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My Early 2004 Election Breakdown
Well I'm procrastinating on doing some work, so I thought I would provide a little early electoral college analysis. IMHO, here's what we're looking at right now. Note that when I refer to a state as a "lock," I don't mean that there's no way the candidate loses it. I mean that if it shapes up to be any kind of close race, this state is going this way. Personally, I think we're in for a close one. But unpredictable things can happen, though a landslide against Bush seems very unlikely.
Bush Locks (23 for 211 EV) Alabama 9 Alaska 3 Arizona 10 Colorado 9 Georgia 15 Idaho 4 Indiana 11 Kansas 6 Kentucky 8 Mississippi 6 Montana 3 Nebraska 5 North Carolina 15 North Dakota 3 Ohio 20 Oklahoma 7 South Carolina 8 South Dakota 3 Tennessee 11 Texas 34 Utah 5 Virginia 13 Wyoming 3 Kerry Locks (15 for 210 EV) California 55 Connecticut 7 Delaware 3 District of Columbia 3 Hawaii 3 Illinois 21 Maryland 10 Massachusetts 12 Minnesota 10 New Jersey 15 New York 31 Pennsylvania 21 Rhode Island 4 Vermont 3 Washington 11 Battlegrounds (13 for 117 EV) Arkansas 6 Florida 27 New Hampshire 4 Iowa 7 Louisiana 9 Maine 4 Michigan 17 Missouri 11 Nevada 5 New Mexico 5 Oregon 7 West Virginia 5 Wisconsin 10 There are several interesting things to note about this. First is that the conventional wisdom that the Democrats need to win a southern state (not including Florida) to capture the White House seems erroneous. Kerry can win without the south, even theoretically without Florida, though this is fairly unlikely. This really downgrades the attraction of an Edwards VP nod, IMHO. North Carolina seems to be going to Bush anyway. If Kerry wants to try to capture a southern state, his best chance might actually be Louisiana, which makes popular centrist Democratic senator John Breaux a pretty interesting VP candidate. Interestingly enough, one corollary of this is that being a New Englander may not really hurt Kerry that much. In fact, if he can parlay some sort of regional popularity thing into winning New Hampshire and Maine, that will give him a big boost. While I have derided Kerry's labor politicing and traditional democratic appeals, the strategy does seem to be pretty sound from an electoral standpoint. Four key states for him are Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. Take those 4 and he's only 17 EV away from winning. Gore won Michigan and Wisconsin, the latter by just a smidgeon. (Kerry is crushing Bush in Wisconsin polls right now, though this is partly a result of the recent primary). Bush won the other two in very close races. I think Bush has to figure out two things: 1) a way to engage Kerry in these labor heavy mid-western states and 2) a way to lock up Florida. While there might be scenarios where Kerry wins without Florida (though I think this is very unlikely), its pretty tough to imagine Bush doing so. Go Nevada, dark horse swing state! |
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