Fair enough. I guess my contention was that if you wanted your thought experiment to be successful, it seems wiser to: 1. Choose a state that is more appealing

Fair enough. I guess my contention was that if you wanted your thought experiment to be successful, it seems wiser to: 1. Choose a state that is more appealing to people in general so they don't just leave immediately for a job elsewhere (ie, states that already have a trend of large population growth are growing because they are generally desirable. TX, NC and VA all are growing very rapidly, WY is not). 2. Don't aim for the least populated. You just need to be able to make up the difference to be able to swing it. Due to demographic trends, TX, NC, and VA are already on track to swinging eventually - but a bump of 150k voters could accelerate the timeline by a few years. Bumping the timeline for one of those states also translates into significant electoral college advantage. 3. Recognize that from a culture and infrastructure perspective, current residents of Wyoming would probably not take kindly to their population being suddenly outnumbered by coastal elites and would make this plan difficult for you. TX, NC and VA already are used to having tons of transplants from the north, so Californians would not be anything new or special.