Electoral Vote Predictor 2004:   Kerry 291   Bush 237

Data in Excel format Battleground states Info about the states Previous report Next report News   Strong Kerry (173) Weak Kerry (60) Barely Kerry (58) Exactly tied (10) Barely Bush (58) Weak Bush (45) Strong Bush (134)

News from the Votemaster

Political junkies should be in hog heaven today. The DNC has started and 18 new polls are available, mostly from Zogby. There is good news and bad news for each candidate. Let's first look at the good news for Kerry. New Mexico, which Gore won by 366 votes, is now strongly for Kerry. This gain may be coming from the state's large Latino population, which is heavily Democratic.

In the latest Zogby poll, Tennessee has moved from a tie to barely Kerry. It is still a statistical tie, but considering that Gore didn't even carry Tennessee and it is his home state, nobody expected Tennessee to be a battleground state. This should have been an easy win for Bush. Kerry is also gaining in Michigan.

The good news for Bush is that Louisiana is now strongly for him as expected, even though both senators and the governor are Democrats. The mirror image of Tennessee is Minnesota. It should have been an easy win for Kerry, but is now exactly tied. Could Bush win the state of Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and Paul Wellstone? It is a real possibility.

Florida and Ohio, the biggest prizes among the battleground states, are still marked barely Bush, but are still statistical ties. The other changes today are relatively small.

All in all, the map shows that the country is broken up into five distinct regions. The Northeast is completely Kerry territory while the South is largely Bush ground. The Midwest is currently for Kerry while the farm states of the Great Plains and the West are solidly behind Bush. The more ethnically mixed Pacific Coast states plus Arizona and New Mexico are Kerry states, although Arizona is doubtful and Nevada is iffy. We haven't seen such an ideological grouping of states in a long time.

Now some news about the site itself. The spreadsheet conversion is finished. All the spreadsheets since May 24 are now on the site in a common layout, in both .xls and .csv format. You can get the complete collection up to July 27 as a zip file.

A new feature of the site starting today is a chart listing all the polls in the spreadsheets, sorted by state. This is an example of what can be done by letting a script loose on the .csv files. To keep the main page from getting too cluttered, the trend data and this chart can now be accessed from the "More data" item on the menu. The 2000 election results, and book list have been moved there too. If readers have other charts or tables pertaining to the election, I might include links to them there too.

-- The votemaster Electoral college