The accompanying map shows, by state, the number of general election campaign events in which either one of the presidential (Obama, Romney) or vice presidential (Biden, Ryan) candidates spoke during the 2012 contest. There were a total of 253 such events. Thirty-eight states were ignored. Just three states--Ohio, Virginia, and Florida--hosted well over half of all the events that occurred. It's not too much to say that the campaign only existed in eight states. Everyone knew which side was going to win the electoral votes of the other 42.
The following table shows the actual election result, state by state, in descending order of Obama's electoral strength, as measured by percentage margin of victory (or defeat), along with a running tally of the president's electoral vote total. I think it shows quite conclusively that the respective campaigns knew very well which states mattered (and which didn't).
DC +84 3
HI +43 7
VT +36 10
NY +28 39
RI +27 43
MD +26 53
MA +23 64
CA +23 119
DE +19 122
NJ +17 136
CT +17 143
IL +17 163
ME +15 167
WA +15 179
OR +12 186
NM +10 191
MI +9 207
MN +8 217
WI +7 227
NV +6 233
NH +6 237
IA +6 243
PA +5 263
CO +5 272
VA +4 285
OH +3 303
FL +1 332
NC -2
GA -8
AZ -9
MO -10
IN -10
MS -11
SC -11
MT -13
AL -14
TX -16
LA -17
SD -18
ND -19
TN -20
KS -22
NE -22
KY -22
AK -23
AR -24
WV -27
ID -32
OK -33
WY -40
UT -48
I've put the Colorado outcome in bold, because that's where Obama crossed the 270 threshold needed for victory. Since 270 is one more than half, Romney would have crossed the finish line at the same point. Colorado, in other words, was what Nate Silver calls "the tipping point state." To reverse the outcome, Romney would have had to win all the states he did win plus the four that he lost by the smallest margins--namely, Florida (1%), Ohio (3%), Virginia (4%), and Colorado (5%). As measured by number of campaign events, those four states received the most attention (Ohio), the second most (Florida), the third most (Virginia), and the fifth most (Colorado). Meanwhile, there is not a single instance, among the 38 states ignored by both campaigns, of anything resembling a close outcome. Neither campaign visited Georgia, which Romney ended up winning by 8 points. That was the closest race in the 38 ignored states, which by the way have 70% of the country's population.
You probably know where I'm headed. I hate the electoral college, and I think putting together campaign data with election results shows what an abomination it is. Voters can know as easily as the campaigns whose ballots matter and whose don't. Especially if you happen to favor the minority party in a dark blue or dark red state, you really have no voice at all: electoral votes determine the outcome, and since it is impossible for your ballot to help your candidate win any electoral votes, there is no point to voting in the presidential race. So Republicans in New York and Democrats in Texas have no voice in a presidential election--unless they are rich and can give large sums of money to help one side or the other advertise in a handful of "battleground states." Really a great system.
The table also shows how little room for growth the Democrats have. Romney won 24 states, 21 of them by a double-digit margin, 23 by at least eight per cent. I suppose you could say, trying to spin it differently, that this is because Obama won all the "swing states." The point, however, is that the electoral college gives a candidate no incentive to try and win 47% of the vote instead of 43% in a particular state. If you can't win the state outright, don't waste your time and resources. Thus 70% of the population ends up being ignored.
Sometimes you hear people say silly things that the actual data refute. For example, some of the Republicans in my life, noting the presence of Floridians Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush in this year's GOP race, have told me that the Republicans would be smart to nominate one (or both) of them, thereby wrapping up Florida and, with it, the election. Two things about that. One, Florida is an indispensable state for Republicans, not Democrats. Two, that such considerations enter into anyone's strategy proves that the electoral college has a pernicious, distorting effect on our politics. Why should it matter that one candidate or another has a better chance of winning 50.001% of the vote in this or that "swing state"? And, on a related point, who cares about the views of Mormons in Nevada, or auto workers in northwestern Ohio, or whatever group of boutique voters we are going to be hearing too much about in a few short months? It's the electoral college that magnifies the import of these demographic slivers. That's one of the many reasons it should be abolished.
A final point. The aforementioned Republicans in my life, besides overstating the importance of Florida for the Democratic candidate, are infatuated with the electoral college. I think it must be a vestigial effect of 2000. Admitting that the electoral college should be scrapped would be too much like admitting that George W Bush should never have been president. But I think the facts of the case are unfriendly for both parts of their argument. Obama's national popular vote victory over Romney was 51 to 47 per cent. So, at least in 2012, the Democrat's margin in the tipping point state of Colorado (5%) was greater than his margin in the country as a whole (4%). This means that if there had been a uniform movement away from the Democrat and toward the Republican such that the popular vote was evenly divided, Romney would have won Florida rather comfortably--and Obama still would have won 272 electoral votes.
Another bad characteristic of the electoral college is that it's something of a crap shoot. But it's a crap shoot that, in the current partisan alignment, pretty clearly aids Democrats. If Republicans had any brains they'd give a rest to their repugnant efforts at suppressing the vote in poor neighborhoods and instead gain a partisan edge by supporting a high-minded, good government reform--namely, electoral college abolition, replaced by the direct popular election of the president.
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