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DRAW!

After serious contemplation, Unpaid is prepared to call the 2004 for election for Bush. The final electoral count… about 30-25. What is that you say, doesn’t a candidate need 270 votes to win the Electoral College? Unpaid thinks the Electoral College will deadlock, leaving the House of Representatives on January 8th to re-elect George W. Bush. Under the Constitution, each representative does not get a vote, but rather each state’s delegation of representatives. Currently the GOP controls about 35 delegations, and the Democrats only 20. The new Congress votes in the President, however, leaving there chance for the margin to change. The only reason Kerry is seemingly hopeless here is that most seats in the House are gerrymandered to be “safe” and noncompetitive.

Still, with national polls titling Bush by a small margin nationwide, you might wonder why Unpaid is certain the Electoral College will be tied. There are two scenarios, one commonly accepted the other not.

Scenario One: John Kerry wins Ohio and New Hampshire. If this occurs, even if Wisconsin, New Mexico and Florida stay red, both candidates get 269 votes. George W. Bush can defeat this strategy a myriad of ways, most notably by winning populous New Jersey. But that requires buying time on New York City and Philadelphia television stations. While Bush-Cheney already considers Pennsylvania in play, it is not hopeful for New York, and that gives Kerry and edge in that regard.

Scenario Two: Much has been made about an initiative to split electoral votes in Colorado. The state is not as big a prize as Florida to be sure, but it’s not even as big (in electoral terms) as Wisconsin, a former “blue” state that seems firmly in Bush’s grasp. Still if Florida and Ohio both tilt for Bush, how would the “Colorado” effect have an impact? If the initiative fails, and Bush wins Colorado…Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico would have to select Kerry. Bush is ahead in polls in all three states. Each poll is probably done incorrectly. In Nevada, large numbers of blacks have moved in since 2000 from California. We doubt they will vote Republican. In Arizona, immigration is an issue which Kerry has not bludgeoned the incumbent on, but still could be a way to make tremendous hay. New Mexico went for Gore last, time and while Bush is ahead, again undersampling ethnic minorities probably means a razor thin blue shade. Because of the reliance on Arizona, this is unlikely.
If Kerry wins Colorado outright, getting Nevada and New Mexico still tip the election to Bush. As a result, there would have to be another state on the fence that could switch from “red” to “blue”. There is such a state, and it is Arkansas. Bush barely musters a one percent lead in the Ozarks, with Nader getting a healthy chunk as well as the undecided vote. Undecided voters tend to pick change over the status quo, and even if that does not hold, the sampling again likely means Arkansas might already be a blue state. Combining it with Colorado and New Mexico would be a tremendous coup for the challenger.
So how does the intiative passing chance the equation? If Bush gets 5 votes, and Kerry 4 in Colorado, then Kerry would need Nevada, New Mexico, and Arkansas for a tie. If Kerry wins a qualified election 5-4 in Colorado then he would need Nevada New Mexico, or West Virginia to pull even.
Of all these possibilities, Unpaid believes that Bush winning a split in Colorado is the reason the for the draw. Voter registration and irregularities here smack of Florida but only in terms of how overworked the staff will be counting over-votes and the like. Arkansas probably has large number of Latino voters who are new to the state undercounted by the polling organizations, and along with a strong black turnout suggest that it already may be a blue state. The President has to counter Yucca Mountain, a planned repository for nuclear waste set to be deposited in Nevada. With the state’s powerful Democratic Senator Harry Reid running for reelection, Reid can run against Bush for the purposes on the ticket, giving Kerry plenty of oxygen in addition to demographic changes which we think favor Kerry, not Bush. Add a contentious victory in New Mexico, and we will have overtime once again.

posted by Thomas at 5:57 PM 0 comments