The Democrat just need to be someone who can get the Democratic vote out. Which means they need to be goodish looking and have charisma. Male or female. Maybe Latino or black, but a white person with a good record on civil rights will work. Can't really take corporate money tbh. I think a lot of people are underestimating how many people were not going to vote for the insiders insider Hillary, and fully overestimating Trump's support (current and past) in the rust belt especially (he won MI, WI, and PA by a combined ~90k votes) and discounting how well Democrats did a month ago. Spend more time getting Democrats elected in the house and (more importantly) the Senate otherwise this quibbling over the presidency is goddamn useless.
I'd fully put IA, NC, GA, FL, and OH as light red as well based on that image above.