Electoral College Breakdown, Installment Seven

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[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

[ClintonBeGone]

Make no mistake, we are very sensitive to this...even more than being called incestuous

Worse than the incest jokes has to be the state that keeps electing Robert Byrd :)

[Neets]

Here ya go Ping!

[Museum Twenty]

Great job on these -- thank you! And quick, too!!

I notice that, if one adds the "slight" groups to each side, the electoral count is dead even, 183 to 183, with 12 tossups.

Things may seem a little bleak now, but really only one side has been running for several months, so I hope we will see the pendulum swing back towards the President before too long.

IMHO, the success the US has had thus far in preventing any major terrorist incidents on our soil is what allows the Dems the chance to make this election about jobs, overseas outsourcing, and the economy.

God forbid that any terror-related events happen, but it is only the sense of security we now enjoy that allows this to be a contest at all. If the War on Terror were to dominate public debate, I think the President could win in a landslide.

[On Tim Russert's cable show this weekend (not Meet the Press), he hosted David Broder and two other journalists. Even these folk, when discussing the outsourcing of jobs to India, admitted that none of the Dems had any idea of how to reverse the trend.]

Regarding the states, I fear Michigan is lost -- as a midwesterner, I hear a lot about the growth of Radical Islam in that state. I fear there will be many new voters there, sympathetic to the cause of terror. I hear Saginaw and Detroit mentioned as having growing numbers in that category.

If the anti-US Islamists turn out to vote in our presidential election (isn't that an odd and ironic twist), which I strongly suspect did not occur in 2000, that could be more than the good folks in the rest of the state can overcome. Any comments, Michigan folk?

On the oher hand, I am optimistic about Pennsylvania. If the turnout in the most urban areas can be kept low (a blizzard in Philadelphia, maybe?), I think that state can be picked up. Any comments from Pennsylvanians?

Of course, this is all based on a Bush-Kerry (or Edwards) election. If the Dems broker the nomination to Hillary, it would become the most polarizing presidential election I can recall.

[Dan from Michigan]

County - Gore Votes - Bush Votes - Nader Votes - Total Votes - Gore % - Bush %

Multnomah (Portland) 188441 83677 21048 295574 64% 28%
Lincoln 10861 8446 1435 20926 52% 40%
Lane (Eugene) 78583 61578 10245 151266 52% 41%
Benton (Corvallis) 19444 15825 2463 38049 51% 42% Clatsop 8296 6950 939 16388 51% 42%
Columbia (St Helens) 10331 9369 970 21061 49% 44%
Hood River 4072 3721 645 8527 48% 44% Washington (W. Portand) 90662 86091 6985 185508 49% 46%
Tillamook 5762 5775 613 12302 47% 47%
Clackamas (SE Portand?) 76421 77359 6357 161661 47% 48%
Marion (Salem) 49430 57443 4679 112786 44% 51%

[AntiGuv]

Quiz time. What other part of the country (not a whole state actually), is known for its pro incumbent bias?

The suspense is killing me! Where's the answer?

[Torie]

Upstate New York. Odd I know.

[Tall_Texan]

Here's my first real disagreement. I think Oregon belongs in the Dem column. As long as they have mail balloting, they are ripe for vote fraud. They'll always find just enough to vote in the Democrat. I don't hold any hope for Oregon and if Bush goes late into the night needing Oregon to pull him out, he won't get it. I don't see much difference between them and commielib Washington to the north and commielib Northern California to the south.

[Kuksool]

West VA is going to entertaining. There is an open seat for Governor and Shelly Moore-Capito's House seat is going to be seriously challenged.

[Kuksool]

Installment Seven is here.

[AntiGuv]

Cool deal. Thanks! For some unknown reason (I guess vague instinct) I was torn between Upstate New York and the Gold Coast of Louisiana, but I wasn't confident enough in either to venture a guess.

[Teacher317]

Breaking up the middle numbers to where they slightly lean, it's 183-183-12.

So what you're saying is, it's gonna be close AGAIN! ;^)

[Teacher317]

Ya beat me to it! ;^)

The good news is that CA and NY are tabulated already, but TX is not.

[ambrose]

Hmmm.. I'm stumped..

[Torie]

Keep scrolling. :)

[ambrose]

If you're thinking of anywhere except the Deep South, you've lost about 110 points of IQ since last we exchanged posts.

The Deep South isn't pro-incumbent. They didn't vote for Johnson in '64, Carter in '80 or Clinton in '96.

[Torie]

Statistics just isn't everybody's bag. I am largely given up educating on the subject. It is simply too much work. :)

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Hawaii was close in 1976...

In addition to being Democratic, Hawaii also has a habit of voting for incumbents..."

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I was about to make this point as well. Hawaiians (especially those of Japanese decent) have a hard time voting against the Commander in Chief, and had Perot not been on the ballot in 1992, it is possible that George H.W. Bush might have pulled off the upset. I would say "strong advantage for the Dems," though, since if Hawaii is in play it would mean OR is safely in the GOP column, WA is leaning GOP and CA is in play.

[AuH2ORepublican]

I would say WA leans to the Dems, but not that they have a strong advantage. Everything went right for Gore in WA in 2000, including the early call of FL to Gore. I don't think Kerry will carry the suburban vote as easily as Gore did.