How many points is a a state's redness/blueness worth?
The headline is clumsy because it's not a succinct concept, but...
A lot of how people vote is identity and community. Some (far from all) people vote based on how they are "supposed" to vote. They vote their race, the family, their religion, their income and neighborhoodcommunicated local values.
They vote to conform, to vote in the way that matches their place in society.
It occurs to me that some small part of that identity is what state one lives in. I have never felt bonded to a state, but some people do consider themselves Kansans or Texans or Californians.
And if one of your many descriptors of self-identity is being a Hoosier and you hear your whole life that Hoosiers vote Republican then that is in the mix.
If this is true there should be a slight polarization... for the very reddest and bluest states to have an extra point or three of redness or blueness independent of neighborhood, church, etc.. because that is just how people there vote. And the underdogs in that state are probably more die-hard also, because their identity as underdogs is stable.
On the other hand, a state that is not 100% red or blue wouldn't have any state effect because the state identity is ambiguous.
(What started this line of thought was asking myself, if Obama won virginia again because of northern Virginia growing, whether that would shake loose maybe 1% of southern Virginians by making voting for a Democrat for President seem within the range of their conformist indentity's options.)