2015-2016 Republican Primary Season - Trump Courts the Conservatives

[Dutch]

I'll keep a note of it.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

In some respects I kind of almost agree with you.

It may be suicide to nominate Trump. It's guaranteed suicide if they don't.

And, after watching this cycle play out, honestly the death of the GOP as currently constructed might not be a bad thing at all.

For all the different reasons we want to see it, that's one thing all of us can agree on!

Whether it's from nominating Trump or "stealing" the nomination from him, either way there's a legitimate chance at a shakeup and some party realignment for the first time since I started voting. All the dumb yes/no litmus tests for both parties will probably prevent it from really getting anywhere I (or you) like, but maybe we can at least re-align the core values just a little bit.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

(though I'll likely be an Ohio resident by then).

Better get your shocks and struts checked and make sure your spare is AOK. Ohio isn't too big on the road work.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by stevew

Better get your shocks and struts checked and make sure your spare is AOK. Ohio isn't too big on the road work.

I live in Michigan. Ohio will actually be an improvement.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

I live in Michigan. Ohio will actually be an improvement.

Oh wow, crossing over the Ohio Border from PA is probably like going from Israel to Lebanon. I'm guessing that makes Michigan the Syria of roads.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

I live in Michigan. Ohio will actually be an improvement.

Sadly this is true - I'm constantly amazed when we leave the state and don't have to dodge potholes on literally almost every road.

[GrantDawg]

The more I think about this, the more I think I have a clearer picture of what the campaigns are doing and why. Let me give this a shot and see if I can get some agreement/disagreement.

Cruz has ran a very complete campaign. From every report, he has from the beginning been using an analytic approach to target specific groups. He also has been very specifically using the rules in each state to target areas that he might gain delegates. He has carefully chosen delegates to represent him in any RNC conventions to make any gains hold, and to pad his numbers if he can.

I am sure that was his plan from the beginning. He knew that for him to win, he was going to make the most of every rule he could, because the establishment was going to try everything they could to keep him from winning. Of course, he was thinking it would be an establishment candidate he would be fighting off (not another outsider). He also probably thought he would have big numbers from the south to help fire-wall him. Even though Trump has given him different types of problems than expect, his original plans are still working very well for him.

Trump, on the other hand, has approached this whole campaign differently. The two things limiting his campaign is time and money. Time, because building a traditional ground game takes 2+ years of planning. Money, because as much as Trump wants to tout his billions, he was not going to spend 100 million dollars of his own money just to win the nomination. Instead, he used his media savvy to get millions of dollars (I have even seen estimates as high as more than a billion) of free publicity.

Knowing that the lack of ground game would hamper any kind of delegate fixing, the plan all along was to ignore that and play straight to the public. Instead of setting delegates and wooing delegates, he can just play the outsider card and claim that he has been "cheated" every time delegate counts don't go his way. He can whip people up on how unfair he has been treated, and even use his surrogates to threaten the delegates. This way, he can continue to look like he is the outsider, and keep a distance from looking at all like he plays the political game. He just continues to play the victim at a higher level than a black female feminist college student that double majors in Women/African American studies.

So, to sum up, Cruz has played the long game from the beginning, knowing that a possible delegate fight was coming. He thought it was going to come from the establishment, but his plan is still working against Trump.

Trump has chosen not to play a long game, not because he didn't understand it, but because he knew he didn't have the time or money. Instead, he is counting on whipping up his people so loud that the party will be to afraid not to give him the nomination.

[AlexB]

The underdog being cheated by the establishment is tough to sell if people realise the following:

Before Mr Trump complains too loudly about the undemocratic nature of the process, however, it should be noted that at least so far he's won a larger share of pledged convention delegates (45%) than he has of the raw vote in nomination contests (37%).

US election: Trump accuses Republican leaders of conspiracy - BBC News

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by stevew

Oh wow, crossing over the Ohio Border from PA is probably like going from Israel to Lebanon. I'm guessing that makes Michigan the Syria of roads.

I find this humorous, whenever I am driving across into OH from PA, it's like going from a medieval road to the Autobahn. Then again, I know how the surface roads are in and around Youngstown, and that is probably the reason you see the PA roads being better.

[NobodyHere]

[stevew]

Tebow for Congress?

[Ben E Lou]

SHOCKING news from new poll...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/14/politi...ity/index.html

[revrew]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

The more I think about this, the more I think I have a clearer picture of what the campaigns are doing and why. Let me give this a shot and see if I can get some agreement/disagreement.

I don't know that anything you're saying is even remotely controversial. That's exactly right.

Unless you buy some of the conspiracy theories (Trump is a Hillary-backer, Cruz is dirty), your conclusions about Cruz's strategy are spot on, and Trump's ... while there may be some speculation about his motive ... are also spot on in regards to strategy.

I summed it up to a colleague recently this way: Cruz is playing for the Republican nomination; Trump is playing for a public coronation.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by revrew

I summed it up to a colleague recently this way: Cruz is playing for the Republican nomination; Trump is playing for a public coronation.

That sounds about right.

I'll tell you a couple things that keeps getting thrown out in this process that is absolutely driving me crazy.

The Republicans are "stealing" the nomination from Trump: So far, no one has stolen anything. Trump has not won the nomination. I was listening to Rush the other day, and understand that he has been as big a Trump defender as anybody. A caller called and made a statement something close to that, and it finally set him off. He pointed out (correctly) that for something to be stolen, something would have to have been had. Trump has not won! He leads, but that isn't winning. Until he gets to 1237, then he doesn't possess the nomination. Now if he does get to the number, and they monkey with rules to take it away, then it would have been stolen. He hasn't gotten there yet.

The person with the highest delegate count must be the nominee: Ummmm....no. He could be, but he doesn't have to be. Most elected officials have to get over the 50% range to win elections. In some place and some cases that isn't true, but most elections require a run-off if no one hits that threshold. Why is a presidential nomination any different? If a nominee doesn't get to 50%, that means half of the people did not want him. That is why the delegate system is in place. It would be massively expensive to run through the whole primary system again, even it was possible. Just think of some possibilities that delegates protect against, like:

You have a strong front-runner that swept through the early contests, and has gotten very close to the threshold. Then, it comes out he molested children decades before. All the rest of the contest burns through with that candidate getting no delegates, but his lead in the count holds and prevents anyone else from getting the majority. Should he be the nominee?

Or, you have a huge split between several candidates that are only getting support from certain regions of the country. There are only 1% difference between each. The candidate with the 1% lead must be the nominee, even if say his popularity is waning, or his view-point is completely out of line with the party as a whole?

[JPhillips]

If it's really close I think the GOP can get away with giving it to Cruz over Trump, but I don't see how the party survives a convention that skips over Trump and Cruz and gives it to someone that didn't run. The rules allow it, but the voters will see it as illegitimate.

[cartman]

If he gets the nomination, it would be the second time that Cruz ends up getting the prize even though he finished second in the initial round of voting. When he won the Senate seat in Texas, it was in a runoff. He finished a distant second in the main vote, but won by the same margin he lost by in the runoff.

[larrymcg421]

I've always hated that people can win elections with less than 50% of the vote. It's silly that a candidate with say 40% can win the election or can lose the election simply because of how the other 60% split their votes.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

If it's really close I think the GOP can get away with giving it to Cruz over Trump, but I don't see how the party survives a convention that skips over Trump and Cruz and gives it to someone that didn't run. The rules allow it, but the voters will see it as illegitimate.

I agree, but I don't think it will happen. That is why Cruz's strategy is so shrewd. I do believe initially he was concentrating on delegates because he thought he might win out-right, but the establishment might try to block him. Now, it is playing into a contested convention. If he can get close with pledged delegates (say 900-1000), I think he might have already stacked the deck enough to win on a second ballot. Of course, if he can get Rubio to pull his delegates to him, he might could win on a first ballot.

It all depends on how he weathers the next couple of weeks, which looks like will be brutal to him. If he can pull a handful of delegates out, and then start winning again when things turn west, I would say he is going to win it.

[Solecismic]

I don't think any of them have strategies per se.

Trump, like Sanders, has to be a little surprised that his message resonated. What else can they do other than complain about the process? They are both essentially independent from the party system and by nature would struggle with the whole rigamarole surrounding delegate wooing and seducing.

Cruz understands the system, but he also understands he only has regional appeal. He was never going to receive a majority of delegates. So, like every in-party candidate, he had to start the wooing and seducing early. That's not necessarily shrewd or a strategy, it's just what you have to do if you know your message won't resonate in much of the country.

Kasich was simply too late to start. And he doesn't have a strong personality, so he's doing about as well as he can. There's no strategy there, and all he could ever have hoped for with the late start was to be a power-broker at the convention. But I think Kasich+Cruz will still be well short of 1,237, so I'm not sure what form that will take.

As for the morality of winning with less than 50% of the vote, I don't really see the issue. With more than two candidates, 50% is incredibly difficult. There's merit in the Louisiana "jungle primary" system, where the primaries are combined and if no one gets 50%, there's a run-off between the top two. But that approach isn't practical on a national level, particularly within one party.

If no one reaches 1,237, the Republicans can do whatever they want. There are risks in any solution. If they go with the plurality and pick Trump, they have to deal with his high negatives with pretty much everyone who isn't voting for him. If they go with the organization and the way the process seems to be headed and pick Cruz (ironic given how anti-establishment he appears), they have to deal with his limited regional appeal. If they go with someone who didn't run or has very few delegates, they have to deal with the initial rush of negative ads and the resulting fallout.

Personally, I think they've reached a point where the only way they can avoid a disaster in the general, with coat-tales repercussions, is to take the third approach.

[Solecismic]

Wyoming's state convention was today. All 14 state-wide delegates went to Cruz. This brings the Wyoming total to Cruz 23, Trump 1, Rubio 1, Unpledged 4. The voting was party insiders only, as was the case with North Dakota and Colorado. Cruz has a 67-2 edge in delegates chosen in this manner.

Trump needs 62.2% of the remaining delegates to reach 1,237. There are 16 contests with 769 delegates at stake, all chosen in Tuesday primaries.

4/19: 95 delegates (NY), 12% of the remaining total.
4/26: 172 delegates (CT, DE, MD, PA, RI), 22%
5/3: 57 delegates (IN), 7%
5/10: 70 delegates (NE, WV), 9%
5/17: 28 delegates (OR), 4%
5/24: 44 delegates (WA), 6%
5/31: no votes
6/7: 303 delegates (CA, MT, NJ, NM, SD), 39%

The next 10 days are spent continuously in the area that favors Trump the most. If polling is accurate, he would come out of these contests with about 230 more delegates. Let's say that happens. He would then need just under half of the remaining delegates to reach 1,237.

This is why his odds are improving lately. That would leave everything pretty much up to California, where Trump holds a tiny lead in polling.

But the next two weeks is exclusively made up of closed primaries. So if the polling is off by 5-10 points, as it has been with a few closed contests, Trump's road to 1,237 becomes improbable.

I think he has about 40% chance of reaching that target. Higher if he avoids doing something new and stupid (though he seems to find something new and stupid to do pretty much every week).

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

(though he seems to find something new and stupid to do pretty much every week).

I have to admit, it would make for great TV, if he lands the job. Maybe the GOP strategy at this point is a Trump/ Rubio ticket. And the first opportunity that the Dems yell "Impeach!," the GOP yells back, "Let's do it, together!"

[Ben E Lou]

It sounds like Trump got shellacked in delegate voting in Georgia, too. After the first vote in Cleveland, Cruz will likely have more than 2/3 of Georgia's 76 delegates in his pocket. For a while I was thinking that Trump might have some chance if he misses the mark by a small number, but it's increasingly looking like his chances are basically nil if he doesn't get all the way to 1237 before the convention.

[cuervo72]

Suppose Trump wasn't the frontrunner, but someone like Jeb was. Would Cruz still be able to pull this off? What looks like his supporters strong-arming the delegate selection process?

[JPhillips]

If Jeb or Rubio were leading they won't face the backlash from the state party folks. Cruz wouldn't be able to pull this off if the local party folks were in support of Trump.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

It sounds like Trump got shellacked in delegate voting in Georgia, too. After the first vote in Cleveland, Cruz will likely have more than 2/3 of Georgia's 76 delegates in his pocket. For a while I was thinking that Trump might have some chance if he misses the mark by a small number, but it's increasingly looking like his chances are basically nil if he doesn't get all the way to 1237 before the convention.

Sounds similar (with less obvious shenanigans) to TN.

Not a big surprise here really, the party leadership has been pretty out of touch in GA for a fair little bit now.

edit to add: Let me expand on that "out of touch" comment just a bit.

There are 14 Congressional districts in Georgia. Not only did Trump win 12 of the 14 (losing only the 5th of Clayton/DeKalb/Fulton & 6th of Cobb/DeKalb/Fulton) but in both of those Cruz was barely an afterthought, finishing a very weak 3rd in one, 4th in the other.

[Solecismic]

New York Primary today. Trump is +30 in the RCP average. If that holds up, given New York has a 50% WTA threshold statewide and in the 27 districts, he could accumulate some serious delegates. The next week is in an area where he should do well.

Total: Trump 758, Cruz 558, Kasich 144, Others 189, Unbound 54.
Required to reach 1,237: Trump 62.3%, Cruz 88.3%.

New York has 95 delegates. I'll predict Trump wins 84, Kasich 9, Cruz 2.

[albionmoonlight]

https://politicalwire.com/2016/04/19...-if-cruz-wins/

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told Morning Joe that he’s not endorsing Sen. Ted Cruz for president.

Said King: “I hate Ted Cruz. And I think I’ll take cyanide if he got the nomination.”

[ISiddiqui]

Those type of statements are always fun. I'd love to see Cruz get the nomination just to see King's response now .

[NobodyHere]

Fraud Watch: Trump Left Off Thousands of NY Primary Ballots - Huffington Post | Huffington Post

If true this a major problem and Trump will spend now until the convention harping on it and how the system is rigged against him.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Fraud Watch: Trump Left Off Thousands of NY Primary Ballots - Huffington Post | Huffington Post

If true this a major problem and Trump will spend now until the convention harping on it and how the system is rigged against him.

Seems HuffPo is the biggest outlet reporting this so far (the rest that come up when searching appear to be minor blogs quoting them). So either they're waaaaay out in front on this or they're waaaaay off the mark.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Seems HuffPo is the biggest outlet reporting this so far (the rest that come up when searching appear to be minor blogs quoting them). So either they're waaaaay out in front on this or they're waaaaay off the mark.

I HATE it when you post exactly what I was about to post.

[Ben E Lou]

(I mean, not even Drudge or Infowars has it yet. )

[albionmoonlight]

Sportsdigs had it . . .

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Fraud Watch: Trump Left Off Thousands of NY Primary Ballots - Huffington Post | Huffington Post

If true this a major problem and Trump will spend now until the convention harping on it and how the system is rigged against him.

My bad, this is a fake news site. I should've noticed the "huffingtonpost.com.co" in the URL as opposed to "www.huffingtonpost.com"

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

My bad, this is a fake news site. I should've noticed the "huffingtonpost.com.co" in the URL as opposed to "www.huffingtonpost.com"

Eh, it happens. Honestly, I didn't even notice that part of it & I looked at the damned link.

[Ben E Lou]

heh..well there ya go

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Sportsdigs had it . . .

This'll never get old.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

This'll never get old.

Pffft. It's already old at SportsDigs.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

(I mean, not even Drudge or Infowars has it yet. )

I want to go on infowars and post a link to their primary coverage but I am deathly afraid that visiting that site at work will get me in trouble.

I'm sure some sort of fix is in for both primaries.

[Atocep]

I think Trump mixing up 7/11 and 9/11 yesterday is my favorite Trump mistake so far.

[Solecismic]

Preliminary New York Primary results:

Trump 60.5%, Kasich 25.1%, Cruz 14.5%.

Delegates: Trump 90, Kasich 5. It looks like Trump won 26 of 27 congressional districts, most over the 50% threshold.

This mathematically eliminates Cruz from reaching 1,237 pledged delegates. He now can only win through a contested convention.

Total delegates: Trump 848 (1 technically unpledged), Cruz 558 (11), Kasich 149, Others 189, Unpledged 54.
Pledged Delegates Remaining: 674.

Needed to reach 1,237: Trump 389 (57.7%).

Coming up next Tuesday:

Connecticut (28). Similar rules to New York's, only all 28 are WTA if the winner reaches the 50% threshold.

Delaware (16). Winner take all.

Maryland (38). 14 are state-wide WTA, the other 24 are divided into 8 WTA congressional districts with 3 delegates.

Pennsylvania (71): 17 are state-wide. The other 54 are "loophole" delegates elected individually. Cruz may have stacked this deck fairly well, even though he's doing poorly in polling.

Rhode Island (19). 13 state-wide, 2 congressional districts with 3 delegates. All assigned proportionally, with a 10% threshold.

All these primaries are closed, except Rhode Island, which allows independents as well.

Trump should do well on Tuesday, though the determination of how Pennsylvania assigns these loophole delegates is perhaps the most important question of the day.

If I had to guess where Trump ends up, I'd say 1,216 pledged delegates - just short. California is setting up as a critical, district-by-district battle. Funny that the state that will give the Democrats the most electoral votes, without a doubt, is the state that will probably decide the Republican nominee.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Funny that the state that will give the Democrats the most electoral votes, without a doubt, is the state that will probably decide the Republican nominee.

Kinda screwy, really, if you think about it.

The system feels more broken than ever to me at this point.

(and I mean the whole thing, not just the California part)

[Ben E Lou]

Yup. It's the same way on the Democrat side, illustrated heavily this year. Most of HRC's bigger wins have come in states where she has no chance of getting electoral votes. Political parties haven't tried the straddle the line between being "public" entities where everyone who generally thinks their way has a voice and being "private" enterprises designed to produce the candidate with the best chance of winning. Instead, they've acted like they're part of "we the people" for so long that people feel entitled to be a part of party processes, even to the point of getting pissed off about closed primaries. I even had a conversation the other day with one normally-smart person who was complaining that the RNC--which, I had to point out, is NOT an agent of the government--was being "unconstitutional" in how it picks its nominee. *sigh*

But yeah, back to the point: clearly the way for each party to pick their ideal candidate would be basically to focus on "which candidate gives us the best shot in swing states and holds on to our base states," and ignore the votes in the states that truly don't matter. But of course the people who either refuse to think strategically or are simply unable to do so would lose their minds over such a system. It's a big waste of everyone's time, energy, and money for Democrats to hold primaries in Mississippi and Texas this year, as is the case for Republicans in California. But it makes everyone feel better to cast their utterly unstrategic vote. *shurg*

[Ben E Lou]

(To be clear, I'm not necessarily advocating for parties to do such a thing, just pointing out how from a strategic standpoint it makes so little sense to factor in who the California Republicans or Texas Democrats want to be the nominee.)

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

The system feels more broken than ever to me at this point.

Double dola:

When I first read this, my initial reaction was to make the minor semantic quibble that it's not "the system" that's broken so much as "the two major parties." But upon further thought, the party processes are to some degree products of the way the greater electoral process works.

And someone help me with the "if we abolished the electoral college, candidates would only spend time in the big cities" argument. Dubya won a majority of the popular vote in 2004. Without bothering to look it up, I feel reasonably confident that he managed to do that without doing so well in our three largest metropolitan areas. Anecdotally, I know that in my precinct in 2008 in particular--where explosive development in 2005-2008 left the local election-running system woefully unprepared for the turnout and caused absurdly long lines (took me 3ish hours)--more than a few people showed up to vote and said "screw this. McCain is going to win SC anyway. I'm outta here." It just intuitively seems like a system where increased numbers of people felt like their voted mattered would increase turnout.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Yup. It's the same way on the Democrat side, illustrated heavily this year. Most of HRC's bigger wins have come in states where she has no chance of getting electoral votes. Political parties haven't tried the straddle the line between being "public" entities where everyone who generally thinks their way has a voice and being "private" enterprises designed to produce the candidate with the best chance of winning. Instead, they've acted like they're part of "we the people" for so long that people feel entitled to be a part of party processes, even to the point of getting pissed off about closed primaries. I even had a conversation the other day with one normally-smart person who was complaining that the RNC--which, I had to point out, is NOT an agent of the government--was being "unconstitutional" in how it picks its nominee. *sigh*

But yeah, back to the point: clearly the way for each party to pick their ideal candidate would be basically to focus on "which candidate gives us the best shot in swing states and holds on to our base states," and ignore the votes in the states that truly don't matter. But of course the people who either refuse to think strategically or are simply unable to do so would lose their minds over such a system. It's a big waste of everyone's time, energy, and money for Democrats to hold primaries in Mississippi and Texas this year, as is the case for Republicans in California. But it makes everyone feel better to cast their utterly unstrategic vote. *shurg*

I think there's some element of that on the Democrat side. Hillary has won 60% of the proportional delegates in what we call reliably red states. But only 46% in reliably blue states.

However, she has won 58% of the proportional delegates in purple states (seven according to Politico - all of which have voted).

In this day and age, the ideal candidate won't change the map, but will provide optimal opportunity in those handful of states that swing national elections.

On the Republican side, it's less obvious, but Trump has the ability to turn red states purple with his high negatives. So can he do the same with blue states? The turnout in New York last night suggests he can't. But you look at Cruz's terrible performance in purple states so far, and he seems like an even stranger strategic choice.

Party insiders may pay lip service to this concept, but I doubt they will actually do anything other than claim their partisan favorite also provides the best chance in November - as well as the best chance of curing cancer, solving world hunger and rescuing kittens from trees.

[AENeuman]

Seems this just comes down to turnout. I assume moderates and independents don't (or can't) vote much in primaries. (Hell, Dems seem to only vote once every four years.) So it makes sense that 1) the candidate chosen is more extreme and 2) there is very little long term strategy in the choice

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

Seems this just comes down to turnout. I assume moderates and independents don't (or can't) vote much in primaries. (Hell, Dems seem to only vote once every four years.) So it makes sense that 1) the candidate chosen is more extreme and 2) there is very little long term strategy in the choice

Erm, I'd say that's very state by state.

I've known relatively few moderates that bypass at least the presidential year primaries here. (Georgia is open primaries, always has been to my knowledge).

Off-year primaries are even more subject to participation by less devout (pick a phrase, you know what I mean) since many local races, down to the city/county level even, are determined in the primary phase in those years. And aside from presidential races, nothing drives a Georgia voter* like picking a sheriff or a county commissioner


*not true in every county or every case, I'm simply referring to how intense those races get in some random counties every cycle. I've seen high 70s turnout for non-presidential years in several places, IF the local race got hot enough

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

And someone help me with the "if we abolished the electoral college, candidates would only spend time in the big cities" argument.

I think that argument starts with "big states" rather than "big cities"

9 states (CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, PA, OH, GA, NC) have just over 50% of the US population. Those same 9 have only 45% of the electoral college.

The 7 states+DC with the fewest electoral college votes (Alaska, Delaware, District of Columbia*, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming) have 4.5% of the votes there. They have just over 2% of the population.

Abandoning the electoral college would simply further devalue votes that already seem to have little meaning.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

But yeah, back to the point: clearly the way for each party to pick their ideal candidate would be basically to focus on "which candidate gives us the best shot in swing states and holds on to our base states," and ignore the votes in the states that truly don't matter. But of course the people who either refuse to think strategically or are simply unable to do so would lose their minds over such a system. It's a big waste of everyone's time, energy, and money for Democrats to hold primaries in Mississippi and Texas this year, as is the case for Republicans in California. But it makes everyone feel better to cast their utterly unstrategic vote. *shurg*

On other hand, how do you decide which states "don't matter". In my lifetime, a Republican HAS won California and a Democrat HAS won North Carolina. States evolve and change as to their political demographics.