[troutman]

If Bitecofer is right, chasing swing voters and independents is a waste of time. The only thing that matters is turning out your base.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...-theory-108944

The “Chuck Todd theory of American politics”: “The idea that there is this informed, engaged American population that is watching these political events and watching their elected leaders and assessing their behavior and making a judgment.”

“And it is just not true.”

“In the polarized era, the outcome isn’t really about the candidates. What matters is what percentage of the electorate is Republican and Republican leaners, and what percentage is Democratic and Democratic leaners, and how they get activated,” she said.

In 2012, Bitecofer points out, Obama actually lost independents while winning the election, and in Ohio, he lost them by 10 points, but still carried the crucial swing state. There are just simply more Democrats in much of the country, and if they are activated by a belief that, say, the Republican presidential nominee is a heartless plutocrat who thinks 47 percent of the population can be written off as grifters and that corporations are people, and the Democrat gets just a handful of those true independents, then it becomes impossible for Republicans to win.