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In recent years, the American presidential electioneering battlefield has been
narrowed to range of contested states that represents less than half of the U.S. electorate,
and much less than half of the nation’s geophysical terrain. In 2004, for instance, the
seven battleground states whose competitive status both major party campaigns
converged upon, contained only 18 percent of the nation’s population, with another 24
percent contained within states that were classified as leaning but not quite safe.
Campaign strategists calculate that for many states perceived to be safe territory
for one party or the other, there is little reason to campaign or even try to mobilize
voters. The electoral margins in these states are traditionally so imbalanced that only an
event or scandal of unusual magnitude would jar enough voters loose from their well-
anchored partisan moorings to put it back into play. The residents of these states may
never see a presidential advertisement on their local television networks
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, may never be
contacted by a presidential campaign, much less have the experience of a presidential
candidate visiting nearby. This absence of exposure and party contact during
presidential election campaigns may have serious consequences for the political
socialization process, voter knowledge, and political involvement. Our effort here is to
evaluate whether battleground status provides voters in the contested states with an
appreciable advantage over those in the “blackout” states on various measures of
political learning and involvement.
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Given the increasing prevalence of cable television, voters in uncontested states may still see
presidential ads run on cable news programs like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC.
Modern campaigns spend relatively little on cable advertising, however, and any given cable
audience is still dwarfed by the size of a network audience in most time periods. Finally, we
would note that voters most likely to see political ads on cable television are also likely to be
resource-rich partisans already inclined to participate.
Convention