[Dales]

Let me try this again. I had some screwups in the last post so I had it pulled.

[Dan from Michigan]

Hawaii and ND are the easy ones.

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.

[ambrose]

Hawaii was close in 1976...

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

[LdSentinal]

Very nice segments on your part.

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.

[Joee]

Just want you to know, I appreciate your efforts. Very professional in all counts.

[LdSentinal]

If you want to take a look, here are the latest registration numbers for about 30 states.

Link

[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.

[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.

[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]

Installment Seven is here.

[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! ;^)

[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.