Why Bush Will Win Big Tomorrow

Here we are, the last day before the Federal Election, and a great many chattering outlets are playing that smash hit, “We Dunno What’s Gonna Happen“, with that riveting cast, The Wild-A Guesses. And we have seen all sorts of ’signals’ and ‘indicators’, from the winners of certain football games to the more popular coffee cups at convenience stores, from Al Franken and Michael Moore to Michael Savage and Ann Coulter, from the ridiculously partisan John Zogby to, well, the just as ridiculously partisan Dan Rather. The political landscape looks and smells like the explosion of a wastewater treatment plant.

I have received a lot of emails asking me to say who has the reliable polls, who I’m reading these final days to see what’s going on. I have also received a lot of mail suggesting hidden factors and important subgroups. For all of this, thanks, but I have worked in all the salient information in my predictions already. Some of what was suggested is not really relevant, and some is relevant, but not to the degree suggested. To explain this, I want to put together a model of the voters for this year.

To start with, both Bush and Kerry have a central core of voters upon whom they may rely, no matter what. For President Bush, it’s not hard to see where these come from. They are the people who voted for him in 2000, who have not seen any reason to leave. From what I have read and heard, it appears that about 60% of the original Bush backers have stayed on board as his 2004 core. Since Bush pulled 47.9% of the Popular Vote, his base for 2004 starts around 28.7%, which sounds low, but remember, that’s his hard base.

Senator Kerry also starts with a base, which in his case are the people who strongly oppose the President. Gallup shows that at least 35% of the voters polled have held an unfavorable impression of Bush. About 60% of that number is pretty hard-line, so once he became the Democrat Front-Runner, John Kerry pulled a base of 21.0% for his base.

With all the attention on the ‘Battleground’ states, the ‘Safe’ states have not been getting a lot of attention. When you look at them, however, what you generally see are two things. The big-population states are settling for 2004, very much as they did in 2000. However, there are a number of states which are showing changes, and generally they are showing Bush has gained in many places. Even where he has not gained by enough to win the state, he has gained support (New Jersey for example; while Kerry may well still take NJ, it’s pretty obvious he won’t win it by the 15-point margin Gore enjoyed). So, I add 10 points to Kerry, but 15 more to Dubya, making it 43.7% Bush, 31.0% Kerry, with another 25.3% to sort out.

Now, it’s clear that Ohio and Florida are tough places. Florida is acting pretty much the same way it did in 2000, but Ohio is looking bit weaker for Bush. Add another 3 points to Kerry for the effect in New Hampshire and Ohio. 43.7-34.0, 22.3 left to work out.

At this point, I stop to consider one of the fables of the 2004 campaign: That millions of newly registered voters are going to swarm in and flood turnout. I don’t think so, and here’s why: The 2004 Election, when you get past the hype, is not all that different from other elections called “The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime“. I’m old enough to remember when the Democrats warned in 1976, that a Ford victory would overturn Roe v. Wade, even though Gerald Ford never once made such a claim. Of course, in that election at least, RvW was recent enough to be a relevant issue, as opposed to the shrill paranoia voiced today. I can recall in 1980, when we were told that the choice for President would decide whether we lost to the Soviets or not. I can recall in 1992, when we were assured that only a lawyer should have a say in writing law, not a man who can’t spell ‘potato’. I can recall in 2000, how Al Gore promised that “black churches will burn” if Bush is elected. In all of those elections, there was a big push to get people registered to vote, but when it came time to actually go vote, many of these newly registered voters had other things to do, instead. Historically, that’s been engrained. Historically, getting anything above 60% turnout (of the VAP) is considered a miracle. Now then, as it happens, about 80% of the Voting Age Population (VAP) gets registered (that’s not so bad; many of the remaining 20% are not eligible to register), so that somewhere between 70 and 75% of the Registered Voters go and vote. Compare the remaining 25% of the RV sample, to the 22.3% my sample shows remaining, and you can see a rough-draft sample of 77.7% of the RV voing, or 62.2% estimated turnout of the VAP, allowing for record turnout (or at least the best in many years), with Bush well ahead of Kerry.

Now then, we can refine things a bit, but recalling that Kerry does well in urban areas (which will also increase his numbers in bad-weather states; it’s simply easier to get to the polls in a city during bad weather, than in many rural states) and enjoys a smooth machine for getting people to/from polling places. That’s worth about 3% right there. Also, however, the GOP grass-roots effort this year is much better organized than the Democrats, giving the GOP a couple points back, I’d say.

Anyway, with 77.7% of the RV actually projected to vote, Bush’s 43.7% of the total RV becomes 56.2% of the actual vote. Kerry’s 34.0% of the RV becomes 43.8% of the actual vote. Give Ralph somewhere around 1% of the vote, and another 1% float out to other candidates, and we shake out to something like 55% Bush, 43% Kerry.

So, is this just a guess? Maybe so, but it’s an educated guess; all this talk about changing the definition of “Likely Voters” and assuming that people who had to be prodded to register will suddenyl be enthusiastic about actually voting, or that the difference all year between the strength-of-support for Bush and the strength-of-support for Kerry won’t show up in the voting results, is just hype to spin a story. People, I have found, are generally creature sof habit, and what they used to do they will continue to do. In some ways, that’s good for Kerry, because there are a lot of people who consider themselves Democrats, and they have pretty much made clear that Democrats will support Kerry, while GOP will suport Bush. However, the information at hand indicates that Bush has been steady and strong in his base of support, while he has made in roads in a number of key demographics, like Women, Blacks, Jews, Catholics, People Able to Pay Attention to Facts, etc. The information I see, coupled with Bush’s trips into a number of “blue” states, indicates a confidence that indicates the President’s pollsters tell him the same information I am reading.

In the end, it always comes down to getting the butts out and voting, but if you want a clear call, it’s going to be Bush, and it’s going to be big. Not saying this so we can relax, but so we can be optimistic while we work.

I think this guy is on the right track, but I use a different methodology. I start with the premise that of the 49 percent of the voters who voted for Bush, Bush will get almost 100 percent. Maybe he loses a few nutjobs who didn't want us to go to Iraq, or who won't vote for him because of some domestic issue that is overriding to them, but it will be very close to 100 percent. I mean, last time, we were at peace, the economy was great, and Bush still got 49 percent. The people who voted for him in those circumstances are not going to switch to a left wing anti-American.

Speaking of John Kerry, let's examine his base with reference to Al Gore's totals. Al Gore got 50 percent of the vote. Is John Kerry going to get 100 percent of these Al Gore voters? Hell no. He's going to lose a significant percentage of these people. Is it going to be 3 percent, 5 percent, or 10 percent? Any number would be a WA guess, but I think it will be at least 6 percent of Gore's voters, which translates to 3 percent of the overall votes. I think there is the potential that it could be a lot more, perhaps as much as 6 percent of the overall votes.

So, among those who voted last time, Bush wins with 52-57 percent of the vote. My guess is about 55 percent.

However, there is another variable to consider--people who DID NOT vote last time. There are social and/or religious conservatives who did not vote last time out of disdain for Bush's moderate policies. There are Democrats who sometimes vote but who grew complacent after 8 years of Clinton, Democrats who have never voted, and Democrats who are engaged in fraud in order to increase their vote totals.

I think Bush is going to get a lot of people to vote for him who did not vote last time. I think that Kerry is going to get a lot of people to vote for him who did not vote for him last time, through raiding old folks homes, welfare offices, prisons and through a concerted absentee ballot effort.

Kerry will probably do a little better in this than Bush. It will not be enough, though, except it may save Kerry in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He will still lose Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio, and is in danger of losing Minnesota and Iowa. But, local fraud and get out the vote efforts aside, Kerry's new voters will not outnumber Bush's new voters enough to make the vote close in terms of the popular vote. There are simply not enough of them, if you look at the numbers of voters and the number of new voters registered.

This means that Bush will receive from 51-54 percent of the popular vote, as well as the election. I think the final number will be around 52. A few days ago, I thought it would be 53, but I think that the bin Laden tape's effect was to remind everyone that Bush did not yet catch bin Laden, and it has cost him a little with the simple minded.

I have been saying all along that there was no way for Bush to lose, and I still think that. I said that if Bush ran a bad campaign, it might stay close, but he would win, and if he ran a good campaign, he would get a landslide that would sweep lots of others into office.

Well, in my opinion he ran a C- campaign, and he has been hit with the most partisan and obvious effort by the mainstream media to defeat a candidate ever. With an unbiased media, Bush gets 70 percent of the vote. With the media Reagan had, Bush gets 58. The media as political player is a development that we will need to address if we want to continue to be the majority party.

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