9.2 Myths That Presidential Candidates Reach Out to All the States under the Current System

Tara Ross, a lobbyist against the National Popular Vote Compact who works closely with Save Our States, has asserted in testimony before a Nevada Senate hearing:

“Ultimately, the Electoral College ensures that the political parties must reach out to all the states.”[192] [Emphasis added]

In 2020, Rush Limbaugh said the following about voter fraud in a nationwide vote for President:

“No matter what anybody tells you, you need to support the Electoral College, and you need to thank your Founding Fathers for it, because it ensures that everybody in this country has a role in electing the president. If they were to succeed and get rid of the Electoral College, five or six states would determine the presidency every election.”[193] [Emphasis added]

In a Heritage Foundation Legal Memo, Thomas Jipping wrote in 2020:

“America’s Founders established the Electoral College so that all states could participate in electing the President—requiring campaigns to reach the entire country.”[194] [Emphasis added]

Despite the fact that no presidential or vice-presidential candidate has engaged in general-election campaigning in Arkansas since 2000, Doyle Webb, Chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party said in 2020:

“Without the Electoral College, candidates for President will just fly over the midsection of the United States, will fly over Arkansas.”[195]

The above demonstrably false statements are routinely repeated, with a straight face, by many other defenders of the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes.

Table 1.26 and the map in figure 1.14 show the state-by-state distribution of the 1,164 general-election campaign events of the major-party presidential and vice-presidential nominees in the four presidential elections between 2008 and 2020. The table and map show:

• Twenty-two states were totally ignored in these four presidential elections.
• Nine additional states each received only a single visit (out of the total of 1,164) during the entire four-election period.
• Over three-quarters (77%) of all the general-election events in the four elections (903 of 1,164) were concentrated in nine states.

State winner-take-all laws are the reason why three out of four states and three out of four Americans are ignored in presidential elections. Under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system, voters in non-battleground states receive no attention from either political party, because neither party has anything to gain or lose by campaigning in such states.

A presidential candidate has no reason to spend his or her limited time and money visiting, advertising, and building grassroots support in order to win a state with, say, 58% of its popular vote rather than, say, 55%. Similarly, it does not matter whether a candidate loses a state with 45% rather than 42% of the vote.

Because of this political reality, candidates understandably concentrate their attention on a small handful of closely divided battleground states.

The list of closely divided battleground states is largely stagnant when viewed over a period of two, three, or four consecutive presidential elections. However, even in the short term, the number of “jilted battlegrounds” exceeds the number of “emerging battlegrounds,” as discussed in section 1.2.10.

When viewed over several decades, there has been a dramatic shrinkage in the number of closely divided states in presidential elections. For example, all 50 states received general-election campaign events in the 1960 presidential election, as discussed in section 1.2.11.

Footnotes

“Keep the Electoral College, Because States Matter” is the title of an article by Josiah Peterson in the National Review that argued:

“[States] have unique geographic and political interests that ought to be reflected in the agenda of the nation’s executive.”[196] [Emphasis added]

Save Our States (the leading organization that lobbies against the National Popular Vote Compact) has said:

“To win the presidency, candidates … have to try to win states by addressing the unique political, economic, and cultural character of each state’s voters.”[197] [Emphasis added]

In speaking in opposition to the National Popular Vote Compact during the House floor debate in Connecticut, State Representative Rob Sampson said:

“I understand that some people might be in favor of [the national popular vote] concept, but there is a legitimate reason … why we don’t use that system. Going back to the formation of this country, our Founding Fathers recognized that the states were different and that the people that lived in them were different. And that remains the same today. We have some states that are tourism states. We have some states that are devoted to agriculture. We have other states which might be involved in business. But each of those states has their own interests.”[198] [Emphasis added]

In comparing the key features of the current system of electing the President with the National Popular Vote proposal, Tara Ross defended the current system by saying that it:

“recognizes that different states have different needs/priorities.”[199] [Emphasis added]

Ross then criticized a national popular vote for President by saying that it:

“assumes voters alike nationwide, have the same needs.”

The fact that states have different needs, interests, and priorities is precisely the reason not to support the current system of electing the President.

Far from ensuring that candidates reach out to all states in their pursuit of the presidency, the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes regularly results in three out of four states being ignored in the general-election campaign for President.

Over three-quarters (77%) of all the events in the four presidential elections between 2008 and 2020 (903 of 1,164 events) were concentrated in just nine states (as shown in table 1.26 and the map in figure 1.14).

In addition, 22 states were totally ignored in all four elections between 2008 and 2020. Nine additional states received only one visit during this entire period, and the remaining states received only a few visits during this entire period.

Footnotes

Tara Ross, a lobbyist against the National Popular Vote Compact who works closely with Save Our States, has told numerous state legislative committees that the current system encourages coalition-building. In her testimony to an Alaska committee in 2023, she said:

“The Electoral College continues to help our country in many ways: It encourages coalition building.”[200]

In a video for PragerU, Ross said:

“The system encourages coalition-building and national campaigning.”[201]

Far from encouraging coalition-building, the current state-by-state system does exactly the opposite.

Members of a group sharing common interests and views (e.g., farmers) are siloed by state boundary lines. Their votes are not combined with like-minded voters in other states.

In addition, the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes actively works against coalition building by reducing the number of states that are politically relevant in presidential elections (as discussed in section 1.2 and section 9.2.1).

Footnotes

Defenders of the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes strenuously argue that the current system forces presidential candidates to pay attention to all the states.

When facts are presented that contradict this manifestly incorrect claim (as they are in section 9.2.1), these same defenders of the current system retreat to the argument that the disproportionate attention received by battleground states is not a deficiency, because spectator states sometimes become battleground states in subsequent years.

For example, Tara Ross has argued that:

“Safe states and swing states—they change all the time.”

“California, used to vote Republican. Now they vote Democrat.”[202]

Although it is true that spectator states can become battleground states (and vice versa), changes in a state’s political complexion generally occur slowly (as detailed in section 1.2.10 entitled “The Stagnant Battleground”).

Most battleground states typically enjoy that status for only a couple of elections—typically during the period when the state’s allegiance is shifting from one political party to another.

For example, California voted Republican in all six presidential elections between 1968 and 1988. Then, in 1988, California was a battleground state. George H.W. Bush won the state by 3.5% in that year. However, since then, California has voted Democratic in all eight presidential elections between 1992 and 2020.

New Mexico voted Republican in presidential elections for decades prior to 2000. Then, it was a closely divided battleground state in 2000, 2004, and 2008. Its loyalty oscillated from Democratic to Republican to Democratic in that period. Accordingly, it received an extraordinary amount of attention in those years.[203] Then, as the state’s political complexion shifted decisively in the Democratic direction, New Mexico found itself almost totally ignored in 2012, 2016, and 2020.

Similarly, Virginia and Colorado were reliably Republican in presidential elections up until and including the 2004 election. Then, they were closely divided battleground states in 2008, 2012, and 2016. Both became spectator states in the 2020 election.

The facts are that:

• Forty-one states voted for the same party in the four presidential elections between 2008 and 2020, as shown in table 1.27.
• Thirty-six states voted for the same party in the six presidential elections between 2000 and 2020, as shown in table 1.28.
• Twenty-nine states voted for the same party in the eight presidential elections between 1992 and 2020, as shown in table 1.29.

Because of the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes, a person can easily live out a major portion, or all, of his or her entire adult life in states that are totally ignored in the general-election campaign for President.

For example, the year 2020 was the 108^th anniversary of the last time the statewide popular-vote margin in a presidential election in Utah and Nebraska was less than 6%.

In contrast, in elections for Governor or U.S. Senator, every voter in every county, town, or precinct is equally relevant in every election. A person’s vote in a particular county, town, or precinct is not ignored in an election for Governor or Senator simply because 53% or 54% of that voter’s neighbors happen to favor another candidate.

A nationwide vote for President would guarantee that every vote in every state would be equally relevant in every presidential election.

Footnotes

In an article entitled “Electoral College Means Both Safe and Swing States Are Crucial,” Trent England, Executive Director of Save Our States, wrote:

“Swing states are the late deciders. … Swing states matter because they compel campaigns to reach out to undecided voters.”[204]

Tara Ross, a lobbyist against the National Popular Vote Compact who works closely with Save Our States, testified at the Connecticut committee hearing on March 19, 2018:

“Safe states are not irrelevant. They are just states that made up their mind earlier in the process.”[205] [Emphasis added]

This issue is not that the voters of the spectator states “made up their mind earlier,” but that no presidential candidate cares what’s on their minds.

Under the current system, virtually all general-election campaign events (and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures) are in a handful of closely divided battleground states.

In each of the six presidential elections between 2000 and 2020, 91% or more of the general-election campaign events were concentrated in about a dozen closely divided battleground states (section 1.2.10). Moreover, 41 states voted for the same party in the most recent four presidential elections (table 1.27). The number of closely divided battleground states has been shrinking from decade to decade (section 1.2.11).

The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes makes supporters of both a state’s majority party and minority party politically irrelevant, because presidential candidates have no reason to pay any attention to the issues of concern to them.

As Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said in 2015 while running for President:

“The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next President. Twelve states are.”[206]

There are millions of undecided voters in the 38 or more spectator states that are routinely ignored in the general-election campaign for President. However, no presidential candidate solicits their votes, because they live in politically uncompetitive states.

Footnotes

Sean Parnell, Senior Legislative Director of Save Our States, stated in written testimony to the Maine Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee on January 8, 2024:

“[An] NPV lobbyist explained that once the compact is in effect, presidential candidates will only focus on ‘issues on a national level’ rather than what she termed ‘specialized interests’ that only affect smaller groups of Americans.”[207] [Emphasis added]

Parnell’s written testimony cites a 2023 news story about Eileen Reavey’s comments. However, Reavey did not say that “candidates will only focus” on national issues. She simply said that candidates will be “more concerned” about national issues. The news story that Parnell cited actually reported:

“Reavey also thinks this [National Popular Vote] movement will encourage presidential candidates to campaign in every state instead of focusing on just a handful of battleground states like Pennsylvania or Nevada. ‘We’re going to see them being more concerned about issues on a national level, rather than really specialized interests that affect a small amount of chronically undecided voters in these states,’ said Reavey.”[208] [Emphasis added]

Just as candidates for Governor campaign on both local and statewide issues, presidential candidates would campaign on both state and national issues in a nationwide campaign.

Footnotes

Three out of four states and three out of four Americans are ignored in present-day presidential elections conducted under the state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (as discussed in detail in section 1.2).

John Samples, an opponent of the National Popular Vote Compact, has asserted:

“Many states now ignored by candidates will continue to be ignored under NPV.”[209]

We do not have to speculate on how a campaign would be conducted in an election in which the winner is the candidate who receives the most popular votes, because there is ample evidence available to answer this question. We know, from actual experience, how campaigns are conducted.

Serious candidates for Governor or U.S. Senator pay attention to their entire electorate. The reason is that every vote is equally important in winning an election in which the winner is the candidate who receives the most popular votes. Focus, for a moment, on a state’s congressional districts (remembering that congressional districts within a state contain virtually identical numbers of people). Serious candidates for Governor do not limit their campaigns to just one-quarter of their state’s congressional districts while totally ignoring the remaining three-quarters of the state. Taking Wisconsin as a specific example, it would be inconceivable for a serious candidate for Governor to campaign only in the 1^st and 2^nd congressional districts, while totally ignoring the 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th districts.

The same principle applies today in present-day presidential races inside each closely divided battleground state (as discussed in detail in chapter 8 and section 9.7). Inside a battleground state, every vote is equal. A campaign for Wisconsin’s electoral votes under the winner-take-all rule has the same political dynamics as a gubernatorial campaign in the state. Every vote helps a candidate get closer to winning the most votes in the state and thereby capturing all of the state’s electoral votes. Inside Wisconsin, for example, presidential candidates campaign throughout the state. Presidential candidates seek votes in Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay well as in suburbs, exurbs, small towns, and rural areas. Every method of communication (including television, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, billboards, telephone, and the internet) is used to reach every voter in the state. It would be politically preposterous to suggest that any presidential candidate would campaign in only certain parts of Wisconsin, to the exclusion of other parts, because every vote is equally important inside a presidential battleground state.

As David J. Owsiany of the Buckeye Institute wrote in the Columbus Dispatch in 2012 (when Ohio was a closely divided battleground state):

“In a swing state such as Ohio, the candidates will visit every area of the state, not just the big cities, because they know winning the popular vote in Ohio—regardless of the margin—means the candidate will get all 18 of the Buckeye State’s electoral votes.”[210]

An NPR story entitled “Ads Slice Up Swing States With Growing Precision” reported on presidential campaigning in Colorado’s small media markets in 2012 (when Colorado was a closely divided battleground state):

“Republicans outnumber Democrats in El Paso County more than 2 to 1. Barack Obama lost this part of Colorado to John McCain by 19 points in 2008.

“‘It’s not a matter of just winning; it’s winning by how much,’ says Rich Beeson, a fifth-generation Coloradan and political director for the Romney campaign.

“Presidential campaigns know exactly the margin of victory or defeat that they have to hit in each town in order to carry an entire state. Democratic media strategist Tad Devine says campaigns set extremely specific goals based on hard data.”

“Although no one suggests that President Obama will win Colorado Springs, whether he loses it by 15 or 25 points could determine whether he carries Colorado.

“Beeson of the Romney campaign says smaller cities are vital to this chess game, especially since they’re cheaper to advertise in.

“‘A lot of secondary markets are very key to the overall map, whether it’s a Charlottesville in Virginia or a Colorado Springs in Colorado,’ he says. ‘You can’t ever cede the ground to anyone.’”[211] [Emphasis added]

When it is suggested that a national popular vote will make a different group of states irrelevant in presidential elections, the obvious question is: “Which states would a presidential candidate totally ignore in an election in which the winner is the candidate who receives the most popular votes?”

The question answers itself.

Under the National Popular Vote Compact, the winner would be the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the entire country. Every voter in every state would be equally important and politically relevant in every presidential election.

Footnotes