Electoral College Breakdown, Installment Seven

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 seventh installment, the random state generator presented me with Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, and West Virginia.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

[NittanyLion]

Nice analysis. Once all your initial installments are complete, it would be interesting to figure out what issues are most likely to impact the tossup/slight lean states.

[NittanyLion]

There's a name I never thought I'd see again...good to see you're still around.

[MarkT]

Do not know about TN, but LA will definitely go for Bush despite the embarrassment of our two current senators...

[jack gillis]

Good to see you Nittany!! I wrote to dales weeks ago and politely requested re-admittance to the EC Breakdown threads if he started them again.

For obvious reasons, I refrained from posting in the aftermath of FL 2000, although now that feelings aren't so raw ..... or are they?

Anyway, NOW do you believe me that Election 2000 was going to be a dead heat?

: ^{)

[GOP_Proud]

We are a real, true Bible Belt people also. Let this homo marriage thing get good legs and force GWB to take a real stand against it. That's truly where the rubber meets the road here. Cultural issues are above jobs. West Virginians are very tired of the homo agenda. Tired of the assault on religion. Harp on this issue to bring this state to the GOP.

We've alway had unemployment...high unemployment. Yet, let the issues of military or religion come front and center and West Virginians will show up. I know because I are one.

[Dan from Michigan]

Right now I have it at 286-252.

The dems pick up Nevada, West VA, and NH.

And GOP picking up Michigan(If it's Kerry ).

Toss ups - Nevada, New Mex, Arkansas, Minn, Wisconsin, NH, and West VA.

GOP keeps Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Arizona, Florida Ohio.Dems keep Oregon, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Penn. If I'm 100% right outside of Michigan...we have a tie.

[GOP_Proud]

If you want to do it right, Dan, it's either West Virginia or WV or even West "by God" Virginia. None of this West "VA" stuff. VA doesn't live here anymore. Make no mistake, we are very sensitive to this...even more than being called incestuous. 8^)

[Dan from Michigan]

Got it. I understand that.

I don't like being considered 'suburbia'.

[edwin hubble]

"If you want to do it right, Dan, it's either West Virginia or WV or even West "by God" Virginia. None of this West "VA" stuff. VA doesn't live here anymore. Make no mistake, we are very sensitive to this...even more than being called incestuous. 8^) "


Likewise for Virginia.
Unless you are mailing a letter, it's Virginia, or Va.

VA is the Veterans Administration.

The Federal Post Office does not name states.

[Dan from Michigan]

GOP picking up New Mex too.

[NittanyLion]

For obvious reasons, I refrained from posting in the aftermath of FL 2000, although now that feelings aren't so raw ..... or are they?

Not for me...how about yourself?

Anyway, NOW do you believe me that Election 2000 was going to be a dead heat?

*grin* Nice to see you haven't lost a step...

[buckalfa]

I agree. Add the jobless recovery and the affordable
access to health care issue, you can predict a 55%
plurality for Kerry and a possible defeat of the lone
GOP congressperson, Capito. The bottom line is that the
Dems have a 2 to 1 edge in voter registration in the
state, and despite their idiocy, Byrd and Rockefeller
are icons that can turnout the vote in WV.

[JLS]

Boy you got this one posted sooner than I thought. Good work. Can I get on your ping list?

[jack gillis]

Not for me. I know some Dems who are still seething, though.

I'm looking for another dead heat this time; in fact, if the Red states get redder (as dales's analysis indicates so far) and the Blue states say the same (again, looks like it could be that way) and a couple of Purple states go from Red to Blue (say, WV, as discussed above and NV because of Yucca Mtn), we could have the exact reverse of last time--Bush wins the popular vote, loses the EC.

Wouldn't that beat all?

[Dales]

Planning on taking a closer look at some of that after all the states are done.

[NittanyLion]

Agreed. Barring something unforeseen I think this one is as close as 2000. Even with four eventful years of the sort we've seen, nothing points to a significant change in the electoral college.

[NittanyLion]

Great! (BTW, I wasn't suggesting you needed to conduct such an analysis; merely that seeing it would be interesting.)

[truth_seeker]

"Unless you are mailing a letter, it's Virginia, or Va.

VA is the Veterans Administration."

Pretty sure that for mailing purposes, the two character state codes are Capitalized.

Hence VA for Virginia, CA for California, etc.

Sure, VA is used for other uses, such as Veterans Administration.

Similarly, CA is also a country code, for Canada.

[edwin hubble]

"Pretty sure that for mailing purposes, the two character state codes are Capitalized. "

Yes, for mailing purposes (only) it's VA.

[ClintonBeGone]

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%.

Do the counties really matter where you don't know what the population is in each one?