In 2012, in a move considered by strategists as outlandish as Rove's insisting Bush campaign in West Virginia and Tennessee, Mitt Romney debuted the "Northern Strategy".
The logic was simple: populist Republicans were never going to like Romney, so he may as well double down on the demographic that felt best about him - college-educated suburbanites - and focus resources on getting seniors to the polls. Romney picked Chris Christie as his running mate and proceeded to aggressively target voters in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Florida, thus eeking out a 272-266 Electoral College Victory.
What if Romney had run a more traditional campaign?