Electoral Vote Projections

[REDMEN2002]

According to Rasmussen, Bush has 240 electoral votes, with 104 tossup.

[BC ZamboniGuy Cult]

It looks like Kerry will be getting a slight bump in Pennsylvania, considering Nader's biggest supporters are cartoon characters. :D

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/13/nader.pennsylvania.ap/index.html

[pgb-ohio]

Not to get into a geographic debate, but the Great Plains is a part of the Midwest, not separate from it. If anything, I consider Nebraska and Kansas more midwestern than Ohio.

The way I see it, The Midwest encompasses everything between the Appalachians and the Rockies and north of Texas/The Ozarks. Within the Midwest you have the Great Plains, the Rust Belt, and the Great Lakes regions.I'm comfortable with treating *The Midwest* as a broadly encompassing term that includes the Great Plains. It wasn't my intention to exclude anyone from the group. :o I also agree that Ohio has Eastern and Southern characteristics not commonly found in other portions of the Midwest. I would argue, though, that the Midwest can trace its roots to the Northwest Territory. As the first state to come from that territory, I think Ohio has a passable claim to being the birthplace of the Midwest. :)

As far as voting habits go, you are correct that Iowans assoc. themselves with the family farm. But even there there is a lot of geographic distribution. Western Iowa and Iowa State associates itself with Omaha and tends to lean more Republican than the eastern half and the U of Iowa, which lean Democratic. The fact that Iowa's population is spread pretty evenly (Des Moines is smaller than Omaha even though Iowa has something like 2-3x's as many people as Nebraska) also makes it tougher for it to reach a consensus. I agree with all of this. Within Iowa, region matters for both political and sports loyalties. If you look at it from a Western Iowa point of view, it does seem more sensible to imagine that voting patterns would parallel those in Nebraska and Kansas.

I should note that I spent a couple of years in Iowa City. (i.e. Eastern Iowa) Hockey-wise, it was kind of rough. In all other respects, though, it was an enjoyable period of time.

[Bob Gray]

Interesting to hear that perspective. I had heard that he was very popular. I'm not sure what you mean by "higher office" as he was in Congress already - unless you think that Governor is better than Congress as a stepping stone when going for Senate or President. Even if that's true, I don't think that's really a slam as many, if not most, politicians see their current job as short-term and are looking to move up to the next rung.

Doing some basic research, there's the following from his website (http://www.governor.state.nm.us/NewRichardsonbio.html) (which will of course be supportive):
Largest margin in about 40 years? Seems pretty popular to me...

Of course, if "legendary...arrogance toward people who question what he does" makes a candidate unpopular, then Kerry won't have to worry much about Bush anyway. (Sorry Kepler, it was low-hanging fruit. I couldn't stop myself.)
Two years in office can change a lot of perspectives. My understanding is that views of him have changed since he's been in office. I'm just going on what I have been told by a variety of people I know from New Mexico, as well as my brother, who lived in Albuquerque up to less than a year ago. By higher office, I mean that some people think Richardson apparently has long term designs toward possibly being president or vice president or at least Congress. Whether Congress is higher than being a governor is probably open to debate. I've seen it go both ways.

[Bob Gray]

I'm comfortable with treating *The Midwest* as a broadly encompassing term that includes the Great Plains. It wasn't my intention to exclude anyone from the group. :o I also agree that Ohio has Eastern and Southern characteristics not commonly found in other portions of the Midwest. I would argue, though, that the Midwest can trace its roots to the Northwest Territory. As the first state to come from that territory, I think Ohio has a passable claim to being the birthplace of the Midwest. :)

This harks me back to the days of my two degrees in geography. There are people who have done fascinating studies on the identification of people with places and regions. I even recall seeing studies of how various people and areas of the country perceive the Midwest. It's a very non-static definition which is heavily influenced by location and a person's history. I'm not surprised that someone with Nebraska ties would see that state as being more Midwestern than Ohio. But I can also tell you that many people on Ohio would view themselves as much more Midwestern than Nebraska.

[Kepler]

Gallup has a full breakdown of all the prez debate polls here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=13642

Overall results were

Debate #1: Kerry 53-37
Debate #2: Kerry 47-45
Debate #3: Kerry 52-39

In the third debate, Independents went to Kerry by 54-34.

Both candidates pushed their positives (rant: which is what happens when the debates are substantive and not nasty so let's have more of those kind!!!!! end rant). When asked whether they were more or les favorable after the debate than before, people were "more favorable" to Kerry by 42-15 and to Bush by 27-17.

Bush was still perceived as more likeable, 48-43. But Kerry was perceived as more believable, which he had problems with coming into the debates.

Bush lost by the least amount on issues with Education, by just 1 point, so the "answer *every* question with NCLB" strategy may have been smart.

I would have liked to have seen an issue poll on Social Security, and am a little surprised there wasn't one considering how important it was during the debate.

[NCAA watcher]

In the third debate, Independents went to Kerry by 54-34.

And since this is the key demographic for the swing votes, this bodes well for him.

Both candidates pushed their positives (rant: which is what happens when the debates are substantive and not nasty so let's have more of those kind!!!!! end rant). When asked whether they were more or les favorable after the debate than before, people were "more favorable" to Kerry by 42-15 and to Bush by 27-17.

Not a surprise. Kerry could not help but gain ground, as the in person Kerry is more favorable than the one portrayed prior to the debates (anti-american flip flopper). Getting to know the candidate helps overcome the false image created by advertising and non-challenged convention portrayals.

So, it probably has less to do with the "substantive/non-substantive" distinction, and more to do with the pre-debate starting point.

All-in-all, Kerry's exposure to the voters helped him more than Bush's "failures" in the debate.

Now all we have to do is await, as George Snuffolufogus says, who the "likely voters" end up being.

[Rover]

I really do find the President's campaign to be very curious, although maybe it'll end up working out for him.

It seems the only tact they're using is that Kerry is unfit to be President. That's all well and good until Kerry gets to stand side by side with Bush. Bush isn't a great debator, he's very adequate but he's not going to knock anyone's socks off. I guess they assumed all three debates would at worst be a draw, and the campaign would have a small but out of the margin of error lead.

The problem with that is if the other guy does come accross well, and matches or outperforms the incumbent on stage, the whole argument goes up in smoke. Hence the current poll numbers. I've also seen Bush really play up to his conservative base. Great, but he'd better hope all the swing voters just stay home because Kerry seems to have appealed to these people more if the post debate polling is to be believed.

[Kepler]

A sitting president who is under 50% in job approval must try to paint the opponent as unfit. Even Saint James Carter was reduced to that in the end (and it didn't work for him, either). After 4 years, we've all made up our minds on the incumbent. You can't create a new image for an incumbent out of thin air. But a challenger is an unknown quantity and voters can be scared away if the opposition campaign is negative enough.

The limiting factor is that the charges have to resonate, so it becomes a fishing expedition to find something that works. In the beginning the strategy was to portray Kerry as a flip-flopper, in order to dismiss him out of hand. When Kerry came on strong in the first debate and showed himself to be consistent, the next strategy was to portray Kerry as not cognizant of the responsibilities of the presidency. But again Kerry was able to parry that by showing himself to be serious on the issues. (And that wasn't a good angle for Bush to take, to be honest -- that should have been Cheney's knife fight with Edwards. I think they blew that one.) So the final tactic is to now call Kerry a crazy socialist. I epxect we'll hear all sorts of dire predicitions coming out over the next couple of weeks, maybe punctuated by a "shocking revelation" carried on Fox or Drudge. It's "scare them under the bed so they don't vote" time.

Bush will be in his element in scripted events in front of friendly crowds, and he'll look good, as always, on the nightly news. But Kerry will now have some advantages too, however, since now that he is more of a known quantity, the perimeter snipers like the SBVT or Sinclair are less likely to matter.

My prediction is that either Bush wins a 2000-style squeaker, or all these vote drives we've been hearing about bring in a lot of people wanting change, and Kerry wins in the do-able battleground states (OH, PA, OR, IA, WI, NV, NH), throws in FL for seasoning, and surprises everybody by breaking 300.

[Todd]

This harks me back to the days of my two degrees in geography.Is one for Lat, the other for Long?

There are people who have done fascinating studies on the identification of people with places and regions. I even recall seeing studies of how various people and areas of the country perceive the Midwest. It's a very non-static definition which is heavily influenced by location and a person's history.I had an old girlfriend - well she was young at the time, but it was a while ago - from the West Coast that had a comletely skewed idea of the "Midwest" relative to anyone else's I'd heard. She imagined it as mathematically geographic - so, Omaha-ish, I guess. When she heard me refer to Michigan or Ohio or Illinois as "Midwestern", she flipped. She acted like I had never seen a map before or had the characterized "New Yorker's View of the World" map in my head (even though I'm not from New York). "That's not the Midwest, that's so far east!" Her perecption of Midwest was from the halfway point back towards Montana and Idaho.

I'd cut her some slack for at least being eastern time zone, but come to think of it, I may have been talking about Chicago. Anyway, I explained it to her that the country was settled by the Europeans from east to west, so everything skews that way: population density, state size, imprecise reference points, ...

[Kepler]

I have a poll for predicting the highest number of probable EVs for each candidate, here: http://board.uscho.com/showthread.php?t=42293

[Jason A]

The national GOP is pulling money out of the Wisconsin Senate race, basically conceding it to Feingold.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct04/266493.asp

This will probably have no affect on the presidential race, but who knows?

[pgb-ohio]

This harks me back to the days of my two degrees in geography. There are people who have done fascinating studies on the identification of people with places and regions. I even recall seeing studies of how various people and areas of the country perceive the Midwest. It's a very non-static definition which is heavily influenced by location and a person's history. Bob, do you have citations for those studies, or perhaps a lead or two? They sound like interesting reading.
I'm not surprised that someone with Nebraska ties would see that state as being more Midwestern than Ohio. But I can also tell you that many people in Ohio would view themselves as much more Midwestern than Nebraska.When I think of the Midwest, I tend to think of the Big Ten Conference states first. But my personal history could indeed be coloring my view. Although I've lived in Ohio quite a while, I've also lived in Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa. Conversely, I've never lived in the Great Plains.

I'll gladly stipulate that the Great Plains states are part of the Midwest, in a general sense. But I still feel that the politics of the Upper Midwest does differ from that of the Great Plains states in important ways. Admittedly when majorities are razor thin, it becomes tougher to generalize. But overall, I think that the politics of the Great Plains area has something of a libertarian feel, sharing common ground with the Mountain States. The political scene in the Upper Midwest has elements of liberalism and populism. Both of those philosophies probably involve too much government to be palatable further west.

As UNOFan points out, there is a considerable diversity of viewpoints within Iowa. Perhaps this is surprising to those who haven't spent much time there. Also, communities of people (ideological or otherwise) often exist without regard to state boundaries. I can easily imagine someone in Omaha feeling that the people in Council Bluffs are "just like us," while feeling that the people out in the Panhandle area come from a rather different community.

And yet, under the electoral college system, winning states is all important. So we're left to try to predict how a "state" will vote, even when the generalization misrepresents almost half of the voters. Yes, there are many commonalities between NE & IA. Certainly both can claim to be Midwestern. But there's a significant chance they'll once again go their separate ways on November 2nd.

Postscript: Kudos to all posters, and especially Kepler, for keeping this thread both interesting and civilized. In the current political climate, that's no small feat.

[Buff]

I think I was about 21 when I moved to Chicago for the summer from the Midwest. I was amused and confused when I heard someone there talking about Chicago being in the Midwest.

Now that I'm older and so much more sophisticated, I'll grant those easterners the right to claim the Midwest as their own if they want.

[pgb-ohio]

I think I was about 21 when I moved to Chicago for the summer from the Midwest. I was amused and confused when I heard someone there talking about Chicago being in the Midwest.

Now that I'm older and so much more sophisticated, I'll grant those easterners the right to claim the Midwest as their own if they want. :D Next you'll be suggesting Sullivan as the permanent site for Midwest Regional. There's still one problem, though. Where should the West Regional be held? Guam? ;)

[Buff]

Well, I didn't exactly move to Chicago from Anchorage. I've "only" lived in Anchorage for 15 years (which in Suze' eyes probably still makes me a Cheechako). But I would have no problem holding the Midwest Regionals at the Sullivan. Hell, I'd take the Eastern Regionals. After all, Alaska is the farthest east state in the country.

[pgb-ohio]

Well, I didn't exactly move to Chicago from Anchorage. I've "only" lived in Anchorage for 15 years (which in Suze' eyes probably still makes me a Cheechako). But I would have no problem holding the Midwest Regionals at the Sullivan. Hell, I'd take the Eastern Regionals. After all, Alaska is the farthest east state in the country.OK, I'll take the bait. Could you tell us where you actually moved from, thus revealing the location of the *real* Midwest? :)

[jtwcornell91]

I suspect "Midwest" is a little like "Upstate New York"; where it begins depends on where you are. I typically tell people I'm from Upstate, which is correct to people from other states and from NYC/LI. But to real Upstaters, the Hudson Valley doesn't count. (I still feel like Kingston should get some upstate credit for landing on the 845 side of the 845/914 area code divide; the old 914 area code was the disputed territory that might or might not have been Upstate.)

Of course, when I was in Cali, people used to refer to Chicago as "back East".

[Bronco]

I avoided this thread because I thought it would become a flamefest by now. I am very pleasently surprised.

About Michigan, It seems that the GOP is still determined to win the state, with all the Bush billboards along I94, and inside Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, and Lansing. I still seriously doubt that Bush will win the state, but they are still spending money and time here, so you never know.

[Buff]

Sorry, pgb, I thought you were joking. I grew up in North Dakota.