Election Predictions

Putting aside who you'd like to win as best you can, who do you think will win the 2004 Presidential Election, and why? Let's try to keep this particular political thread more on the side of objective analysis, if possible.

National polls contain some insight, but miss the strategic nature of the election. Whether a candidate gains or loses a point or two in a nationwide poll tells us something about general public opinion, but state-by-state polls tell us much more. Kerry could pick up 10% in Utah, for example, but the effect on the election would be negligible, as Bush would still have a commanding lead, and thus would easily receive the state's 5 electoral votes.

Bush is an interesting candidate in that he has both a ceiling and a floor in terms of popularity and support. There's a group of voters who wouldn't vote for him if he cured cancer and personally charged into Baghdad on a white stallion. Similarly, there's another group who would still vote for him if he referred to Colin Powell with a racial slur and kicked a puppy.

The latter group is made up of between 17 and 25 states, most of which Bush is leading by at least 10 points in. In some, he's up 20 or even 30 points; in none of them does he possess a lead lower than 6 points. Together, these states account for anywhere from 138 to 212 electoral votes.

In other words, even if Bush loses the next two debates, and news from Iraq gets worse, it's safe to assume that Bush will receive a minimum of 200 electoral votes (out of the 270 needed to win) come November 2nd.

Kerry's support is quite different. His bottom-line in terms of electoral votes lies somewhere between roughly 80-90 and 150-160. He's kept afloat by two of the three biggest electoral prizes in the nation: California (55 electoral votes) and New York (31 electoral votes).

No doubt, you've all heard much about "swing" or "battleground" states. There are at least a dozen of them, but the most crucial, in my opinion, are Ohio (20), Pennsylvania (21), and Florida (27). It's perfectly possible for either candidate to win all three and still lose, or vice versa, but my prediction is simply this: if Bush wins one of these three, he will take the election.

As much as I would like to see Bush totally stomp on Kerry, I think he'll win by the seat of his pants. I also predict that Hollywood will have a melt down after the results and the liberalites are going to cry "foul" again. They'll say the voting was rigged.

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Ya got me feelin' hella good so let's just keep on dancin'

I am a Canadian, so what I say doesn't matter, but I like Bush, and I wonder if I haven't started to like him more as this election gets closer. The reason this may be so is because there is SO MUCH anti-Bush crap everywhere. Musicians having anti-Bush concerts, hundreds of anti-Bush books being written... It's all over the news, the radio, the internet, everywhere. It makes me sick. Obviously I carry a pretty heavy bias, being an 'evagelical fundamentalist extremist' like your President. I can't believe how much Bush's beliefs are a part of how people degrade him. Being anti-war is one thing, but knocking him as a Bible thumper or whatever... that's just not cool...

Just so ya'll know, the voting is public, and everyone who ended up being way off (even if I'm among them) will be dragged into the metaphorical street and humiliated on November 3rd.

Fair warning.

Let them try!

omg, i realized i made a mistake. I ment to vote, Kerry will win narrowly. Oh well doesn't matter i guess.

So far (five votes in), I'm the only one who doesn't think it'll be particularly close.

Just updated it for you.

oh thank you very much Yoda!!!!!

Hmm...I think you'll be really wrong. If there wasn't so much media hoopla over everything and MoveOn.org and Mtv and all those concerts by really good bands, I'd say Bush would win by a landslide...but tis' not the way. People who never voted are registering to be cool with their liberal movie stars and bands.

Everyone I know in Ohio is voting for Kerry.
A friend of mine who is leaving for a job in Australia just cast her absentee ballot last friday. She said the polls were packed. She talked to a pollster who said she had never seen the absentee voting so heavy, that it was almost entirely Democrats voting, and that they were pissed.

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

If we are talking about who will receive the largest number of votes, I hope and think Kerry will win narrowly. Even if the electoral system does not guarantee that the candidate receiving the most votes will be president, that is what happens most of the times.

I think Kerry will win because he will beat Bush in all three debates and I am also hoping that a little more people than usual will go and vote. The more people voting, and especially the more young people voting, the more votes Kerry will receive. The reason for this is that the majority of those not voting are staying home because of apathy, they think it doesn't matter to them who'll win the election. But if Kerry can get his message through, and the first debate convinced me that he will, then these people will realize that there is really only one alternative for them and that is John Kerry.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Well, you know... I think you can find some people here and there that feel degraded by Bush's politics as well. I think the prez survives.

Sorry for triple posting but no matter how much I hope you're right in this case I really do think you're exaggerating the power of MTV.

Oh, we're going to see increased turnout in every demographic, I'm sure. As for Ohio, though; might say more about the company you keep than Ohio as a whole. State polls have shown Bush up in Ohio for the majority of the last few months. As of right now, it's pretty much a dead-heat.

Increased turnout is the real wildcard here, and makes predictions difficult.

There's been so much spin on the news and poll results that I don't put much stock in them. I'm sure you've had occasion to compare what gets reported in the US with what they hear in England and elsewhere. It's orwellian.

I think the bottom line is this:
The Republicans are still hammering away on the fearmongering regarding terrorism and Bush being "the man we need in charge". I think most people are past the fear of attack and more worried about our economy (and they should be) and domestic issues. Edwards seemed interested in those issues in this last debate, but he seemed to run out of time before saying much about them. If Kerry picks up that dropped ball, I think it'll be over for Bush.

It's plenty cool, and here's why: You can't legalize morality.
Bush is getting bashed for his religious beliefs because he's had the arrogance to apply them to our laws. That is abuse of power. The laws are for everyone here, and many of us do not subscribe to those beliefs. This country was founded on the ideal of religious freedom, and GWB's condemnation of things that harm, but that are against his personal beliefs, goes contrary to a very basic tenet of Americanism: live and let live.

I find it frustrating when liberals (not saying anyone here is of any political party) whine about the economy. It was so funny when Kerry scolded Bush for not sending the troops out with the best gear and the right protection and better armor on the tanks...then has the nerve to whine about how much the war is costing. Same with unemployment. There would be more minimum wage jobs for citizens if we stopped flooding the job market with illegal aliens who want to drive to work and make less than minimum wage.

I'd respond to this, since I mentioned the economy, only I'm not liberal and I don't subscribe to any of the opinions you list here.

C'mon. You're throwing around words like "Orwellian" and "fearmongering" pretty flippantly. You don't see anything similar from the Democrats? "We can't afford four more years of this." "We're alienating the entire world." "You've made us less safe." "Who's he going to take us into war with next?" The trendy thing to do has been to paint this election as Republican fear .vs. Democratic hope, but it just ain't so.

As for the economy becoming more of a focus; I say, good! Terrorism is perceived as Bush's strongest issue, but in terms of objective, demonstrable grounds, his economic policies are far more defensible.

I agree with the reasoning, but when has Bush done these things?