Election Thought Exercise of the Day - Home State Advantage

A break from underdeveloped congressmen and twitter, if you will.

A candidate who carries their own home state and that of their vice presidential companion nearly always wins the big prize. Since 1900, this has failed exactly three times- 1916, 1976, and 2008. In each of these cycles (correct me if I am mistaken, of course), the party had both their Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate from, at the time, their party's "safe" states.

Condition #1 of this exercise:
Every announced Republican candidate (and for fun, some who have not declared but could jump in) wins their home turf.

Condition #2 of this experiment:
Their VP choice carries their home turf.

Note- moving forward, this is not a discussion of “but X will never carry their home state.” The ground rules, again, are Conditions #1 and #2 are absolutely true in the exercise.

Condition #3- either Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate MUST have won an election within their home state (preferrably state wide, though a popular congressman can carry their own weight into the game). We are already stretching the boundaries of reality with this exercise, need to set a few.
Oh, almost forgot.

There is one last condition.
Every candidate STARTS with all of the McCain 2008 states:

Every candidate here starts with all the electoral votes that failed to fall for the glory of The One at the height of his popularity. I also went ahead and threw in the EV in Omaha Nebraska that barely went to Obama in 2008, because the once-in-a-very-blue-moon occurance of Nebraska divvying up EV's has come and gone.

So what state does each nominee bring to the table if Condition#1 held?
Pawlenty- Minnesota. 10 EV's
Bachmann- Minnesota. 10
Johnson- New Mexico. 5
Romney- Michigan. 16 (HuffPo and PPP use Michigan as his “home state” although he hasn't lived there in nearly 30 years. Family name is popular there. Alternate home state would technically be New Hampshire, as that is his current primary residence. For the Mittens crowd, go with Michigan. For the FYIYAMR! crowd, use New Hampshire.)
Cain- Georgia. 16 (already won under these conditions)
Gingrich- Georgia. 16 (already won)
Huntsman- Utah. 6 (already won)
Paul- Texas. 38 (already won)

Undeclared candidates who have sent out hints in the last month:
Palin- Alaska. 3 (already won)
Giuliani- New York. 29
Pataki- New York. 29
Perry- Texas. 38 (already won)

Now, lets look at some potential VP choices that you morons have thrown out there:
Paul Ryan, Wisconsin. 10
Chris Christie, New Jersey. 14
Marco Rubio, Florida. 29
Allen West, Florida. 29
Susana Martinez, New Mexico. 5
Bob McDonnell, Virginia. 13
Rob McKenna, Washington. 12

The electoral votes for 2012 (adjusted thanks to the 2010 census) appear in the map at the top, and can serve as a guide if you think there is another dark horse candidate or previously-unmentioned VP pick you would like to throw in here.

While the electoral votes from much of the RINO regions are heavier than those won by more conservative candidates (since for the most part we would already have them), there is another critical part of playing a "home field" stragegy- balance.

Successful tickets tend to have candidates from different regions- West, South, Midwest, and the North East. A ticket where both are from the same region often falls flat (though Clinton-Gore did rather well).

So, considering electoral votes and region-splitting, which combination would be the most lethal? Would that ticket also balance the two wings of the party enough to seriously GOTV? Would said candidates also have regional advantages as well? (ex, candidate X lives in Pennsylvania but is very popular in Ohio and New Jersey).

Time waster for the day.

posted by CAC at 11:40 AM

| Access Comments