Why Hillary 2016 Thinks She Can Expand Obama's Electoral Map

Talking Points Memo's TPM DC - In it, but not of it ^ | November 17, 2014 | Dylan Scott

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The top minds in the proto-Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign infrastructure are already gaming out Electoral College scenarios. What they think they have is a candidate who could compete in a handful of traditionally red states, putting Republicans on the defensive and increasing her chances of winning the White House.

Mitch Stewart, Obama's 2012 battleground state director who is now an independent consultant advising the grassroots group Ready for Hillary, laid out the electoral math to TPM in a recent interview. Clinton will start with Obama's map, he said, and can build from there.

There are two buckets of states potentially in play. Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri comprise one bucket. The first is a somewhat unique case, given Clinton's history there, while the other two were razor-thin in 2008, but the principle is the same: Clinton has a record of appealing to white working-class voters -- especially women -- and they could be enough when paired with the Obama coalition to pull out a win.

"Where I think Secretary Clinton has more appeal than any other Democrat looking at running is that with white working-class voters, she does have a connection," Stewart said. "I think she's best positioned to open those states."(continued)

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I was thinking more of West Virginia (once one of the most Democrat states in the country) and Kentucky. Bill Clinton carried both of them (with help from Perot), but I don’t see Hillary winning either. I forgot about all that coal in Pennsylvania that Joe Biden’s ancestors mined (or didn’t) before playing football all night.