What would campaign strategies look like with a popular vote?
How would candidates make decisions about where to campaign?
I can’t even imagine…
I mean, since the electoral college is based on population and you need a lot of votes to win a popular election, you would probably still see campaigns focus on battleground states. While California and New York have large populations, they’re so solidly blue, it would be a waste of time to convince them to vote for a solid red candidate. IMO, you’d see North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, and Ohio still being fought over day and night for 6 million undecided or wavering votes (that was the 2008 presidential popular vote split).
This would only be for advertisements that go out to the whole state. But, for example, the central valley of California is quite conservative, so a Republican candidate would want to do a lot of targeted advertising or visiting there.
Understood. But wouldn’t it make sense then to go to your solid red or blue states and heavily hit urban census tracts with voters who may not be engaged at all? It seems that they would be much more likely to vote if they saw the candidate and understood that their vote actually did count.
For example, Obama might find his energy better spent holding rallies in large East Coast cities, hoping to get 3-5% more of the electorate out, rather then spending all of his time in the swings…
Candidates would go where their time is best spent. There are far more Republican voters in NYC or LA or Chicago than in Omaha, Nashville, or Oklahoma City, despite the percentages- so the Republican candidate might find it’s a better use of their time to campaign in NYC and potentially reach a million Republican voters, rather then campain in Omaha and reach a few hundred thousand.
I think we are saying the same thing. Essentially campaigns would become about big city GOTV efforts. Interesting b/c virtually no time is spent by candidates in presidential elections appealing to urban voters or addressing their issues…
They would compete most heavily in:
CA
NY
TX
IL
FL
… and completely ignore:
IA
DE
RI
AK
WY
and any other small state(s) with less than a million voters.
Unfortunately, here in NY we’d have many more ads on TV. No doubt the same for all the solid states with large populations. (California, Texas)
No, it wouldn’t – because it’s no longer a winner-take-all system, and there are still plenty of Republican voters in New York and California; the candidate just needs to energize them and get them to the polls. With no EC, every Pub New Yorker’s vote for president now counts exactly the same as every Pub Mississipian’s – or that of a Pub in any state formerly known as a “battleground state” – no more, no less.
On the other hand, advertising in the big media markets is a lot more expensive, and so are ground operations (renting office space, paying staff salaries, et cetera). I’m not sure, but I suspect the best strategy would be for campaigns to try to run up the vote count in friendly territory rather than trying to fight it out in hostile or divided areas.
In-person appearances might focus on cities, where there’s more bang for the buck. But a TV ad that reaches a million people in several small states would be no more or less useful than a TV ad that reaches a million people in one big city.
Maybe the economics of it are such that the TV ads necessary to reach a million rural midwesterners costs more than the TV ads necessary to reach a million urban east or west coasters?
It really kind of bugs me, though, when this topic comes up and people complain that California will then have more influence than Wyoming (or whatever). Of COURSE it will have more influence. It should have more influence, because more people live there and each vote should count equally!
I would expect the Republican candidate to campaign more in California and New York, just as I would the Democratic one to campaign in solidly red areas.
Besides - there are parts of California that are red; Orange County comes to mind.
I think that campaigning would be pretty much like it is now, except that states would be replaced with major metropolitan areas. There isn’t any real need to concentrate on rural areas in battleground states (which wouldn’t exist any more) when the effort can be more productive in a larger area.
Without the winner take all of the EC, Wyoming would get ignored even more than it is now. But candidates would flood California, where there are large but not large enough numbers of Republicans.
Now that I’ve thought about it, GOTV efforts would have to take on vastly more significance than they do now (I guess that’s obvious!). Campaigns would have to focus on developing GOTV machines in each state. The state parties would take on a lot more significance and responsibility. Campaigns would therefore really be decentralized battles in each states.
Let’s say, 11 states more or less make up the “toss-ups” and “leans”. In a popular vote scenario, your candidates will of course spend more time in CA than Wyoming, but truly have to influence as many markets as possible. It just seems like the strategy of where to fly and who to meet with would be infinitely more confusing. We would hear a lot less about undecided voters and a lot more about fringe voters, a much more diverse pool of people.
My opinion is that things would not break down by state at all since the states would no longer be important. I think it would work itself into a two-tiered approach between urban and rural. Urban places would get more personal visits from the candidates, and rural areas would get more electronic media. It seems that that would be the most efficient way to grab as large a number as possible of numerous and dense urban votes and less numerous and less dense rural votes.
I agree with this. Overall, you’d see a far more equitable distribution of both electronic and in-person campaigning across the country.
As others have said, this isn’t necessarily true. Say Obama will win New York 65-35. If Romney could run a media blast there and “only” lose 60-40, that’s a huge pickup in popular votes. Way more effective that winning over a handful of voters in Ohio, Florida, or Virginia.
It’s one of the main arguments against the electoral college. Candidates would stay on the coasts in urban areas and the rest of the country would be ignored.
California (55 EV) already has a lot more influence than Wyoming (3 EV).
18 times the electoral influence, with 66 times the population.
Why assume that the candidates will go for states as a whole. Why campaign in San Francisco (D) or Orange County ®? Campaigning will be targeted on a local scale full of in cities full of undecideds.