How many states will only border states that vote for another party?
For instance, GA was isolated in 2020, and MN and IL were on their own in 2016. Florida pulled this trick twice, so the most recent election with no surrounded states was 2004.
Caveats:
Only entire states (or DC) will count. NE or ME will be sorted R or D according to the state popular vote, so the party of the district votes will not matter.
Only continental US counts - sorry, but AK and HI can’t vote opposite their neighbors if they don’t have any.
Four Corners borders count, so if, say, NM and UT go red but CO and AZ are blue, that would not add to the total number of surrounded states, since CO and AZ would have at least one neighbor voting in common.
It occurs to me that the result of this market may depend on whether or not Michigan and Illinois are considered bordering. It appears that they are considered to share a border in the middle of Lake Michigan, so I will assume that Michigan borders Illinois when I resolve the market.
I apologize if anyone was confused by any potential ambiguity in the market conditions - lesson learned about using geographical boundaries as part of a resolution.