3. Why Ohio and Florida are so important to the Republicans

The Sunshine and Buckeye states are, respectively, the third and seventh largest in the Union, and they have a combined 47 electoral votes. Both states were superfluous in President Obama’s two victories: Take away either state (or both), and Obama still wins. But George W. Bush would not have won in either 2000 or 2004 if he had failed to carry these states.

While there have been exceptions, such as Ohio in 2004, these states have typically leaned a bit more to the Republicans at the presidential level. Practically speaking, the GOP doesn’t have a path to victory without both states. If a Republican can’t win Ohio, can he win other competitive Midwestern states that are usually more Democratic, such as Pennsylvania or Wisconsin? That’s very doubtful as the Keystone and Badger states have been more Democratic than Ohio in every presidential election going back to 1964, when Lyndon Johnson performed slightly better in Ohio than Wisconsin. Pennsylvania has been more Democratic than Ohio in every election since 1948.

Without Ohio and probably some more electoral votes from the Midwest, the GOP path to victory is difficult to imagine.

Similarly, if Republicans can’t win Florida, they would likely have to make it up in the Midwest and Pennsylvania. Here’s what that map might look like, which we computed on 270toWin, where one can spend hours playing with the Electoral College.