Beltway pundits routinely grant Democrats in 2016 an advantage in the Electoral College.  The magic number is 270 electoral votes. Twenty-four states are almost certain to go Republican: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, with a combined total of 206* electoral votes.  Any Republican candidate who fails to carry any of those states is going to lose the presidential election anyway. Where will the 66 electoral votes needed to win the election come?  The last four presidential elections have been relatively close in the popular vote nationally, and in four states not in the twenty-four already noted, the Democrat nominee has actually received a smaller percentage of the popular vote than the nominee received nationally over the last four presidential...(Read Full Article)