2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: It was a mistake to abandon the 50 state strategy [View all]Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)The 50 State Strategy had nothing to do with the presidential election. You do realize Hillary Clinton invested more resources in more states than many modern Democratic presidential candidates, right?
In the final month of the campaign, she was actively putting an effort into trying to win Utah, a state that hasn't gone Democrat since 1964. In fact, I'd wager MAYBE her biggest problem was that she TRIED to extend the map, falsely believing she could put more states into play than Obama in 2012.
How many on DU were cheerleading the idea of her fighting in Texas and Arizona?
Democrats got cocky in the electoral map and should have shortened it like Obama did in 2012 (mind you, Obama received the EXACT same criticism here on DU when it was announced he was scaling back the map compared to 2008...and it worked). The focus from the start should have always been the swing states + Virginia + keeping the most Republican-leaning blue states blue ... not campaigning in Georgia or Texas or Utah or Arizona.
So, your point is actually 100% wrong and actually the opposite of what Hillary should've done.
She should've spent less campaign resources in Arizona and more in Pennsylvania. Less in Texas and more in Michigan and Wisconsin. She should have flooded the traditional swing states instead of trying to stretch the map in the final months. Had she run a 15 state campaign, she'd be president-elect right now.
Had she further run a 50 state campaign like you suggest, she would've lost by an even wider margin.