Candidates Ignored Most States in Campaign

American presidential campaigns have become so swing-state oriented that in this election cycle President Obama and Mitt Romney made campaign visits to essentially only eight states — and virtually ignored the other 42.

A map in Tuesday’s New York Times shows the number of campaign visits — excluding fundraisers, nonpolitical events, and debates — made by each candidate, and those visits are concentrated in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Nevada, with Ohio and Florida accounting for the most visits.

The candidates did make a smattering of visits to a few other states, including one visit each to Kentucky, New Jersey, and Indiana, and a few more in states including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Minnesota.
Neither candidate made a single campaign visit to any of the other states.