it actually isn't. In person GOTV efforts have much more impact on turnout than ads do, and there is a direct correlation between number of offices present for GOTV efforts and margin of victory in 2008 and 2012. Romney's campaign specifically addressed this one as one of the reasons they lost in places they did not expect to.
You're right, both are important. And the offices obviously show they're less of a priority, but the Clinton camp wouldn't be throwing money at ad buys if their internals weren't showing an opportunity there.
Yes, I did- for a very good reason. There isn't reliable polling in those places- and much of the reason there isn't a lot of reliable polling is because its not contestable. This is every poll in Arizona since the beginning of august:
Not only is there an extremely sparse amount of polling there, no pollster has bothered to run a poll there more than once. The only pollster who has run more than one poll there
at all was OH insights, going back to june. There's not enough here to conclude that any kind of polling there is legitimate in any direction.
PPP has actually run several polls in AZ that aren't included in RCP's aggregate for whatever reason, and they've shown a range of Trump leading by 2-4 points.
Your post doesn't suggest anything about the state of the race in Arizona other than that we need more polling.
9 points in 2012 isn't "R leaning", that's solid R, until we see some kind of shift in the electorate that says otherwise. it doesn't exist.
A state can be Solid R in 2012 and merely R leaning in 2016, that's what a trend is. Bush carried Virginia in 2004 by 8.2%, North Carolina by 12.4%. Guess how they voted in 2008? We already are seeing a shift in the electorate in the polls which you are arbitrarily ignoring.
I'm going to need to see the receipts on this. CO, NM, NV were all carried easily by democrats in more than one election, and all of those have democrats at varying levels of elected office. AZ does not.
I'm not talking about political trends, I'm talking about demographic trends, and demographics are destiny. Arizona is projected to be a majority-minority state by 2027. It has the makings of a swing state, it just needs a presidential campaign to capitalize on that, which Obama largely did not.
This is a terrible argument- Obama was well known to compete everywhere he possibly could in 2008 and 2012. If he didn't put resources in arizona, it was because it was a lost cause, much as it is this year.
It was a lost cause because McCain was the Republican nominee in 2008. It was a lost cause in 2012 because Obama's campaign played it very safe and wrote off any state they didn't win in 2008, including states like Missouri where he just barely lost and Indiana which he actually won.
"Obama was well known to compete everywhere he possibly could in...2012" is a baffling statement and reeks of revisionist history. His 2012 re-election campaign was a completely defensive one. 2008? Yeah, he played mostly everywhere. 2012, absolutely not. It may have only seemed that way because his starting map was so huge.
The point you're missing is that NC and VA didn't happen overnight- both of those two states have a clear pattern of demographic change overtime as well as demonstrable history of an increase in democratic voting that's putting democrats into elected office at the state level. This does not apply to AZ or GA.
Arizona was well on its way there, Democrats picked up two Congressional seats and held the gubernatorial seat in 2006, McCain's candidacy and two disastrous midterms put that on hold. Even then when Arizona gained a seat in 2012, it was a Safe D one. Meanwhile Flake barely got elected in an open seat contest that I firmly believe Democrats would have won had Gabby Giffords been able to run.
Voting history in North Carolina and Virginia is more complicated because the coalitions that elect Democrats have shifted. Southern Democrats used to enjoy downballot success because white voters hadn't completely abandoned them yet even while firmly voting Republican at the presidential level. I compared them to Georgia because Georgia has similar trends at play, even if it's a cycle or two behind. Similar to how Arizona is behind Colorado and Nevada.
Oh shit here comes day boi student loan forgiveness waddup
I would suggest Clinton coming out in favor of legalization of pot might not be a bad idea, but I could see it backfiring somehow.
