[Dales]

And on an aside, Go Pat Go!

Toomey, that is.

[So Cal Rocket]

This new Indiana Poll should darken the color of that state a bit:

http://www.imaweb.com/BellwetherPoll.pdf

[jack gillis]

I like your "9/11 effect" theory a lot; however, it carries a somewhat counter-intuitive consequence.

Consider. The states most directly and personally affected by 9/11 are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia. Those are the places where lived most of the people who died. All reliably Dem states except VA, which is reliably GOP. A five or ten point swing in any of those places. won't change any electoral votes. You can easily turn 1,500,000 votes from Dem to GOP in those states .... EASILY .... and not switch any EVs.

Add to that the possibility that Bush will gain strength in many of the non-competitive GOP states simply because neither team will campaign there to move numbers, and you get the following scenario:

Bush needs to beat Kerry by a FULL point in the popular vote in order to assure himself an Electoral College victory. Otherwise, we have the distinct possibility, as think I mentioned to you before in one of your first breakdowns, of a reversal of 2000: Bush ins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College.

[Clintonfatigued]

New York: New York can be divided into three regions. They are New York City, Long Island, and Upstate. Gore's 60% to 35% victory over Bush was a watershed. In history, only two Republicans have done worse than Bush (Goldwater in 1964 and Dole in 1996), and even then not by much. Gore won NYC by an amazing 77% to 18%, and won Long Island by 55% to 40%. But in upstate New York, Gore's victory was only 52% to 44%. Furthermore, upstate New York shows a tendency to support incumbents in Presidential elections. If Bush is to be competitive here, he must win big upstate. He shows no sign of trying to at this point.

[Clintonfatigued]

In Maryland, the 1988 election doesn't really count. Bush the elder's victory over Michael Dukakis was a fluke. Does anyone remember Willie Horton, the Massachusetts murderer/rapist who was allowed a furlough despite serving a life sentence? The people Horton brutalized while on furlough lived in suburban Baltimore, and lots of normally-'Rat voters swung to Bush because of that.

[Future Useless Eater]

impressive post.

Now, as for the VP choice, I think it is said that statistically the only real help a VP brings is an average of 1% additional popular votes in the VP's own HOME STATE.

So that suggests Kerry would prefer to pick a VP from one of those borderline battleground states that would just put him over the top.

Adding up the columns in the chart in post#1, up to but NOT including the TOSSUP column gives Kerry 254 electorals. (short of the needed 269)

But if he could win the tossup state MICHIGAN, with 17 electorals, he'd be over the top.

Which Michigander Dem is available and would boost the Kerry ticket the most?

[Clintonfatigued]

"(in 1916) While Wilson won North Dakota by less than 2%, the rest of the states decided by small margins went to (Charles Evans) Hughs."

Not entirely. That year, Hew Hampshire went to Wilson by only 56 votes. New Mexico supported Wilson by 2,375 votes and California, which decided the election, went for Wilson by 3,773 votes.

[MNJohnnie]

Um, I would only point out that Minnesota has a large MAJOIRTY Republican House and a Democratic Senate by only 1 seat, not an even split as suggested in the analysis. It also has a VERY popular REPUBLICAN Governor in Tim Pawlenty who balanced an almost $4 billion deficit WITHOUT raising taxes. Norm Coleman, a Republican Senator, won the state in 2002 by about 40,000 votes. In addition the State DFL leadership is from the kooky Moveon.org portion of the modern Democrat party which may not play well with the average working class voters in traditional Democrat strong hold of Northeastern Minnesota. I admit it is an uphill fight to carry a state for Bush that has not gone Republican since 1972 but consider this. Minnesota's unemployment rate is currently around 4.5% one of the lowest in the nation. The Minnesota Bush Campaign has all ready organized over 6000 precinct volunteers and has an organization in ever Minnesota country. I think Minnesota is in play this year.

[steveegg]

Latest Wisconsin Badger Poll, taken March 23-March 31 among 500 voting-age adults has President Bush up 47%-41% including all other candidates (and Nader) in Wisconsin, and up 49%-45% head-to-head against John F'em Ke(rr)y. Thread here

[TomEwall]

Wisconsin's color is wrong on your April 2nd map.