Voter Targeting- They're Not That Into You, Bro

I guess it should be common sense- if you're a Democratic candidate for political office, and I put two potential voters in front of you, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, you will have an easier time convincing the Democrat to vote for you. That seems simple, right? Even if the Republican regularly votes and the Democrat is sporadic, when you are in the final hours of the campaign and need to rack up as many votes as you can, it's easier to simply push someone to vote who is likely to vote for you, rather than convert thousands of people who don't generally agree with you.

For the most part, a candidate with amazing cross-over appeal to the other party might get up to around 30% of the vote. While that's great, and it's worthwhile to try and find those 30% in August and September, or even to use voter scoring models to project out who the Republicans are that you might win, casting a wide drag-net over all the Republicans in the final week of the election is foolish. If you get that 30%, there are still seven out of ten (7 of 10) that are voting for the other guys. You're reminding more people to vote against you than you are reminding to vote for you when you do this.

Let me put this in less mathematic and more applicable terms- if you're a Republican, do you think you appeal to more Democrats than Bernie Sanders, or if you're a Democrat, do you appeal to more Republicans than Donald Trump? The answer is obviously no. Even a mushy-moderate from the other side doesn't appeal to more voters in the party than someone who is in their own mainstream. Why candidates insist on taking the harder road to the desired result is beyond me.