1. Electoral Strategy Memo Project President Obama

2. Purpose: The purpose of this memo is to assist President Obama in his upcoming election to run for President. There are many strategies that can be used in order to try to win over the Country in this election. This memo will present information concerning five major states that are necessary for President Obama to win, and five states that the President cannot afford to waste time campaigning in. Information about each of the states will be laid out and presented in such a way that the President can see why the states were chosen and help him prepare to try and win over each state.

3. How do you know if a state is worth fighting for? Generally, in order to win a state over, one has to have a certain majority of voters. Some states almost always have the same outcome. It would be foolish to waste time campaigning in states in which your candidate almost always wins by a large majority. The states that need to be “tackled” are the states which won by a small amount of voters, and who’s number of democratic voters are decreasing. Some majority democratic states such as Texas and Georgia would be worth trying to win over if enough time and money was spent. If there were any way to win these states over it would make it almost impossible to lose the election. The trick is deciding which state is worth fighting for, because time and money is limited, and each state could be a potential risk.

4. In the pictures shown above, the number of Democratic voters is increasing every four years. If these statistics represented a particular state, this would be an example of a state worth campaigning for. In the second set of pictures, it shows a steady majority in Republican voters. If this represented a small state, this would not be a wise choice to campaign. However, if this were an extremely large state, it could be helpful to win this state near election time.

5. Campaign: Missouri: 11 Electoral Votes – State has always had a majority of republican voters but it is currently winning by less and less votes. Texas: 34 Electoral Votes – One of the largest republican states in the nation. Would be extremely valuable to the democratic campaign. North Carolina: 15 Electoral Votes – The democrats recently won their first election in this state in the year 2008, but it was by just a few votes. Hard work needs to be done to keep the state. Montana: 3 Electoral Votes – The previous republican win in this state was by an extremely small number. It would be one of the easier states to win over. Wisconsin: 10 Electoral Votes – One of the democrats most supportive states. Campaigning is necessary to show appreciation for what the state has done for the party.

6. Not Campaign: Oregon: 7 Electoral Votes – Many native citizens. State is almost always completely democratic. Campaigning would be a waste of time and money that could be better used elsewhere. South Carolina: 8 Electoral Votes – Pretty even amount of black and white population. Republican party almost always wins this state, and this will not likely change. Georgia: 15 Electoral Votes – It would be very unwise to campaign for this state because of it’s history and it would be almost impossible to win over. Minnesota: 10 Electoral Votes – Has been one of the major democratic states since 1972. It would be a waste of time and money to campaign here because the democrats will most likely win regardless. Arizona: 11 Electoral Votes – State has almost always been republican. It will not likely be won over, and considering the population it would be unwise to spend money to campaign here.