Is 2016 redrawing the political map?

Is the political map, so familiar that even non-pundits offhandedly refer to red, blue and even purple states, changing before our eyes? Yes, at least to a limited extent — and it's probably about time.

For the political map has been pretty static for almost two decades, the longest since the 1880s. In the last four presidential elections 40 states and the District of Columbia with 422 electoral votes have voted for nominees of the same party each time. In only a few cases were the margins very close, as was the case with the five states with 41 electoral votes that voted for a second party just once (North Carolina, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico and New Hampshire).

That leaves only five states with 75 electoral votes supporting the winning candidates George W. Bush and Barack Obama in all four elections. You will recognize them as the purplest of purple states: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada.

Current polling, which shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 4 points nationally, suggests it's possible that all 40 steadfast states will stay in the same column next November. Clinton is actually running stronger in 2012 target states than nationally, perhaps because her campaign has been running reams of television ads in most of them and Trump's hasn't.

But there's also something else going on, some significant though not overwhelming, and to some extent countervailing, trends among identifiable segments of the electorate.