An interesting look at how fast the whole "battleground" / "swing" focus on just a handful of states has happened.
The problem is not, though, the Electoral College system itself. That's been around a couple of hundred years. My question would be — why have so many states become so homogeneous in political make-up that they are no longer "battlegrounds".
Note that this doesn't just affect the presidential elections, either. Statewide offices and Senators both are directly impacted by solid majorities in a state for one party or the other (though there are occasional exceptions, e.g., Scott Brown winning the replacement race in Massachusetts). And that has a role as well on statewide ballot propositions, and the majorities of House delegations …
But as you dig in closer, a lot of that homogeneity starts to vanish. You get local state legislatures that swing one way, then another. Personality begins to play a role. Politics becomes more local. Not that it's easy for a Democratic politician in Alabama, or a Republican one in Massachusetts … but there are exceptions, and opportunities.
So what makes the aggregate, in the presidential race, so seemingly monolithic that it drives all the advertising dollars and campaigning to a handful of locations?
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The Vanishing Electoral Battleground
The shrinking electoral battleground has altered the nature of American self-governance.
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