[Dales]

And on an aside, Go Pat Go!

Toomey, that is.

[Dales]

ping

[Coop]

My own personal ping to make up for my snub last week? :-) Thank you kindly.

[brothers4thID]

I know the polls aren't supporting it, but go ahead and put Kentucky in the safe column. Kerry won't show his face there. Any democrat money spent in the state will be in the 4th and 6th district races.

[My Favorite Headache]

Good break down there. But my stomach isn't ready for this. I am still dealing with the acid reflux from 2000 here in Florida.

[freeperfromnj]

I believe that New Jersey is very much in play. They Asbury Park Press recently did a poll on Bush v. Kerry and Bush came out ahead by 8 points.

[AntiGuv]

Very nice update. I think that the PA color on the map though should be blue.

According to the Gallup poll, which Presidential race featured the most lead changes from January through election day?

Bush/Gore 2000. (I'm pretty sure Kennedy/Nixon would be the runner up).

[XRdsRev]

New Jersey bump !!

[Tarantulas]

Very nice! This is a useful discussion tool.

[grassroot]

Great analysis. Thanks Dales!

I would love to see PA go for Bush - and Toomey.
Go Pat Go!

[paul51]

Better get to work in FL and OH

[reformedliberal]

Latest EC breakdown over here.

[Dan from Michigan]

What's interesting here is that Ohio is to the left of Michigan(which is also in bad shape on jobs) on this map. The only time that happened as far back as I can remember is in 1976 with Ohio going for Carter, and Ford going to Michigan(homer vote).

I think most of that is that Cleveland/Toledo/Youngstown/Warren combined have a smaller population than Detroit alone, not to mention Flint, Muskegon, Saginaw, Bay City, Marquette, Lansing/East Lansing, and Ann Arbor. Ohio has a strong Southern Influence in the Cinci area, and West Michigan(although jobs are hurting bad there) has a strong Dutch conservative influence which goes Republican(Holland/Grand Rapids suburbs). The UP and NE Michigan is similar to West Virginia.

I think the winner of both of these states is going to come down to who can get their people out to vote, and which candidate avoids losing their hardcore left/right voters to Nader/Green or Libertarian/Constitution parties.

[.cnI redruM]

So Mi and Wv decide election 2004. Probably good news for the Dems. Bush will have to work harder than some people had originally thought.

[Political Junkie Too]

Monte Carlo Simulations:

From the perspective of the probability of Bush winning and anchoring on Tossup, I use a progressive increase where each category is twice the prior. Slight=+-5%, Lean=+-10%, Strong=+-20%, Safe=+-40%.

This results in the following probability scale:

Safe Bush=90%
Strong Bush=70%
Lean Bush=60%
Slight Bush=55%
Tossup=50%
Slight Kerry=45%
Lean Kerry=40%
Strong Kerry=30%
Safe Kerry=10%

My Monte Carlo results based on this week's movements:

Electoral Vote Trends
based on 100,000 simulated elections

Date	Bush Electoral Votes	Kerry Electoral Votes	Probability Of Winning
2/23/2004	280	258	57.29%
2/29/2004	283	255	59.20%
3/7/2004	281	257	57.85%
3/14/2004	281	257	57.84%
3/17/2004	283	255	59.68%
3/24/2004	283	255	59.31%
3/31/2004	286	252	62.22%

[Modernman]

Ping.

[miltonim]

Thank you.

[steveegg]

Self-ping for further reading.

[JLS]

Thanks for the excellent analysis.

I wonder if the missing ingrediant in PA this year might be that it is having a 9-11 effect like that you conjecture for NY, NJ and MD? PA does contain the 3rd 9-11 site with the Western PA airplane crash site?

Might PA be trending more toward Bush than say Ohio which would usually be more in the GOP column because of that? Maybe PA feels more of a relationship to the attacks because the of that?

[MattinNJ]

I got the *BLEEP* kicked out of me in Wisconsin. Oh wait, sorry. Stripes flashback.

ROTFLMAO.

If Bush wins Jersey, I'll eat my hat.

[kevkrom]

Maryland now Leans for Kerry, and is perilously close to falling into the battleground territory. Could this be an extension of the same effect I have noticed in New York and New Jersey? Could the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11 be causing some normally Democrat voters to consider the President?

As I've posted on another thread about the Maryland result, y'all have to remember that "jobs" isn't as large of an issue around here, because it is very easy to slip back and forth between public and private sectors. At the same time most of the country feeling the pinch of private sector job cuts, the federal government was picking up employment in defense and homeland security. This is especially true in the technology sector. A lot of people have changed jobs, but there aren't the same reports of not being able to find a new one when laid off.

Between terrorism and jobs/economy, the Dems don't have the same strength around here as they usually do, though they still have large blocks of voters who vote on social issues.