Democrats have a secret plan to win red states without moving to the center

It looks like a strategy to turn red states like Georgia blue in 2016. It’s really an argument about what kind of party to be in 2017 and beyond.

With 10 or so weeks to go until Election Day, the most common measure of just how far ahead Hillary Clinton is in the presidential race is where her campaign is spending less money.

Clinton’s campaign has (at least for the moment) stopped spending money to put ads on the air in Colorado and Virginia. (In both states, according to RealClearPolitics polling averages, Clinton is ahead of Trump by an average of 11 points.) The pro-Clinton Super PAC Priorities USA is “going dark” for a month in those two states and in Pennsylvania (where Clinton is polling about 9 points ahead of Trump). On the surface, this looks like an act of confidence — if not outright complacency. But that’s not the whole story.

The Hillary Clinton campaign might be pulling its ad buys out of conventional swing states like Colorado and Virginia, but that’s because it’s putting effort into unexpected places. Since the conventions, the Hillary Clinton campaign has expanded its operations in Arizona and put full-time staff into Georgia, a state that few could have imagined Democrats would compete in come 2016.

It’s a strategy that Democrats refer to as “expanding the map”: taking the opportunity presented by a flailing Trump campaign to turn swing states blue, and to compete in parts of the country where Democrats haven’t been able to compete before.

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/18/12515240/clinton-win-georgia-iowa-red-states