I've found awareness to not have that much impact on fundraising-at least not so much as voter percentage. My fundraising in Texas is far better as Republican than it is as Democrat, even almost to California's level, while as Democrat it can't even come CLOSE to New York unless I've been milking it like crazy.
But I haven't done extensive testing with multiple awareness levels in a state (particularly as I'd need to reset the game each time to reset fundraiser count).
First time I played through (demo mind you, convinced me to buy it though), I was ecstatic that I managed to take Arizona from McCain. There's just something about taking a candidate's home state from him...
Since then, I've gone on to both win and lose an epic number of campaigns, and now and then I even get -all- the states.
I personally don't find the endorsements to make that much difference. I've gotten to the point where I just let my opponent eat up the ones he wants and buy mine later with the marginal resources I get from speeches (yes, speeches), but then again I've been playing longer games as of late and can afford to do that sort of thing. I'd rather just max out awareness everywhere. 
Spin doctors and smear merchants are ridiculous, though. I've used them to take Texas and Florida as Democrat, and California, New York, and Pennsylvania as Republican. At one point I had something like 30 of them combined in either California or Texas, I forget which. And of course my opponent bought some too, so I had to take them out.
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Incidentally, dependent on your candidate's stamina, if you spend the majority of your first several turns doing nothing, it can be worthwhile as your max stamina increases. Numbers are as follows:
Note: The game adds 4 stamina to your base.
<Starting Base Stamina>: 0 <Stamina Rest Required>: 0 <Final Base Stamina>: 1
<Starting Base Stamina>: 1 <Stamina Rest Required>: 4 <Final Base Stamina>: 2
<Starting Base Stamina>: 2 <Stamina Rest Required>: 8 <Final Base Stamina>: 3
<Starting Base Stamina>: 3 <Stamina Rest Required>: 12 <Final Base Stamina>: 4
<Starting Base Stamina>: 4 <Stamina Rest Required>: 16 <Final Base Stamina>: 5
<Starting Base Stamina>: 5 <Stamina Rest Required>: 20 <Final Base Stamina>: 6
<Starting Base Stamina>: 6 <Stamina Rest Required>: 24 <Final Base Stamina>: 7
<Starting Base Stamina>: 7 <Stamina Rest Required>: 28 <Final Base Stamina>: 8
<Starting Base Stamina>: 8 <Stamina Rest Required>: 32 <Final Base Stamina>: 9
<Starting Base Stamina>: 9 <Stamina Rest Required>: 36 <Final Base Stamina>: 10
Note: This is cumulative for the next level, so you don't have to get it all in one turn. Additional note: There does not seem to be any overflow. For instance, if you are at 3 base stamina (7 total stamina) and have 2 stamina of rest to achieve base 4 stamina, you will still require 16 stamina to achieve base 5 stamina.
From 0 stamina, the additional stamina takes the following turns:
0 to 1: 1 turn (0 stamina rested, up to 4 stamina spent)
1 to 2: 1 turn (4 stamina rested, 0 stamina spent)
2 to 3: 2 turns (8 stamina rested, 4 stamina spent over 2 turns)
3 to 4: 2 turns (12 stamina rested, 0 stamina spent)
4 to 5: 2 turns (16 stamina rested, 8 per turn, 0 stamina spent)
5 to 6: 3 turns (20 stamina rested, 7 stamina spent over 3 turns)
6 to 7: 3 turns (24 stamina rested, 6 stamina spent over 3 turns)
7 to 8: 3 turns (28 stamina rested, 5 stamina spent over 3 turns)
8 to 9: 3 turns (32 stamina rested, 4 stamina spent over 3 turns)
9 to 10: 3 turns (36 stamina rested, 3 stamina spent over 3 turns)
So from zero base stamina, it will take you 2*1 + 3*2 + 5*3 turns to max your stamina, or 2+6+15=23 turns.
Obviously not worthwhile in a 21 week game, but becomes effective in 41 and longer.
Also, I do believe I'm the only guy crazy enough to play with a 0 stamina candidate. I can't remember if this nulls the staminaless trophy, but I think it does, which means it's impossible to get as you auto go to 1 base stamina even if you don't rest.
