BATTLEGROUND

 First a review of how our President is elected.  All citizens are allowed to vote.  The votes are counted in each of the 50 states and then each state sends electors to congress to vote for the winner in their state.  Each state has a specific amount of votes to cast based on the population of the state. All the votes of any specific state are cast for the one candidate who received the most votes in that state.  

For instance, California gets 54 votes and Rhode Island gets 4 votes - Ohio gets 17 votes.  There are a total of 538 votes available and 270 are required to win.  The number of votes each state has is adjusted after each national census as required.

This is sad but this is the way it is:  there are only 7 states that could reasonably be thought to go either way in the next presidential election.  Those 7 states are called "swing states" or, more recently, "battleground states". 

That means that 43 states are considered pretty much sure things for either the Democrats or Republicans.   Almost all of the candidates resources will be spent on the seven battleground states. 

The swing states change over the years with the movement of our population and the strength of local political parties.  Ohio and Florida were once considered the most important battleground states. No longer.  Here are current ones the parties will vie for (# of votes):  Pennsylvania (19), Georgia (16), North Carolina (16), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10) and Nevada (6).  

So, how do you feel about that?  If you're not in one of these seven states, you should see fewer ads - that's a good thing.  .  But, your needs will be less important to the candidates than those of the seven states.