Electoral College Breakdown, March 7th Update

ECB2004 ^ | 3/6/04 | Dales

[AntiGuv]

There is also an election underfoot for the House, just to note the obvious, and it's actually far more plausible for the Dems to cut the number of GOP delegations to 25 than it is for them to retake the House.

The GOP currently controls 30 delegations, the Dems 16, 3 are split, and 1 is vacant.

Herseth wins SD (GOP 30)
GOP TX redistricting (GOP 31)
Dems win Tauzin's LA seat (GOP 30)
Dems win either NM-01 or NM-02 (GOP 29)
Dems win GA-11 & GA-12 (GOP 28)
Dems win NV-03 (GOP 27)
Dems win IN-02 & IN-08 (GOP 26)
Dems win CT-02 (GOP 25)

Also, there is no guarantee that congress critters will vote with their delegation. There will be a lot of pressure for them to just deliver their state according to the popular vote, or alternately for them to just deliver their state to the popular vote winner. Depending on how things pan out, there may be a situation of Dems picking off a few delegations and then others deadlocking even despite a GOP majority.

Of course the situation is implausible (I think an EC deadlock pretty much guarantees a Bush 2nd term) but then all these scenarios are unlikely.

[AntiGuv]

The Dems picking up two seats in Colorado, picking off either seat in New Hampshire, knocking off Anne Northup in KY-03 (while holding their KY-04 seat), picking up any seat in Illinois, or knocking off two GOP seats in Iowa are other plausibilities (however low) each of which also could flip a delegation away from the GOP column.

[Tall_Texan]

If it went to the House, doesn't it become "one state, one vote" and Bush would probably win because he'd win more states?

All this stuff just makes me admire more the wisdom of the founding fathers. Could you imagine the chaos of a national recount in a pure democracy?

[Clintonfatigued]

You may be right. Missouri will be a key state, no doubt about that. I bring up Ohio because no Republican has ever been elected without winning Ohio. It's an urban legend in D.C. that Republican nominees can't win if they lose Ohio. In 1996, the Clinton campaign made Ohio a top priority because of that tale, and some veterans of that campaign will be working for John Kerry. Also, Ohio has been hit hard by job losses.

[AntiGuv]

Yes, and there's pretty much no doubt that Bush would win more states in the House. However, in order to elect the President after an Electoral College deadlock, you have to have a majority of the states (i.e., 26+ states) vote to elect. In other words, even if the GOP won the vote by, say, 25-21 (as in my scenario above) it would still not be enough.

There are also quorum rules that might theoretically become an issue.

[TomEwall]

I'm going to have to get used to this. I just sent you a private message without meaning to, and then lost the message I was trying to post here. Oh well.

If the RATs picked up enough seats to swing the voting the way you say, they'd win the presidential election going away I think.

You're right that any scenario is unlikely, but it's interesting to guess which state would be the Florida of 2004. Hopefully a state without a supreme court like Florida's.

[TomEwall]

Certainly Bush can't win without Ohio. I was reacting to the comment that Bush couldn't win without Missouri, and it seemed to me that Kerry couldn't win without Missouri either. He could win without Ohio.

I guess Kerry could win without Missouri if he took NH, NV and WV. He'd need all 3 though. So either MO or all 3 of NH, NV and WV.

But would WV and Nevada go to Kerry before Missouri?

I haven't kept up with how the states have been changing, except for Florida.

[Owen]

Does FR have a group that plans to hit the ground in the Battleground states and drive elderly veterans from conservative zip codes to the polls? This should, of course, be coordinated with the campaign.

[Tuxedo]

Not all of NE Ohio is Dem. Lake, Geauga, Ashtabula, and Medina counties are pretty much R territory. If only we could get rid of Sherrod Brown... he has a lot of support in Lorain Co., and some from Summit Co. Dennis the Menace, Stephanie "wide load" Tubbs-Jones carry their districts pretty easily, and LaTourette is safe (R) in the east.

[JLS]

I agree with your conjecture about the Americans with Disabilities Act and what types of Justices G.W. Bush might appoint.

BTW, another less precise way than Dales of looking at the electoral situation is:

The Dims will win New England which has 34 electoral votes, the Mid-Atlantic states with 62 electoral votes and the West Coast plus HI with 77 electoral votes. This gives the Dims almost no matter who their candidate is a total base of 173 electoral votes.

The GOP will win the South [including FL] with 127 electoral votes and the Western Plains states plus AK including Tx with 105 electoral votes. That gives the GOP almost no matter who their candidate is a total base of 229 Electoral votes.

Now sure the GOP might win NH but then the Dims might win NV or OR could go GOP and NM Dim. And even FL and NJ might go Dim and GOP rather than the other way around. But these are for now a general over view of US Presidential elections and some shifting can take place without changing these numbers too dramatically. [BTW, I think only NM and NH went differently than this in the last election.]

That leaves the Midwest as the deciding area of the country. I have defined Midwest as 10 states, IA, IL, IN, MI, MN, MO, OH, PA, WI and WV. These 10 states total 133 electoral votes. To win the election the GOP candidate needs 38 of these 133 electoral votes and the Dim candidate needs 97 of these electoral votes.

This is why despite all the talk of the US as being a 50-50 country after the last Presidential election, in presidential elections the GOP has an advantage. If the Dims sweep the midwest, they win the election. If the Dims merely do very well in the midwest the lose the election unless they can peal off a Southern or western state or two. If the GOP can peal off a state or two from the Dim base, they can be swept in the midwest and win the election. Last election, I believe that Bush won by winnng OH, IN, MO and WV to get what today would be 46 of the total 133 electoral votes.

Again this is more of an overview. This is not nearly as election specific as Dale's analysis or the other analysis based on election futures that I saw posted last week.

And of course over time we need to evaluate changing regional groups. Could NM, AZ and NV be swinging toward the Dims? Could Florida be separating itself from the South? I tend to agree with Dales that while FL is different than the South it generally votes for Republicans statewide.

Finally this is more of a starting point. Dale's analysis gets into specifics of a particular election. For example maybe NV is not moving toward the Dims but because of a particular issue it might vote Dim this election.

[jack gillis]

I could not agree more:

If the President wants to stem the bleeding, he's going to have to remake the case over the war with Iraq.

But dales, that fundamentally contradicts your Hanson quote, which you also seem to approve of:

If White House politicos figured that many who were angered . . . would grumble, but not abandon Mr. Bush . . . then they were absolutely right.

If people are going to grumble and vote Bush anyway, then he doesn't need to re-make the case for Iraq. But I think Hanson's wrong and you are right because it's WEAK-GOP or GOP-LEANING independents who most need to hear the case re-made because of feeling betrayed by the Iraq justifications. Hanson assumes that anyone who supported Bush on Iraq will behave like a base-GOP voter. That's wrong. Trust me, I oughtta know. I know one lib Dem who supported Bush on Iraq pretty strongly.

:^{)

That notion of betrayal that you posit is extremely important: It's asymmetric and one-way. You can go from mildly critical to strongly supportive or vice versa and you can move to adjacent categories in either direction multiple times, but you NEVER go back to "strongly approve" after you've once abandoned that for "strongly disapprove" because you feel betrayed. IOW, 9 months ago there was less than 20% of the vote that Bush was never going to get. Now there's almost 30%.

The FL polls are amusing, but it will be comfortably Bush by November. Still, having to fight for it is an ominous sign for Bush. And he could still lose it--did you note the partisan splits in the ARG polls? Kerry's losing only 6% of Dems to Bush, who's losing only 8% of Repubs to Kerry. Amazing. I've literally never seen splits like that. Usually, when one candidate has his base that solid, he's already poaching big-time from the opposition's base. Under 10% erosion is not uncommon for a strong candidate against a weaker candidate, but UNPRECEDENTED for both candidates.

[Dales]

But dales, that fundamentally contradicts your Hanson quote, which you also seem to approve of

No, it does not. The former deals with the public in totality; the latter deals with the conservative/Republican base. Frankly, I had expected to see some evidence of the latter weakening, attributable to spending concerns. That evidence is not there, though. I buy into VDH's analysis. Conservative Republicans understand that despite their concerns, the foreign policy and defense positions of Kerry would be a disaster. They are staying put.

As for who it is that does need the case to be made, they are definitely 'in play' voters. I would tend to think that since they moved so noticeably during the Democrat nominating process, when a good portion of the middle is not really paying attention to a significant degree, tells me that these are people not tending to lean GOP, but rather to lean Democrat.

I'd rather you be right that they were the weak GOP or lean GOP types. It would be easier to recapture them.

did you note the partisan splits in the ARG polls? Kerry's losing only 6% of Dems to Bush, who's losing only 8% of Repubs to Kerry. Amazing.

Yes, I did. On one level, it makes sense due to the fact that the poll was taken the day after Kerry sewed up the nomination and Edwards dropped out. You would expect the Democrats polled to be unified at such a time. On another, it made me skeptical of the poll as no other Florida poll shows Bush getting only slightly more than 90% of Republicans-- neither of the other two polls released last week in Florida (including the other taken on the exact same days) showed this weakness.

Still, I revised my call and moved Florida to slight advantage for Kerry.

[Dales]

Oh, and I strongly disagree with this:

You can go from mildly critical to strongly supportive or vice versa and you can move to adjacent categories in either direction multiple times, but you NEVER go back to "strongly approve" after you've once abandoned that for "strongly disapprove" because you feel betrayed.

To the contrary, voters who make that swing tend to be the kind who are demonstrative and see things in black and white, but can change their minds. When they do, they don't find the middle. If they decide that there was a good reason to take out the brutal, murderous, oil-for-food-dollar-skimming war criminal Saddam Hussein, a good portion of them will decide that they were right to support his foreign policy originally and wrong to change their minds about it.

[benjaminthomas]

Unless you are assuming that Republicans are flexible in their support, and Democrats are not, isn't there a flaw in your reasoning? In other words, you assume that Bush's "betrayal" of Republican positions on spending will cost him Republican votes. Fair enough. But wouldn't such taking of traditionally Democratic positions win him an equal and opposite number of (or at least some) Democratic votes?

[AuH2ORepublican]

"If only we could get rid of Sherrod Brown... "

---

You would have in 2002 if Bob Taft had any b@lls. It was very easy for GOP redistricters to eliminate Brown's CD and create a GOP-leaning CD in the Western Cuyahoga suburbs, Medina and Ashtabula, since Northern Lorain could be placed in Kaptur's CD and the white part of Cleveland and its Democrat suburbs could be combined with part of Akron for Dennis's new CD. But Sherrod Brown threatened to run for Governor if he was redistricted out (with Congressman Strickland as his runningmate if Strickland was redistricted out as well), and the cowardly Taft capitulated and asked the legislature to draw safe seats for Brown and Strickland. That's why you're stuck with Sherrod Brown. Vote for Blackwell for Governor in 2006 and 2010 and you can get rid of Brown and Strickland in 2012.

[jack gillis]

Don't get greedy!! 8% erosion is mighty fine in most circumstances. You almost never see that number below 5% in any event if only because of the RINOs and DINOs (led by Lincoln Chaffe and Zell Miller respectively) in each party.

If I take your reading of Hanson, then he's not wrong, just silly. His thesis works out to "People who want to support will support Bush." Your idea is more interesting.

The reason why I tend to think the group you identify is GOP "leaners" rather than Dem "leaners" is because Dem leaners are much less likely to have ever been in the "strongly support" camp to begin with.

I think Bush will NOT re-make his case for Iraq, I think he will lose voters for that, although I don't think that means Bush will neccessarily lose the election. He won't stop the bleeding, it'll just coagulate. It's a CHARACTER thing.

:^{)

[AuH2ORepublican]

AntiGuv, the RATs will *not* be able to pick up two seats in IN or Porter's seat in NV. And Phil Gingrey will probably win fairly easily in the 11th CD in GA (although I agree that Max Burns will have a tough reelection in the 12th CD). And we don't know how SD will vote in November (even if Herseth wins the special election in June), and the RATs have yet to beat Wilson in her swing NM CD (while Pearce's CD is safely Republican). And even if all of those things occur, you are forgetting about the fact that Gene Taylor of MS, whose district is the most Republican in the state, said in 2000 that he would vote for Bush if the House had to decide because he would respect the wished of his constituents. So if neither Bush nor Kerry get to 270, I'm fairly certain that around 30 state delegations would vote for Bush. For more on this subject, see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1083413/posts?page=55#55

[jack gillis]

That's exactly what I think, and one of the reasons I said the movement posited by dales was "asymmetric and one way." Sure, Bush might poach a few Dem votes, but not enough to make up for the lost votes.

In other words, it takes a lot less for a weak-GOP or GOP-leaner to adopt the feeling of betrayal than it does to get weak-Dem or Dem-leaner to go all the way over and switch in the current political environment.

It's not really a GOP/Dem thing as much as it's an IN party versus OUT party thing. The party in power always has the ability to betray one of its coalition constituencies through implementing policies whereas the out-of-power party just sits on the sideline lobbing eggs.

[ken5050]

First, a superb job, as always...

I'd like to discuss a "subjective" factor which hasn't really been addressed in the general discussion. We're well into a year long presidential election, and the three major issues will be 1. Iraq/WoT/ 2. Economy/jobs, and 3. Social issues, i/e. gay marriage...as regards the first two, the Dems have as yet been able to say one thing positive about this country....everything, according to them, is going in the wrong direction...indeed, the Dems as a party can only do well if things go to hell. in effect, support the Dem party is an across the board negative bet on the future of this country.,,and ultimatelym it's gonna turn off the majority of the electorate.. Americans as a group,for the most part, are optimistic, forward looking, and you can't rail at them for 8 solid months...look for a general "fatigue" factor to set in, and Dem support to erode.

[Tuxedo]

Florida slight advantage to Kerry? Huh? What'd I miss?