Akademik

(min.uh.WIS.uh.wuh)

n.

The U.S. geographical area consisting of the states Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, particularly as a political entity.

Republicans will convene in Minneapolis, the largest city in "Minnewisowa." That neologism refers to the contiguous states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, which have 27 electoral votes.

—George F. Will, "Keeping Score on Tuesday," Washington Post, November 5, 2006

Its 27 electoral votes make it larger than most of the big individual states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Illinois. All of those states have fewer electoral votes. What you get with Minnewisowa is a big chunk of closely contested votes and you can come to one of them and you are essentially close enough in all three to have impact in political advertising.

—Charley Shaw, Interview with Minneapolis-based columnist Barry Casselman about the state of 'Minnewisowa'," the Legal Ledger, October 9, 2006

In the Midwestern battleground trilogy, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa (a.k.a. Minnewisowa), there are so many electoral votes (27) that either campaign could trade a loss in Pennsylvania (23), Ohio (21) or Florida (25) and come out ahead. ...

Minnewisowa went, in each state's case by small margins, to Mr. Gore in 2000. Mr. Bush either leads, or is close to leading in these states, with five weeks to go. But the Democrats will not cede Minnewisowa without a fight.

—Barry Casselman, "Battleground trilogy," The Washington Times, September 28, 2004

Former Washington Times columnist Barry Casselman coined the Minnewisowa blend in 2004, and he continues to smush together state names to create neologisms for other cluster states:

The 2008 presidential election will likely be determined by five cluster superstates. Political strategists, consultants and candidates might want to take note because the conventional model of red and blues states is very old news.

I have been calling attention for some time now to one of these superstates, "Minnewisowa" (Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa) but there are, in fact, at least four more of these state clusters located in other sections of the country.

In order of their electoral vote size, they are: "West Pennsylhio" (West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania: 50 votes), "Florgia" (Florida and Georgia: 38 votes), "Washegonada (Washington, Oregon and Nevada: 22 votes) and "New Arizado" (New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado: 21 votes). "Minnewisowa" has 28 electoral votes. (I'm not trying to rewrite the political dictionary, but they need to have names.)

—Barry Casselman, "The 'cluster states' and 2008," The Washington Times, May 11, 2006