.   See the list below.

1. Washington, 1792
2. Jefferson, 1804
3. Madison, 1812
4. Monroe, 1820
5. Jackson, 1832
6. Lincoln, 1864
7. Grant, 1872
8. McKinley, 1900
9. T. Roosevelt, 1904
10. Wilson, 1916
11. Coolidge, 1924
12. F. Roosevelt, 1936
13. F. Roosevelt, 1940
14. F. Roosevelt, 1944
15. Truman, 1948
16. Eisenhower, 1956
17. Johnson, 1964
18. Nixon, 1972
19. Reagan, 1984
20. Clinton, 1996
21. Bush, 2004

During 2012, we’ll periodically tweet a trivia question, offering a copy of our iPad app (or something equally wonderful) to the first correct respondent.    To participate in future trivia , follow 270toWin on Twitter.  Only one guess per trivia handle per question.

Here’s the question we asked on January 27th:   What state has voted Republican in the most presidential elections?

Answer:   Although it is a very blue state today, Vermont has voted Republican 33 times, more than any other state.   From 1856 to 1960, Vermont voted Republican in 27 consecutive elections.   After siding with Johnson in 1964, the state vote Republican from 1968 (Nixon’s first term) through 1988 (George Herbert Walker Bush’s first term).

This segment ran on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a few days before Election Day, 2008.      The 270toWin map is in the background and the site itself is mentioned at the 2:19 mark.

A pretty entertaining skit, with the theme of “let’s get this election over with, already”.      Guessing there will be similar election burnout by October of this year as well.

Let’s be clear up-front:   With only 56 prior presidential elections, each 4 years apart, these kinds of facts are of dubious predictive value.      That said, we find these kinds of facts interesting.     Use 270toWin Answers to get the answer to these types of questions for any combination of states, as well as other historical election trivia.

• Nobody has ever won a presidential election when losing both Iowa and Missouri
• Nobody has ever won losing both New Hampshire and North Carolina
• A Republican has never won when losing Ohio; 1960 for a Democrat
• The last time a Republican won while losing Florida was 1924
• The last time a Democrat won while losing Pennsylvania was 1948
• The last time a Republican won while losing Colorado and Nevada was 1908
• Early primary trivia:   The last time a Democrat won while losing Iowa and New Hampshire was 1976; it has never happened for a Republican
• One must go back to Zachary Taylor and the Whig Party, in the 1848 election, to find the last time someone won when losing Michigan and Missouri

There’s been very limited polling from these two states, but what we have seen lately leads us to believe that they should be considered toss-ups.   If Obama were to win these historically very red states, he would (most likely) win every state in the continental U.S. bordering Canada, except for Idaho, which shares 45 miles with our neighbor to the north.