Celebrity Clinton surrogate Kristin Davis, of Sex and the City fame, stopped by Seattle Thursday afternoon to rally volunteers at the campaign’s local headquarters.
“You know we really don’t take any votes for granted,” Davis said to Clinton supporters. “We will not during this entire campaign.”
That’s despite an unusual looking electoral map published by the Washington Post this week, based on a survey of all 50 states.
“There’s a lot of states in play that we normally don’t see in play,” said Marco Lowe of Seattle University looking at the map. “North Carolina is starting to look much more blue in this election than it used to be. Florida is still in play. There’s a lot of places that Republicans, going into this year, hoped to not worry about.”
The Washington Post map lists traditionally red states such as Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Mississippi as toss-ups this year, according to the recent survey.
“Usually the fight is up here in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, but the battle has moved to the Southeast as well for the Republicans,” Lowe said.
So what’s going on in the southwest? Lowe believes it has to do with the hardline position on immigration put forward by Trump.
“Immigration is the top issue in this election for Donald Trump, and I think you’re seeing immigration in terms of generations ago that have moved to the U.S. starting to really vote,” Lowe said. “And efforts throughout the southeast and southwest with African American and Latino voters are dramatically changing how you expect elections to turn out in historically Republican states.”
Despite the Washington Post survey, the NBC News map still considers Texas a red state. Lowe also said he would put Georgia in the Donald Trump column, based on recent polling.
How does this map compare to 2012’s presidential election results?
“This is really more of the characteristic map of the red and blue America, and these are the states that you’d expect. Again the winner is going to have a surprise here and there. It was in 2012 where we really saw Florida start to go more consistently to the Democrats. Again, I consider a total toss-up. Virginia is solidly moving into the Democratic for presidential races, and then you see the pick-up with these rust belt states, expect for Indiana and that’s – This is the Democratic winning map,” Lowe said.
“The problem for the Republican party is you’re seeing North Carolina in play. You’re seeing Arizona in play. Again, I question South Carolina and Georgia a little bit, but the fact they’re even being talked about has to make people nervous. Iowa I think will go to Donald Trump if all things stay in the current path.”
