This is another great visual representation of how the campaigns focus their efforts on a small proportion of states where there is a distinct possibility of turning the election one way or the other. These are the regions where support for the two major parties is split relatively evenly and the popular vote margins tend to be slim in either direction. The rest of the states tend to go much more one direction of the other. 

For example in California, where Obama got 59.2% of the vote, he got nearly 2 million more votes than Romney. Prior to the west coast state results coming in on Tuesday, Obama was running slightly behind in the popular vote despite having an edge in electoral votes. Similarly in Texas, Romney got 57.2% and a 1.2 million vote edge. 

Even without the electoral college, those states along with New York, New Jersey and most of the Old South probably wouldn't get much attention although the distribution might flatten out a bit. The bulk of the effort would still be spent on the purple states. Of course as demographics change in the future, that whole calculation will have to adjust as well. 

Reshared post from +Jeff Jarvis

Really superb NPR visualization of campaign spending. It's also a magnificent demonstration of what I tell NPR people all the time: No, your value is not making great audio. It's explaining the world well.