The 48 states that will matter in 2020 don't include California and New York, homes to Pelosi and AOC

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On occasion, it is important for Democrats to reflect on just how precarious their situation has become.

If you are concerned about the 2020 election - concerned about who will be President in 2021 and which party will control the U.S. Senate - consider this map:

What you should note is that California and New York - including the congressional districts of Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - are missing from this map.

First, neither state will be holding an election for U.S. Senate as in each neither of the two Senate 6-year terms expires in 2020.

Second, the 55 California and 29 New York Electoral College votes in 2020 will go to the Democratic Presidential candidate. Quite literally those 84 (15.6%) of the 538 members of the 2020 Electoral College are not available to Donald Trump.

All of the remaining 454 are because he'll be running against all Democrats and most media outlets.

What the map shows is that of the 48 states included there are 30 states with Republican-controlled legislatures, 16 states (just ⅓rd) with Democratic-controlled legislatures, and 2 states with split legislatures. That accurately reflects the party preference of the majority of voters in those states.

Let's get even more real about it. The headquarters for most U.S. non-print media sources - news, entertainment, etc. - are located in California and New York. People in the 48 states tend to resent that.

So to summarize, what won't matter in the 2020 election is the opinions of people in Nancy Pelosi's and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's states, where the media is centered. To put that into perspective, without California and New York, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by about 3.4 million votes. Guess which two states have a sizeable population out of touch with the rest of America.

If you follow national political polls, you might notice that you cannot get poll results that exclude California and New York. Until the polls exclude those two states, they offer no clue for the 2020 Presidential Election.

If the only voters you interact with dislike Trump, you have no clue how to communicate with that majority outside California and New York that voted for him in 2016 and may be persuaded to vote for him in 2020. That's why it is important to read the article at the top of this post if beating Trump and the Republicans in 2020 is the primary goal for Democrats. If....