Fifty-state strategy

A fifty state strategy is a political strategy which aims for progress in all states of the United States of America, rather than conceding certain states as "unwinnable". In a presidential campaign, it is usually implemented as an appeal to a broad base of the American public in an attempt to win, even if marginally, every state, since even a marginal victory is effectively total victory for electoral purposes. It can also refer to an overall long-term strategy for a political movement such as a political party.

This strategy is very ambitious and, when used for a specific election, is typically abandoned as the election day draws nearer. In the vast majority of cases, winning a state's popular vote for president or senator — even by a small margin — means the state's entire representation in the election goes to the victor without being divided. [For presidential elections, Maine and Nebraska do not follow the winner take all rule for their Electoral College seats. For U.S. Senate elections, a state's two seats can both end up in an election at the same time if at least one seat was vacated at the right time.] A fifty state strategy requires a campaign to spend valuable resources in a rival's strongest states, when those resources could instead be concentrated in swing states that will become a total win or a total loss based on only a small difference in popular votes.

A president has won every state only once: in 1820, James Monroe carried all twenty-three states in the union at that time. In 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt carried forty-six of forty-eight states, losing only Maine and Vermont. A complete fifty-state victory has not been accomplished since the fiftieth state was admitted into the union; but, twice, Republicans have managed to win the presidency in forty-nine of the fifty: in 1972 with Richard Nixon losing only Massachusetts, and in 1984 with Ronald Reagan losing only the rival's home state of Minnesota. Both also lost the District of Columbia, which has had presidential electors since the Twenty-Third Amendment in 1961.

Attempts

During the 2000 United States presidential election, George W. Bush began his campaign with a fifty state strategy. However, he found that, increasingly, as resources were diverted to trying to win California (an expensive market for mass media ads), he was losing the battle for swing states such as Ohio and Florida.fact|date=October 2008

Howard Dean has pursued an explicit Democratic "50-State Strategy" since he became chairman of the Democratic National Committee, putting resources into building a Democratic Party presence even where Democrats have been thought unlikely to win federal positions, in hopes that getting Democrats elected to local and state positions, and increasing awareness of Democrats in previously conceded areas, will result in growing successes in future elections. Democrats who support the strategy have said that abandoning red states as lost causes only allows the Republican Party to grow even stronger in areas where it was unchallenged, resulting in lopsided loses for Democrats in even more races. [cite web
url = http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/11/10/dean_dems/
title = Howard Dean, vindicated
first =Joe
last = Conason
date = 2006-11-10
work = Salon
publisher = Salon Media Group, Inc.
accessdate = 2008-10-08]

During the 2008 United States presidential election, it was suggestedwhere|date=October 2008 that Barack Obama's campaign may attempt a form of the fifty state strategy and reach into the deep red states to try and flip them. This was largely based on Obama's appeal during the primaries in very Republican states, like the Deep South, and the Great Plains states.fact|date=October 2008

In fiction, on the television political drama "The West Wing", during the 2006 Presidential Election Sen. Arnold Vinick (R-CA) attempted to run a fifty state strategy based on his broad-based appeal.

ee also

* Electoral College (United States)
* Red states and blue states

References and notes