Battleground counties?

[zorkpolitics]

Since Clinton, candidates have dropped national advertising and instead concentrate their advertising in the battleground states.  If I remember correctly, Toledo in 2004 had over 20,000 ads during the campaign, while cities in TX had zero. 
But even in swing states, some counties are safe for one party and some counties are more evenly split.  Should future campaigns will focus just on the 'battleground' counties even in the swing states?
Anyway, Prof. Michael D. Martinez U of FL (preprint available upon request) has used Dave's county level data from 2000 and 2004 to classify counties.  He finds:
2234 'Red' counties that Bush carried with at least 52% of the two-party vote in both 2000 and 2004
Only 289 'Blue' counties where Bush had less than 48% of the two-party vote in both elections
and 216 'purple' or battleground counties, it might be interesting to track these counties int he future.

[True Democrat]

The only problem is advertising spans over multiple county areas, so it would be very hard to target a county.  For example, Bush couldn't run ads in Northern New Jersey because he would have to run them out of New York.

[Hatman 🍁]

Winning counties is not how you win elections. You have to win states. Campaigning in a strongly democratic area of a swing state or a strongly republican area is going to do just a fine a job as an area that is more evenly matched. What the real research would be, is to find a county where the voters are more likely to change alegiances.

[Alcon]

Does anyone have statistics on spending by DMA?

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/DMAs.html

I'm wondering how much was spent in the North Platte, Nebraska, market. 

[A18]

Winning battleground counties doesn't help you, except to the extent that it helps you carry the state. The goal should be to campaign wherever it will help you the most.

[Gustaf]

As others have said, swing voter aren't NECESSARILY, though probably, more abundant in close counties. You would have to use old electoral stats or something and check which counties tend to swing the most, I guess.

[Akno21]

You don't need to win the county to win the state. If you can just increase your county total by 5-10%, even if you still get whalloped in the county, it may give you enough of an edge to win the state. Counties don't have electoral votes, states do.

Battleground county could mean a county where it is a dead heat, but there are few undecided voters. It would make more sense to go after a county that is not close, but has more undecided voters. If you do anything by county, choose the ones with the most undecided voters, not the closest poll results.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ok, could you all stop repeating what I had originally said?

[Alcon]

No one has DMA statistics?

You are all smogs.

[minionofmidas]

Ok, could you all stop repeating what I had originally said?

It's not relevant who wins a county. Counties don't have EVs.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

No a vote is a vote no matter where in the state it is. The fair thing would be to get rid of the electoral college, so that would be true for the country as a whole. Why should New Hampshire get way way more advertizing than New York and Texas combined?

[Gabu]

Ok, could you all stop repeating what I had originally said?

It's not relevant who wins a county. Counties don't have EVs.

But you're all missing the point, which is that it doesn't matter which counties you win as long as you win the state.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Except on Maine and Nebraska that is.  Besides, there's nothing to prevent a State from doing an Electoral College style election of the Presidential electors.