The most important state this election is Georgia. Another red state - purple.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I agree. Georgia and Arizona are both starting to look catastrophic for Republicans.

I disagree on Arizona... it's a far tougher nut to crack. While the SW as a whole has swung to the Democrats, AZ remains completely stuck. Even if a Democrat could win state-wide, that's not that indicative of much. Note that NM has a generally popular GOP Governor but has two Dem Senators and has voted for the Democrat in every election bar one for the last quarter-century.

If you look at the vote share of the Dem nominee in AZ since 2000, it's scarily static - around 44% each time. While AZ's Latino population is growing, albeit slightly slower than TX, CA, NM, CO and NV - the increasing age and conservatism of the white population is keeping pace.

In 2012, Obama got 39% of the white vote nationally - and got between 40 and 44% of the white vote in the SW and Mountain-west states - so even among the white vote Obama did better than he did nationally... but AZ? He got 32% of the white vote, so under-performed his national performance by 7%.

I'm sure AZ will shift as the older white voters start to shuffle-off ... but it's a different dynamic to Georgia. I can see GA voting for the Democrat nationally, well before AZ does.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Remember GA has Latinos too. If Hillary could maintain a decent whack of the AA vote in GA, boost white and Latino support and support, I think it's a go-er.

Remember, as I said, Obama performed as well as Kerry or Gore in Arizona (with absolutely NO correlation to the national vote). Hillary COULD make Arizona closer than Obama did, but I don't see her being able to swing AZ, at least before she'd swung GA.

However, I think pinning hopes on Clinton out-doing Obama among Latinos might be a problematic strategy. She did better than him in the 08 primaries, but at the national level, I don't see any reason to say she'd do better than him.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I get what you're saying and don't disagree with a lot... but I do think you're over-egging.

Castro would be a terrible choice for VP... just saying.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Yay!! backed up by stats!!

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The one time Arizona voted Democratic since 1948 was 1996, yes. But Clinton was the best performance by a Democrat since Johnson barely lost it, just under 47% with Perot drawing 8%.

I see NO evidence that with McCain Arizona would have voted Obama in 08 - it could have moved a bit closer, but the thing that is so remarkable about Arizona is how inelastic the Democratic performance has been. Note, when McCain was off the ticket in 2012, the GOP's vote share went up by a tiny amount and Obama's dropped slightly (despite a record performance among Latinos).  There was no discernible home-state bounce for McCain, although the interesting part is that it's the GOP's vote that bounces around.

Obama won by 7% in 2008 and got just under 45% in AZ - he won by 4% in 2012 and got 44.5%... Gore won nationally by a smidge and got 44% in AZ and Kerry lost by 2.5% and got... 44% in AZ. The needle doesn't move... It's a bizarre electoral oddity. I personally see no reason to invest too much in it.