- If 2014 showed anything, it's that Democrats are really bad at realizing when a state is lost. They threw HUGE sums of money at AR, LA, and KY in the FINAL WEEKS, only to watch republicans win in a landslide. Sure, there were a few misleading polls, but it was still easy to see in the final weeks that those three were not winnable, yet democrats didn't cut their spending there at all. Had they diverted that money to NC and AK, Begich/Hagan likely would have won, making the senate easier to take back in 2016. Given that the official 2014 democratic autopsy was literally just "low turnout made us lose" and nothing else, we'll see this trend continue in 2016. Democrats will spend LESS in swing states then they did in 2012 because they will spend huge sums in unwinnable GA/AZ/MO, which will be a net plus to republicans.
No, you're just making that up. Nobody is dumb enough to waste so much money on non-swing states that they deprive themselves of money in swing states. And, Hillary Clinton will have enough money to swamp every swing state with organization and ads.
- GWB won NH in 2000, and in 2004 he only lost it because Kerry was a northeastern candidate. He would have won it in 2004 against a generic democrat. All of the states I listed are states that Bush either won or got within 5 points in in 2004. Bush 2004 may represent an absolute peak in terms of minority support, but it's worth noting that Romney actually outperformed Bush by about two points (nationally) in the white vote. This makes WI, at least, look pretty flippable - In WI, Bush lost by only about 11,000, so you need a switch of roughly 5,500 votes to win. You take his numbers and add in a little more of the white vote, and you get that needed 5,500.
So much nonsense here. Bush won New Hampshire 15 years ago dude. And, you can't just bootstrap 2016 candidates to favorable 2004 results. Classic grasping at straws.
- PA, if anything, is getting more white, not less, meaning it probably isn't permanent fools' gold for republicans. Although I do admit I would be surprised if this was the state that got them over 270. ( I expect it to be WI, NH or VA (assuming Republicans win in 2016, and even I have them more likely than not to lose at this point (against Hillary), I just think the chances of them winning are a lot higher than 1-2%).
What is your source for the "fact" that Pennsylvania, if anything, is getting more white? Here's a cool map from the Urban Institute.
http://datatools.urban.org/features/mapping-americas-futures/According to their projections, the white population of PA will decline 3% between 2010 and 2020. The black population of PA will increase 6.47% between 2010 and 2020. And, the Hispanic population of PA will increase 38.76% between 2010 and 2020. So, I'm going to go ahead and say you goofed on that fact dude.
- On VA, even IceSpear admits that Warner's tiny win is a bad sign. Warner was expected to easily dispatch Gillespie by about 10 points. NO ONE expected Gillespie to get within a point of winning. NO ONE DID. NOT EVEN CRAZY REPUBLICAN OPERATIVES. Warner was actually popular in terms of approval ratings around last year's election, and he still almost lost. The fact that almost any other democrat would have lost, and the fact that Gillespie got so close, and the fact that Warner would have lost had republicans just thrown a few more dollars into the state (or nominated Bill Bolling/Scott Rigell/Barbara Comstock), just shows how competitive VA is. It will be a hotly contested swing state in 2016.
It's a swing state, nobody said it wasn't.
