 |
|---|
| Hawaii |
| Electoral Votes: 4 |
| 2000 Result |
| Gore 55% |
| Bush 37% |
Posted on 02/22/2004 12:39:46 PM PST by Dales
Edited on 02/22/2004 1:26:47 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
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 seventh installment, the random state generator presented me with Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, and West Virginia.
| |
|---|
| Hawaii |
| Electoral Votes: 4 |
| 2000 Result |
| Gore 55% |
| Bush 37% |
Background: Since McKinley annexed Hawaii and it became a state, only twice has it gone Republican: Nixon's re-election against McGovern and Reagan's re-election against Mondale. It has rarely been close.
Polling Data: No polls available.
Punditry: Hawaii is Safe for the Democrats.
 |
|---|
| Oregon |
| Electoral Votes: 7 |
| 2000 Result |
| Gore 46.96% |
| Bush 46.52% |
Background: The last 10 elections have gone 1-5-4. Without Perot, Clinton would likely have lost his initial run here though. From 1968 on, the only Democrat to break 50% here was Michael Dukakis; Reagan and Nixon each broke 50% in their re-elect.
Polling Data: Surprisingly, there have not been any polls that I have found in this traditional battleground state.
Punditry: People tend to overlook Oregon as a battleground state due to the fact that Gore carried it despite Nader taking 5% of the vote. That overlooks that Nader took 4% in the previous election and it is not at all clear that his votes are available to the Democrats, and even if Gore had gotten all of Nader's 2000 votes it still would have been a fairly close race; certainly close enough to consider it a battleground. With no polls, it would be very tempting to just call this a complete toss up, and sometimes I give in to temptation. Toss-up.
 |
|---|
| Washington |
| Electoral Votes: 11 |
| 2000 Result |
| Gore 50% |
| Bush 45% |
Background: The Democrats have won the last four, and 6 of the last 10, with all four Republican wins coming consecutively (Nixon, Ford, ReaganX2). It is unclear as to if Clinton would have won the first time here sans Perot; it would likely have been extremely close. The Dukakis/Bush race was very close. The Clinton/Dole race was not.
Polling Data:
| Date | Polling Company | Link | Type | MOE | Republican | Democrat | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2/4/04 | SurveyUSA | Link | 975 RV | 3.2% | Bush | 43% | Kerry | 55% |
Punditry: Washington is further to the left than Oregon by about 5% points. Right now Washington looks to be on the cusp between leaning and being strong for the Democrats. Until I see some mitigating evidence, I will assume the worst case. Strong Advantage for the Democrats.
 |
|---|
| Nebraska |
| Electoral Votes: 5 |
| 2000 Result |
| Bush 62% |
| Gore 33% |
Background: FDR lost here twice. Since then, LBJ won, and otherwise the Democrats have had nothing but futility.
Polling Data: None available.
Punditry: There is not much to say. Safe for Bush.
 |
|---|
| West Virginia |
| Electoral Votes: 5 |
| 2000 Result |
| Bush 52% |
| Gore 46% |
Background: It was a huge change from the past when Bush beat Gore here in 2000. Over the last eighteen elections, the Democrats have won 14, and both of Clinton's wins would almost certainly have come even without Ross Perot. This is not a state the Democrats should have lost.
Polling Data:
No polls available yet.
Punditry: On the one hand, I have the fact that Bush won by 5 points last time, and the fact that West Virginia is a very patriotic state. On the other hand, I have the traditional Democrat bias of the state. In the absence of polls, I do not have a good feel for what weight to assign to either, and as such I am calling this a Toss-up.
| Summary Table | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bush | Democrat | ||||||||
| Safe | Strong | Lean | Slight | Tossup | Slight | Lean | Strong | Safe | |
| ND (3) | CO (9) | GA (15) | NV (5) | OR (7) | NM (5) | CA (55) | NY (31) | VT (3) | |
| AL (9) | SC (8) | NC (15) | FL (27) | WV (5) | ME (4) | - | DE (3) | MA (12) | |
| MT (3) | KY (8) | MO (11) | - | - | MI (17) | - | MD (10) | DC (3) | |
| WY (3) | KS (6) | VA (13) | - | - | PA (21) | - | WA (11) | RI (4) | |
| UT (5) | MS (6) | OH (20) | - | - | - | - | - | HI (4) | |
| ID (4) | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| AK (3) | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| NE (5) | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| Designation Total: |
35 | 37 | 74 | 32 | 12 | 47 | 55 | 52 | 26 |
| Candidate Total: |
151 | 91 | 136 | ||||||
| Undesignated electoral votes: 160 | |||||||||
Next installment: Indiana, Arizona, South Dakota, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Historical election data are located at Dave Leip's invaluable website.
Installment One
Installment Two
Installment Three
Installment Four
Installment Five
Installment Six
Oregon is just a tough state to call. I have to give the dems a slight edge, but it's winnable. Gore only won 8 counties, and only in Multnomah county(Portland) did he get 53% or highter(64%). Gore only broke 50% in 4 other counties.(Lincoln, Lane, Benton, Clatsop), and the others he won with 48 or 49% were Columbia, Hood River, and Washington. Bush won two counties with 48 or 49%. Tillamook and Clackamas. He won the rest with over 50%.
Washington State is like Oregon but tougher and that's because of King County and Seattle. There were over 700,000 votes in King County, only 85,000 less than Wayne County here in Michigan. Gore got 60% in King. Gore won only 10 other counties there, and none of them with more than 53%(San Juan). The two biggest ones are Snohomish and Pierce Counties. In order for the big upset, Bush needs to do very well in the rural areas in the east and hold his own in Snohomish and Pierce.
West VA I have to give a slight edge to the dems based on jobs and past history, but that could change.
My intitial anaylysis is to take all the electoral votes Bob Dole won in 1996 and automatically place it into Bush's count for '04.
159 -- 269 needed to win.
After rapportionment, 6 additional electoral votes went to states that will automatically go for Bush (2 for Georgia; 2 for Texas 1 for North Carolina, and 1 for Colorado.
Subract 3 electoral votes taken from heavy Republican states as Mississippi, Indiana, and Oklahoma.
162 now for Bush.
Add 8 for Kentucky, which has trended heavily to the Republicans and Bush has 170 as a base.
With the recent poll showing Bush leading Kerry by 8% among registered voters, add an additioanl 10 electraol votes to Bush and he has 180 as a electoral base -- 89 are needed to win.
I need to see polls from Lousiana and Tennessee to determine if they are safely in Bush's corner.
That poll was of Arizona which I was speaking about.
You are making my brain hurt.. ;)
Still excellent work. Keep 'em coming!
When are you going to make a surprise call?Don't confuse my measure of how things stand with where I think things will go. Right now, all I am doing is basically establishing a snapshot of things, without minimal prognostication being involved. There is plenty of time for guesswork later.
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