2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Should we push to get Texas? [View all]Rosanna Lopez
(308 posts)I agree. I think too many Democrats are taking this for granted and assuming Obama has it in the bag. It's important to be ambitious and continue to expand the electoral map, BUT you can never underestimate the Republicans. They are ruthless, and will even engage in voter fraud if they have to.
While the electoral map has favored the Democrats for the past 20 years (eg. the Republicans have not decisively won an election since 1988), you can never know for sure what will happen. George Bush I was the last Republican to break the 300 EV mark. By contrast, the Democrats have done so 3 times in the last 20 years - 1992, 1996 & 2008. The Democrats also won the popular vote in 2000, of course.
But with devious people like Karl Rove behind the scenes of Romney's campaign, with massive amounts of money wiping out Obama's 2008 financial advantage, and with the possibility of bad economic news in the months ahead, the advantage Obama enjoys in the Electoral College could deteriorate.