What do national tickets really do in states they're writing off?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Northern_Piper

I think what Chronos meant that Obama had the money to spend in safe Republican states, even if he didn’t have much chance of winning the state. That would force the McCain campaign to spend money in that state as well, to keep it in the “R” column. Even though that didn’t result in that safe state switching, it had the effect of stretching the McCain campaign thin, so they couldn’t spend as much on true battleground states as they would have wanted to - and that increased Obama’s chance in the battleground states.

ETA: Oops - i see Chronos already responded - missed that somehow.

Yeah, I was surprised to see that. I didn’t realize that you could effectively max out spending in a state by buying everything that can be bought before you reach diminishing returns. So the Obama campaign turned its efforts to places like Virginia and North Carolina.

[That_Don_Guy]

I for one believe that one of the reasons Bush surprised a number of people by winning Ohio despite exit polls showing Kerry ahead was because there was a significant amount of Republican money that came from California - by pretty much conceding that state’s Senate race to Senator Boxer.