Electoral College Breakdown, Installment Two

Various

[Dales]

Due to popular demand, I am going to revive my poll tracking and analysis that I did during the 2000 election season. I will be starting things a bit differently this year. Instead of starting off with a comprehensive overview of the entire nation, I am going to start by looking at five states at a time. For this second installment, the random state generator presented me with Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Montana, Massachusetts.

Please note that while this batch of states was pretty "Bush friendly", the grouping was determined completely at random using a random number generator.

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Colorado

Electoral Votes: 9

2000 Result

Bush 51%

Gore 42%

Background: Colorado is generally considered to be winnable for the Democrats, but historically this has proven to be a solid GOP bastion. Only three times since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President has a Democrat carried this state (Truman, Johnson, and Clinton against Bush- with a big thanks to Perot taking 23% of the tally).

Polling Data:

Date	Polling Company	Link	Type	MOE	Republican		Democrat
9/8-10/03	Colorado Democratic Party	NA	RV	4%	Bush	42%	Unnamed Democrat	35%
12/15-16/03	Public Opinion Strategies	NA	LV	4.9%	Bush	46%	Unnamed Democrat	36%

Punditry: Colorado may end up being a single digit margin, but the results will likely never be in doubt. Strong Advantage Bush.

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Georgia

Electoral Votes: 15

2000 Result

Bush 55%

Gore 43%

Background: Wallace and Goldwater won here. The only times the Democrats have carried this state since 1960 have been when native son Jimmy Carter was topping the ticket (twice) and when fellow southerner Bill Clinton beat that Yankee George H.W. Bush by a point, while Texan H. Ross Perot siphoned off 13% of the vote. This is not a friendly state for Democrats in Presidential elections, as even Bob Dole won here over Clinton despite Perot taking 7%.

Polling Data:

Date	Polling Company	Link	Type	MOE	Republican		Democrat
10/15/03	Zogby	Link	400 LV	4.5%	Bush	52%	Unnamed Democrat	39%
10/23/03	Shapiro Research Group	Link	RV	4.5%	Bush	49%	Unnamed Democrat	41%
2/4/04	Shapiro Research Group	NA	RV	4.5%	Bush	47%	Unnamed Democrat	44%

Punditry: Take the Shapiro poll with a grain of salt, as they are a Democrat polling firm. I could call this as a strong advantage given the state's history, but on the outside chance that Edwards pulls out the Democrat nomination, I will take the conservative route and designate this race (for now) as Leaning Bush.

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North Carolina

Electoral Votes: 15

2000 Result

Bush 56%

Gore 43%

Background: Since Lyndon Johnson's win here, only once have the Democrats taken Tar Heel electors. That's a bit deceptive, however, as many times it was extremely close. Carter lost to Reagan here by only two points in that nationwide blowout. Clinton lost two elections by a combined total of 5%. Yet the Clinton losses are also deceptive, in that the margins would have been considerably larger without Perot and his charts. Simply stated, like much of the south North Carolina votes Republican for President, although a southerner atop the ticket can make things interesting; not always though, as Al Gore demonstrated.

Polling Data:

Date	Polling Company	Link	Type	MOE	Republican		Democrat
9/16/03	Research2000	Link	600 LV	4%	Bush	51%	Edwards	40%
11/15/03	Research2000	Link	600 LV	4%	Bush	54%	Edwards	42%
11/25/03	Survey USA	Link	563 RV	4.2%	Bush	53%	Kerry	39%
11/25/03	Survey USA	Link	563 RV	4.2%	Bush	52%	Edwards	45%

Punditry: Obviously, this state is more interesting if Edwards somehow comes from behind to take down Kerry. Polls consistently show Bush leading all comers here by around 10-15%, and the state leans his way. Leaning Bush.

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Montana

Electoral Votes: 3

2000 Result

Bush 58%

Gore 33%

Background: Big Sky will occasionally vote for a Democrat, but generally not for any non-Montana Democrats. For example, the Governor's race may end up being very competitive while the Presidential race is not. Since the Goldwater debacle, only Bill Clinton has won here, during his first campaign, and then only with Ross Perot taking over a quarter of the votes.

Polling Data:

Date	Polling Company	Link	Type	MOE	Republican		Democrat
5/16/03	Mason-Dixon	Link	RV	4%	Bush	52%	Unnamed Democrat	27%

Punditry: An interesting thing about the wording of the reporting for that poll- the newspaper phrased it that 52% would vote for Bush, while 27% would definitely vote against him and another 18% would consider voting for a Democrat. That latter phrasing is an attempt to make things appear closer than they really are; a more accurate way of describing those 18% would be "undecided". Another interesting thing is that this poll showed the Democrats absolutely crushing the Republicans in the Governor's race. Safe for Bush.

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Massachusettes

Electoral Votes: 12

2000 Result

Gore 60%

Bush 33%

Background: They like them liberal in Massachusettes. Reagan did carry the state twice (barely), and Ike took it twice, but that's about it since 1924. Most of the time it has not been very close at all.

Polling Data:

Date	Polling Company	Link	Type	MOE	Republican		Democrat
1/03	Mass. Insight	Link	457 Voters	4%	Bush	37%	Kerry	53%
4/03	Mass. Insight	Link	457 Voters	4%	Bush	49%	Kerry	43%
12/03	KRC Communications Research	Link	RV	4%	Bush	38%	Kerry	56%

Punditry: That last Mass. Insight poll is obviously an outlier. The Democrats are going to win Massachusettes. Safe for Democrats.

And while I am not going to do a separate writeup for it, Washington DC's three electoral votes are Safe for Democrats. Since the random state generator threw out such a Bush-leaning group this time, I'll add DC in now.

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Summary Table
	Bush					Democrat
	Safe	Strong	Lean	Slight	Tossup	Slight	Lean	Strong	Safe
	ND (3)	CO (9)	GA (15)	-	-	NM (5)	-	-	VT (3)
	AL (9)	-	NC (15)	-	-	ME (4)	-	-	MA (12)
	MT (3)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	DC (3)
Designation Total:	9	9	30	-	-	9	-	-	18
Candidate Total:	54			9			18
Undesignated electoral votes: 457

Next installment: Nevada, Missouri, California, South Carolina, and Florida

Historical election data are located at Dave Leip's invaluable website.

Installment One

[BigSkyFreeper]

So Montana is God's country - - what does that make Massachusetts?

Messy Two S***s

[RJayneJ]

Ping me too! I am going to carry it on FR Highlights.