For the Democratic candidates, the best way around this challenge is to play the “vote bank” strategy, focusing all of his or her energy on ginning up support in the fewest places where electoral return on investment is the highest, at the cost of reallocating “funds” — time spent campaigning and advertising — from places that need them less.

On the face of it, this doesn’t sound much different from setting up shop in swing states, the way all candidates do. But this plan involves finer tuning. The smart campaign will make its best guess as to the handful of states where the smallest growth in support will generate the largest boon in the Electoral College, spend as little time and money as possible everywhere else, and hope for the best.

It’s a gamble, yes — akin to an investor making a small number of high-risk bets on a few companies rather than diversifying their portfolio through interest funds and the like. But the current electoral map is sufficiently baked against the Democrats that it could be their only path to victory.