| Take a look up at the banner on top of this screen, that big green bar. See the name in the title there? Remember that? Well, believe it or not, this site once focused entirely on the presidential swing states. (It was only after the 2004 election that we branched out to other races.)
So, with the next presidential election a mere 677 days away - ie, sooner than your local Best Buy will have Nintendo's Wii back in stock - I thought we might take a look at the swing states in play for 2008. Now, as you know, I'm a big believer in the fifty-state strategy, but as you also know, these things take time. As much as I'd like to believe we'll see an expanded playing field in the next presidential race, I think we all realize that Howard Dean's plan is the work of many years.
Therefore, I'd like to start with a similar approach to the one I took three years ago, one which served us well, I think. Back then, I considered as a swing state any state where the vote margin between both sides was ±10%. (Specifically, where the margin between (Gore + Nader) - (Bush + Buchanan) was ±10%.) This time, it's a little simpler because there were no meaningful third-party candidates in 2004, so I'm just going to look at the Kerry - Bush vote.
In any event, this is the list I wound up with, using the numbers found on Dave Leip's site:
| State |
EVs |
Bush |
Kerry |
Margin |
| California |
55 |
44.36% |
54.31% |
9.95% |
| Maine |
4 |
44.58% |
53.57% |
8.99% |
| Hawaii |
4 |
45.26% |
54.01% |
8.75% |
| Delaware |
3 |
45.75% |
53.35% |
7.60% |
| Washington |
11 |
45.64% |
52.82% |
7.18% |
| New Jersey |
15 |
46.24% |
52.92% |
6.68% |
| Oregon |
7 |
47.19% |
51.35% |
4.16% |
| Minnesota |
10 |
47.61% |
51.09% |
3.48% |
| Michigan |
17 |
47.81% |
51.23% |
3.42% |
| Pennsylvania |
21 |
48.42% |
50.92% |
2.50% |
| New Hampshire |
4 |
48.87% |
50.24% |
1.37% |
| Wisconsin |
10 |
49.32% |
49.70% |
0.38% |
| Iowa |
7 |
49.90% |
49.23% |
-0.67% |
| New Mexico |
5 |
49.84% |
49.05% |
-0.79% |
| Ohio |
20 |
50.81% |
48.71% |
-2.10% |
| Nevada |
5 |
50.47% |
47.88% |
-2.59% |
| Colorado |
9 |
51.69% |
47.02% |
-4.67% |
| Florida |
27 |
52.10% |
47.09% |
-5.01% |
| Missouri |
11 |
53.30% |
46.10% |
-7.20% |
| Virginia |
13 |
53.68% |
45.48% |
-8.20% |
| Arkansas |
6 |
54.31% |
44.55% |
-9.76% |
Twenty-one states in total: twelve blue and nine red. Four states are new to this list (CA, DE, HI, NJ) and five states were dropped from the previous list (AZ, LA, NC, TN & WV - though NC was only included later, when Edwards was added to the ticket).
Obviously, quite a few of these seem pretty implausible candidates for switching - certainly anything from NJ to CA would be a huge shock. Perhaps less so with the bottom three red states on the list, given our recent electoral successes in each - but of course, presidential politics is a whole 'nother ballgame, and we often do well in state and local races in red states while getting crushed on the national level.
So the playing field is, in all likelihood, quite a bit narrower than this list would imply. It's also conceivable that some of the states which are no longer on the list could come into play (in particular, AZ). (By the way, the next closest blue states outside this list IL, CT and MD - if they flip, I'm crunching down on my netroots-issued cyanide capsule.)
Anyhow, which states do you think are most likely to flip - and why? And if your analysis hinges on a particular candidate (or type of candidate) getting nominated for pres or VP, please detail that as well. |
