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As we learned from 2000, it really doesn't matter what the national numbers actually say.

As long as you get one more vote than your opponent in crucial states, that is all that matters.

If Kerry or Edwards mop up California and NY, it still is the same as winning by just one vote.

A good 35 states are probably out of play for both sides. The numbers that really matter are what the polls say in Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada, West Virginia, New Mexico, etc...

California, New York, and Illinois are over 20% of the country for example. They went Gore in 2000, and are likely to go Democrat again. Bush won anyways. So, if Bush is leading by 51 to 49% in every other state, yet is getting creamed in those 3 by 60% to 40%. The national poll will show him losing 51 to 49%, even though he would absolutely kill in the electoral college.

He would have 47 states, and still lose the popular vote and the polls.

We are not running a national election here people. We are running a state by state one. These national polls are not only a waste of time, but extremely counter productive. I wish a decent polling unit would just do a state by state poll of battle ground states, and then give us the break down. That is all that will matter come November.

The fact is, it would be bizarre for any candidate in a genuine two-person race to win by more than one full % in the popular vote and lose the EV. Now, Nader doesn't make this a genuine two-person race. He's sure to get more than 2%, more likely 4-5% and will effect the race in CA and maybe in WA and ME -- all Dem strongholds.

I did some worst-case analysis before Nader announced:

Edwards, interestingly enough, has a cool interactive map with the electoral votes pre-calculated. The 2000 vote percentages are here. Take the states Gore won by more than 5% over Bush: DC, RI, MA, NY, HI, CT, MD, NJ, DE, IL, CA, VT, WA, MI, ME. These are Safe Dem. -- 200 electoral votes.

Take the states Bush won by more than 5% over Gore: WY, UT, ID, AK, NE, ND, MT, SD, OK, TX, KS, MS, SC, IN, KY, AL, NC, GA, CO, VA, LA, WV, AZ, AR. Add TN because that's safe as long as Gore isn't running. That's 211 electoral votes which are Safe Rep.

The rest: PA, MN, OR, IA, WI, NM, FL, NH, MO, NV, OH are tossup.

Now make the threshold 3.25%. That makes 247 EV's for Bush, 223 for Kerry with 59 tossup. The only thing that can change this is if Kerry puts a Safe Bush state person on his ticket. Even so, that makes NC, for example, a tossup.

I should note that Kerry could take Safe Rep seats and Bush could take Safe Dem seats, but if that happens, nearly all of the tossup states will go that way too.

Lieberman was a big factor in Florida being so close. The FL 2002 governor's race was a portent of things to come. I'd say FL leans Rep in the same way that TN is now Safe Rep.

Bottom line: the Dems NEED Florida. They can't win without it. Gore also won all of the very very close contests except Florida. OR, IA, WI and NM all went with less than .5% difference for Gore, the next on the list is NH, which went Bush by 1.3%.

Bush has a gigantic structural advantage. Maybe Bob Graham could help with Florida, but he's awfully weird...