The Swing State Shakedown

[Nbadan]

Swing states go from 17 to 10 with electoral college race still a virtual deadlock...


New poll figures from swing states, the targeting of campaign appearances and decisions by the campaigns on where to spend their advertising money are starting to whittle down what has been an unusually large number of battleground states whose electoral votes are up for grabs.

The race to capture the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win in November still remains too close to call.

But some shakeout is starting to occur.

Arizona, for example, had been on the consensus list of battleground states, but a poll last week showed President Bush with a 16-point lead over Democratic challenger John Kerry. That seems to put the state's 10 electoral votes safely in Bush's column.

Consensus settled on a core group of 17 swing states: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Those 17 states represent 180 electoral votes, or two-thirds of the 270 that are needed to win.
But states have begun to be winnowed from several lists.

Political newsletter publisher Charlie Cook, who developed his list of 17 last winter, recently trimmed it to 10: Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Cook's most recent handicapping of the Electoral College race shows 25 states solidly for or leaning toward Bush, giving him 211 electoral votes. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia are solidly for or leaning toward Kerry, representing 207 electoral votes. The 10 tossup states represent 120 electoral votes.

Star Tribune (http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/4975162.html)

[Nbadan]

No question about it, Swing states like Kerry, but two major pitfalls remain for progressives...


The most significant 2004 state polling changes:

Kerry’s lead in Michigan went from 2 percent to 11 percent to the current 4 percent.

Since May 10, Oregon moved from Bush up 5 percent to Kerry up 11 percent.

Washington favored Bush in January, but Kerry’s ruled ever since, now ahead by 7 points.

Bush led New Hampshire by 15 percent in April but now trails by 7 percent.

Since March, Kerry has cut Bush’s lead in Nevada from 11 percent to 3 percent.

Over the last five months Tennessee swung from Bush up 19 percent to Kerry ahead 2 percent.

Since mid-July Bush’s Arizona margin dropped from 12 percent to 3 percent.

Colorado shifted from Bush ahead by 9 percent to a tie.

And over eight months, Bush’s 15 percent lead in Virginia plunged to 5 percent.

Bush has lately enjoyed Swift-Boat/RNC attack-dog bounces in Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma and several other states.

The short-term momentum is now clearly with Bush, but Kerry has consistently won in the long term. On September 3, Princeton University analyst and professor Sam Wang gave Kerry a 61 percent chance of winning the electoral vote. But before the Dems break out the bubbly, two massive pitfalls lie ahead.

First is the likelihood of an October surprise. Bush’s brain, Karl Rove, is widely believed to have a nasty trick or two up his sleeve. Pakistan may have trapped Osama bin Laden in an Afghan cave and could be planning to produce him just before November 2—three years after our leader promised to bring him in “dead or alive.” A few months ago, Mideast press reports warned that trucks hired by the United States were shipping weapons of mass destruction into Iraq—for timely discovery. And the way has been prepared to postpone the election if we suffer another terror attack.

Second, 98 million U.S. ballots will go into computers that could be used to falsify the results—with no paper record available for recounts (See “Sum of a Glitch,” September 20).

There is some evidence that voting machines turned elections in Georgia and Minnesota in 2002. A week before the Georgia vote, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed popular Democratic Sen. Max Cleland ahead by 5 points. He lost to rabid rightist Saxby Chambliss by 7 points—an inexplicable 12-point swing. Georgia was the first state to use electronic voting devices almost exclusively. In Minnesota, Sen. Paul Wellstone was a shoo-in for reelection when he died in a plane crash. Democratic former Vice President Walter Mondale replaced him and led significantly just days before the election, but Republican Norm Coleman won by an unexpected 11 points on Election Day.

With more states using electronic machines lacking paper records and more Republican electoral tomfoolery afoot in Florida this year, Kerry may need a strong turnout in the honestly counted states to prevail.

In These Times (http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1070)