tight to the wire

DOGS THAT BARK

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Trying to look from an unbiased perspective I believe this out fit (Realclearpolitics has pretty good read.

UPDATE 10/25: President Bush continues to maintain a structural edge in the Electoral College that has worked to his advantage this entire campaign. However, the states that are producing that advantage have shifted since the summer.

In our initial electoral analysis we suggested that the election would boil down to Florida and Ohio, with Kerry having to win one of those two states and President Bush simply needing to carry them both to gain reelection. At the time we suggested that one of the President 's advantages was the possibility of offsetting a loss in Ohio or Florida by poaching some of the Gore states (IA, WI, MN NM, and OR), giving the President an alternate option of collecting an EC majority that Senator Kerry really never had.

As of today this alternate option, if necessary, for President Bush is starting to look more and more like a very real possibility. Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Mexico are fully in play: eight days before the election Bush holds leads in the RCP State Averages in all four of these states. This is seriously complicating Kerry's strategy in getting to 270 Electoral Votes. Conventional wisdom for months, including RCP's, had been that whoever won two of the "big three" Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida would almost certainly become President.

While it may still be likely that whoever carries two out of those three will win the election, it is not the cut and dry proposition it was earlier. President Bush can offset a loss in Ohio (and New Hampshire) by carrying Wisconsin and either Iowa, New Mexico or Minnesota. He can offset a loss in Florida (and New Hampshire), by winning three of those four states. Winning Wisconsin, Iowa, Maine's 1 Electoral Vote and holding New Hampshire would also allow President Bush to gain reelection while losing Florida.

Turning the conventional wisdom completely on its head President Bush could even lose all three of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida and still win, as long as he was able to flip Michigan. Granted, it's difficult to imagine a scenario where Kerry would win Pennsylvania and Ohio yet lose Michigan, but with a poll in Michigan showing the President ahead by five and Mason-Dixon calling it a one point race, coupled with a gay marriage initiative and Ralph Nader on the ballot (unlike PA and OH), it's not totally impossible. In this scenario Bush victories in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin could offset the loss of Florida's 27 Electoral Votes and Michigan would offset a loss in Ohio, leaving Kerry with a measly three electoral vote pick up.

While the Michigan option is a little far-fetched the other two are not. The problem for Senator Kerry is he has no backup plan to not winning in either Florida or Ohio. The problem for President Bush is that Kerry is still very much alive in both those states. All of Bush's backup Electoral scenarios will be irrelevant if he loses FL and OH and Kerry hangs on to PA and MI.

As the race sits today, the President holds roughly a three point lead in the national race. At the state level, using the RCP state averages to allocate the Electoral College, President Bush would win 306 - 232. However, the final movement in the national polls will have an exaggerated effect on that electoral tally. If Bush starts to pull away this week and can close strong building back toward his 5-7 point lead of September, that Electoral number could easily expand to 352 - 186. A small tightening towards Kerry in the final days from where we are today would indicate a dead heat race, where many of those electoral scenarios mentioned above could very well come into play. A strong break towards Kerry and most of these states would flip his direction leading to something like a 311 - 227 Kerry win.

Heres consensus of how the national polls are stacking up on battleground states--should be updated today or tomorrow which should be intersesting as it will reflect any movement on explosives issue pro or con.

http://realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry_sbys.html
 

Master Capper

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I read that article yesterday but unfortunately with this crazy election the data from the article is already out of date. Today's polls show that Bush is now losing Wisc, Minn, Ohio and Penn which if that occurred it would more than likely make it next to impossible for Bush to win enough electoral votes. The strange states are Colorado and Mich as the website that I have been using has Colorado going for Kerry and Mich in a statistical dead heat but I think that Col will go to Bush and Mich will go to Kerry. I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had on a guy that has bee taking polls for elections for over 30 years and he was from one of the Ivy League Schools and a couple of comments he made may bear watching in this race: 1) If the incumbent is not polling right around 50% in a state then more than likely the incumbent will lose the state as historically the vast majority of undecideds will go against the incumbent and the rate has traditionally been 2 to 1 against the incumbent. 2) he feels that the polls for this election are completely out of whack and will not nearly be accurate come election day as one side will win quite decisively. The reason for this is that at this point the pollsters are only able to sample data from easy marks so this includes senior citizens, lonely people and die hards from both sides as most folks they reach have had enough of the election already and either screen calls or hang up on the pollster. Also, the sample questions being used to screen folks are not taking into consideration first time voters or folks whom have not voted in the past few elections. The questions used by the pollsters ask a person if they have voted before? If they answer no then they are not considered a likely voter! There are three other questions used to screen the voters and a answer of no to any of them gets the result tossed out. He felt if the polls were accurate as of today then the result would be that Bush would win the popular vote and Kerry would win the Electoral College.
 

djv

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If a tie once again. That would be sad. Going into office with a judges ruling is one thing. If short on popular vote a second time. I would get the message. I wonder if this guy who can't do anything wrong would.
 

DOGS THAT BARK

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Good point MC -it will be interesting to see what effect explosive issue has.

Edward While" I" am biased I think this is an unbiased source as it takes into consideration of all polls.
Maybe from your perspective if its not just NYT and La Times its biased.
Anyway I didn't post it for your benefit but thought it might be interesting to some here that rely of stats vs opinion.
 
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