Merging states would be far superior incentive-wise, as the influence of every signatory would increase and there would be essentially no expected net shift in the election results.
Suppose I am an Okalahoman who will always vote for the farther right candidate or a Californian who will always vote for the farther left candidate. Wouldn’t I only support this if my odds on this increasing the chance of the farther right (resp. farther left) candidate winning was at least 50%? Wouldn’t most people fall in one of these two categories?
The advantage comes from having the parties care about your particular issues rather than those of the current swing states. This would look like both candidates being more favorable to you even if it’s still 50-50 which of them wins (and even if they’re still in roughly the same places on the left-right axis).
Although possibly the red candidate would care more about CATXOKLA red issues and the blue about CATXOKLA blue issues, so it just increases variance rather than expected satisfaction?
Suppose I am an Okalahoman who will always vote for the farther right candidate or a Californian who will always vote for the farther left candidate. Wouldn’t I only support this if my odds on this increasing the chance of the farther right (resp. farther left) candidate winning was at least 50%? Wouldn’t most people fall in one of these two categories?
The advantage comes from having the parties care about your particular issues rather than those of the current swing states. This would look like both candidates being more favorable to you even if it’s still 50-50 which of them wins (and even if they’re still in roughly the same places on the left-right axis).
Although possibly the red candidate would care more about CATXOKLA red issues and the blue about CATXOKLA blue issues, so it just increases variance rather than expected satisfaction?