Played a little more with the rule changes for Margin For Error.  Some more thoughts.

• The VP touring the country with a -1 bonus and only one die worked out very well and was pretty realistic.  Added a little more strategy to the game.
  
  
• I liked having leaning states ending even going to the candidate.
  
  
• The $3 advertising per cube worked well for a PC action.
  
  
• Using the "Small States" worked out well to get a few more bonuses in the end game.
  
  
• I did not tinker with the fundraising table

All that said, a few more wins but instances where if things came down differently, it would have been a lot closer.  Had my biggest win of 301 electoral votes but had Florida (27 EV and 53/47 polling) and Ohio (20 EV and 50/50 polling) gone Republican, I would have been sitting at 254 and losing the election.  On the Democrat leaning states, I had PA, MI, WI, WA, CO and NM,  OR went Republican as did NJ, VA and NH.  CO was 9 EV more with their natural lean to going blue.  The Pacific on the democrat side was in 49-50% territory, so losing 32 EV wouldn't have cost me the election, but I couldn't have split OH and FL on the other side of the board.

I liked this run better as it seemed a lot less desparate - but still plausable and still a lot of shuffling up until the final week.