If You Live In Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Minnesota

[Awsi Dooger]

61. Other than Pennsylvania, we did not view those as battleground states

That was the stupidity. I'm not going to accept an evil explanation when the more likely one was negligence. Those states may have Democratic recent history but they also have 85-91% whites in the electorate. That made them extremely vulnerable to the promise-anything crap that Trump was peddling regarding jobs returning to various declining industries.

I've mentioned many times that those states are right on the bubble of the national number regarding self-identified liberals and conservatives. The nation had 9% more conservatives than liberals in 2016. Those 4 states each had between a 6-9% gap. Sorry, but that makes them legitimate battleground states. They are not like California or New York with tons of margin for error due to more liberals than conservatives. Once a state is in that range nearby the national ideology then it is incredibly fragile and can shift several points based on national mood of the moment, or candidate vs. candidate.

The Russian propaganda was everywhere and influencing those scared non-college educated whites who have been shifting away from us anyway. Once there is an established trend then the bottom line can be far beyond the projection. That's what happened in 2016. We knew the so-called working class vote was a problem but we idiotically relied on prior guidelines and assumed it couldn't shift too far too fast, especially in friendly states.

Yes, it could. Once Florida election expert Steve Schale paused on election night 2016 and had a very lengthy gap between twitter posts, I knew something was very wrong. Once he finally returned and reported that Trump was pulling unprecedented numbers in 47 different Florida counties -- all the rural counties -- I knew that this dynamic would attach everywhere, and that the unthinkable had become a certainty.

We gave away 2016. If we continue to view it as theft we'll give away subsequent elections than should be won via competent messaging. I have no idea why we don't have an ongoing media campaign right now designed to keep down Trump's poll numbers. Just a one minute segment, like Keith Olberman's "Worst Person in the World" type of thing. Something anticipated every night. Heck, Tom Steyer could fund it and be the host. Detail the latest Trump atrocity, or something that Republicans are doing to damage the typical American.

If we wait until fall 2020 nothing good will happen.