My French is not too good - so I will try to explain instead of translating
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The electoral map showed it in full colour: "blue" coasts where the Democrats won, vast "red" swaths of the Republican heartland everywhere else.
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La carte electorale montre ce "shift" en couleur:
all the States bordering both coasts (Atlantic & Pacific) were won by the Democrats - blue.
Hearlands of America: c'est le reste, le Centre du pays. Where so called "Traditional values" are the strongest.
swath/swatch souvent employe pour bande de couleur. [won by Republicans: red]. And: it means a path cut through something, like grass, land. So, this red band of color conveys a marching victory too. Like an army cutting a path through the land.
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Democrats need to stare long and hard at that map and at this comprehensive defeat. Exit pollsters, who failed so dismally to predict the result, made some telling discoveries.
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Comprehensive here means total. The Democrats must really study that map carefuly (to learn why it was such a total defeat for them).
"exit pollsters": people coming out of the voting places [existing]were polled, asked why they voted the way they did, what had been their main concern.
This information was then badly interpreted and, election night, TV networks made a mistake in predicting the winner: the answer is here: "issues which ordinarily" - for example, when people say they care most about the economy, this usualy means that they had voted against the incumbent (Bush) - this time, in the end, they did the oposit. So, "exit pollsters failed to predict the result and they discovered why"
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In 2000 this cultural split was dead-even: 50-50 America. This time it was 51-49 America, with the conservatives in the majority."
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pretty simple:
for the 2000 elections, cette division culturelle etait "dead-even" : in a race, 2 runners are dead even if they arrive at the same time. You owe me $50, I owe you 2 X $25: we are dead even.
In 2000, that cultural division was cut right in half, 50% each.
Cette fois, 51% a 49%, les conservatifs ont gagnes.
Muddy enough for you ?:D I can clarify some of my statements.