The circumtances where your state will become a tossup

[DS0816]

If you live in a base state for the Republicans or for the Democrats … "circumstances" for it having emerged as a "tossup" state, for a given presidential election, will result in the party, which normally is on the outs with your home state, winning that presidential election.

[DS0816]

If a Republican or a Democrat wins the U.S. Popular Vote by 15 percentage points, and we stick with an assumption of partisan voting index and figure that both California and Texas won't carry (because 15 points nationwide is presumably not enough) … is it really accurate to believe a winning Republican or Democrat, with a 15-point national margin that also amounts to an estimated 19,500,000 margin in raw votes, is not going to manage to carry California along with Texas [Republican victor] or Texas along with California [Democratic victor]?

[DS0816]

I don't think you're taking elasticity into account.  I find it highly unlikely that WV and AR will remain to the right of places like KS and NE post-Obama (or at least long term post-Obama), just as I highly doubt VT will flip after MA in any circumstance.

No, I did take elasticity into account. I have a whole spreadsheet for this.

Fine, then I think you're putting too much weight on Obama era polarization.  WV may vote to the right of KS now, but it has a deeply Democratic tradition and huge Dem infrastructure there.  It'd be much more likely to flip to a moderate Democrat than a state like KS that has such a deep Republican heritage (it hasn't sent a Democratic Senator to DC in over 80 years).  Just my opinion.

Offsetting that is the fact that Kansas has elected Democratic governors. The state is on a pattern of electing White House opposition party candidates to the governorship in midterm elections. And the state's voters have been doing it since 1990.

It also doesn't help Democrats that Mitt Romney carried every county in 2012 West Virginia; not the case in 2012 Kansas. In 2012 West Virginia, all counties from the 2008 Democratic column which flipped to 2012 Republican were carried by a minimum of 10 percentage points.

My thinking, at this point, is that West Virginia is going the way of Arkansas.

I also think that more 65+ voters, in both states and nationwide, are going to have to die off to get a better idea whether Kansas or West Virginia is more ripe for a winning Democrat, in future presidential elections, in which the result shows one of these two states (but not both) getting carried.