A good analysis of how states will go

[ButterflyBlood]

here's what I compiled awhile back. it's the margin of victory of various states, adding the Nader vote into Gore's total, and Buchanan and other right wing third party candidates into Bush's. I didn't count Harry Brown as Bush except in states like Nevada or NH where the Republicans are more libertarian-leaning, so maybe I wasn't consistent, but in the end the percentages were too small to make a difference:


1. District of Columbia – 81.45
2. Rhode Island – 34.55
3. Massachusetts – 33.31
4. New York – 28.1
5. Hawaii – 23.92
6. Connecticut – 20.91
7. Maryland – 18.83
8. New Jersey – 18.59
9. Vermont – 16.11
10. Delaware – 15.3
11. California – 15.21
12. Illinois – 13.87
13. Maine – 10.14
14. Washington – 9.43
15. Michigan – 7.13
16. Minnesota – 6.7
17. Pennsylvania – 5.94
18. Oregon – 5.02
19. Wisconsin – 3.4
20. New Mexico – 3.38
21. Iowa – 2.11
22. New Hampshire – 1.69
23. Florida – 1.33
24. Ohio – 1.58
25. Nevada – 1.86
26. Missouri – 2.21
27. Tennessee – 3.12
28. Arkansas – 3.27
29. Colorado – 3.71
30. Arizona – 4.12
31. West Virginia – 5.17
32. Virginia – 6.06
33. Louisiana – 7.32
34. Georgia – 11.59
35. North Carolina – 13.13
36. Kentucky – 13.90
37. Alabama – 14.16
38. South Carolina – 14.85
39. Indiana – 15.57
40. Mississippi – 16.66
41. Kansas – 18.12
42. Texas – 19.36
43. Montana – 20.52
44. Oklahoma – 22.61
45. Alaska – 22.7
46. South Dakota – 23.79
47. Nebraska – 26
48. North Dakota – 26.84
49. Utah – 37.38
50. Idaho – 37.78
51. Wyoming – 39.52

as you can see, Ohio is A LOT closer and winnable than most people seem to think, and states like New Jersey, Maryland and Illinois are more solidly in the Democratic column that most seem to think.

[Padraig18]

1. IL is solidly Democratic!

Dem. governor, legislature and S.C., plus a likely +1D in the US Senate next year. IL has been liberally sprinkled with "Troll-B-Gone"! :bounce:

[Bombtrack]

7. I really don't think the senate race is any better than a tossup

My public policy analysis professor grew up there and taught at Northwestern for over a decade. He says that that the likely GOP nominee, Ryan, is stronger than any democrat running, which include 2 minorities and a divorced woman with no political experience.

In a general election, the state would probably go for Kerry, Edwards, Leiberman, Clark, but all of the other serious candidates would lose it

[KharmaTrain]

12. Uh, Friend...

You forgot about Thomas Hynes...whose won statewide and will probably get the regular party's endorsement, and definitely better known and financed than whatever Ryan this one is (honestly, I just heard of the latest one the other night and wasn't sure if that was a serious commercial or if SNL had started early).

As far as Presidential, it's too soon to tell. Definitely there's no "favorite daughter" status here for Carole. With our presidential primary meaning nothing, most of us are waiting to see who the other states decide upon.

[KharmaTrain]

11. Life Is Almost Good

<spraying Ryan repellant...both the George & Jim variety>

Now, Padraig, we need to work on Congressional districts. I've got one with a 30 plus year alchie who is ripe for pickin'...I wish the DNC would wake up and get an organization going in my area. It's been pathetic out this way for the 20 plus years I've been here.

[VermontDem2004]

2. If you follow polls

An Arizona Opinion poll stated that only 1 third of the likely voters who were polled said they would vote for Bush, let me say that again. 1 third

[democraticgator]

3. I wonder how the breakdown of states correlates to....

the general education level of those states. I bet it's pretty connected.......... higher education/blue states.

[newyawker99]

9. Hi democraticgator!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Capn Sunshine]

4. I wonder what Florida's percentage would be like

if they COUNTED ALL THE VOTES. Add the 70,000 scrubbed votes to that too. I bet you get a 20% swing.

[ButterflyBlood]

5. there was almost 6 million votes cast in Florida

add the 70k and there would be. But that's still not 20% of all the votes cast. If we assume all went to Gore, that would put Florida at 2.5, putting it ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire.

[RandomUser]

6. PA is a bit scary

The trend over the years there has been been increasingly republican. We may lose PA.

[Bombtrack]

8. We will if we don't nominate one of the strongest candidates we will

On paper, isolated, Kerry is the strongest in PA(because of Heinz etc) but when you factor in the automatic sweep of the south, and the money Bush can then spend elsewhere, in relation to '00, Kerry is weaker in every swingstate(including NH) than someone like Edwards(who's rural, southern, image are polarly oppisite from Kerry and Dean's), atleast slightly.

Clark suffers automatically in a different way from being anti-war, but he could neutralize that after he gets the nomination(theoretically) by elaborating that there were pletny of good reasons to go in, but Bush didn't level with America.

[creativelcro]

10. dumb states list...

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/package.jsp?name=fte/smartstates/smartstates
States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest
The smartest state in the union is Massachusetts.

The dumbest, for the second consecutive year, is New Mexico.

These are the findings of the Education State Rankings, a survey by Morgan Quitno Press of the public school systems in all 50 states. States were graded on a variety of factors based on how they compare to the national average. These included such positive attributes as per-pupil expenditures, public high school graduation rates, average class size, student reading and math proficiency, and pupil-teacher ratios. States received negative points for high drop-out rates and physical violence.

How does YOUR state rank?

Massachusetts

Vermont

Connecticut

Montana

New Jersey

Maine

Pennsylvania

(tie) Wisconsin and Iowa

New York

Nebraska

Minnesota

Indiana

Wyoming

Kansas

Rhode Island

Virginia

Maryland

Delaware

Michigan

North Carolina

Ohio

Alaska

North Dakota

Utah

New Hampshire

Illinois

Missouri

West Virginia

Idaho

South Dakota

Oregon

Washington

Texas

Colorado

Georgia

Kentucky

Arkansas

Oklahoma

Florida

South Carolina

Tennessee

Hawaii

California

Arizona

Alabama

Louisiana

Mississippi

Nevada

New Mexico

[bleedingheart]

14. No...PA went solidly for Gore and we will go for whoever the Dem

is... Our state is hurting....Santorectum and Specter haven't delivered anything to the state and the state assembly is full repukes who do not do much.

[spooky3]

13. interesting, thanks!

[NewJerseyDem]

15. NJ is quite democratic

The state seems to have moved considerably to the left over the past decade or so. I think that New Jerseyans realized that the old Republican party that included moderates and even liberals like Clifford Case was no more and all that was left was extremists like Newt Gingrich. That extreme conservatism and reactionary policies turned the state into a pretty solidly democratic state.

One Zogby poll even found 55% of New Jerseyans back gay marriage but another poll only found 43% for gay marriage while a majority supported civil unions. That is just an example of some pretty liberal views in NJ compared to most in the country.

Also, half of our republican congressmen are pro-choice and 5 of the 6 of them are opposed to ANWR drilling. If republicans want to get elected here they are going to have to be a lot more liberal than Bush is.