EV/Population breakdown for early-voting states- Bush WAY behind- **LOOK**

[Guaranteed]

Early voting is supposedly being won by Bush 51-47, according to an ABC exit poll. Let's determine how accurate that poll is going to be in predicting the vote of the nation as a whole on 11/2:

Strong Bush states: Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Montana, ND, Louisiana, Tennesee, North Carolina, Georgia = 107 EVs.

Leaning Bush states: WV, Arkansas, Arizona = 21 EVs.

True battleground states (tossups): Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, NM = 53 EVs.

Leaning Kerry: Oregon, Vermont = 10 EVs.

Strong Kerry: California, Michigan = 72 EVs.

Assuming each candidate gets 50% of each true battleground state, that's a ratio of 107 Bush EVs vs. 72 Kerry EVs in strong states, and among all states it's a 128/82 advantage for Bush (not counting the battleground states- if you want to split those between the two you get 154.5 for Bush vs. 108.5 for Kerry).

But this ratioing doesn't really work all that well anyway, as EVs aren't good indicators of population. Wyoming has about a half a million people in it, 1/70th of the population of California, but with 3 EVs it has 1/18th of the EVS.

So, let's look at the population of the strong Bush, leaning Bush, battleground, leaning Kerry and Strong Kerry states, all taken from the US Census Bureau:

-----------------------------------
POPULATIONS

Strong Bush population:

Texas 22,118,509
Oklahoma 3,511,532
Kansas 2,723,507
Idaho 1,366,332
Montana 917,621
Louisiana 4,496,334
North Dakota 633,837
Georgia 8,684,715
North Carolina 8,407,248
Tennessee 5,841,748

Total = about 58,701,390 people in strong Bush states.

Leaning Bush population:

West Virginia 1,810,354
Arkansas 2,725,714
Arizona 5,580,811

Total = about 10,116,880 people in leaning Bush states.

Battleground states:

Florida 17,019,068
Iowa 2,944,062
Nevada 2,241,154
Colorado 4,550,688
New Mexico 1,874,614

Total = about 28,629,590 people in battleground states.

Leaning Kerry states:

Oregon 3,559,596
Vermont 619,107

Total = about 4,178,703 people in leaning Kerry states.

Strong Kerry states:

California 35,484,453
Michigan 10,079,985

Total = about 45,564,440 people in strong Kerry states.


So that's 45.56 million people in strong Kerry states vs. 58.7 million people in strong Bush states. Split the population of the battleground states between them (we're going to ignore the leaner states for now), again assuming 50% split (we have to do this because we're looking for percentages, here), and the total comes out to 59.879 million for Kerry, and 73.016 million for Bush. Add those together, you get 132,895,200 total, with 54.94% of the population in solid Bush states, and 45.06% in Kerry territory. ****By these numbers alone, you can see how Bush is WAY behind where he should be.****

Now let's look at the leaners: 10,116,880 in Bush-leaning states vs. 4,178,703 in Kerry-leaning states. So, Bush-leaning states engaging in early voting outnumber Kerry-leaning states by 2-1 in population- this should push-up Bush's numbers above 50% even more, although it's hard to gauge how much without getting into specific percentages. If you like, you can say that about 53% of leaning states go to each candidate, which would add these numbers to each:

Bush leaning- for Bush 5,361,946
Bush leaning- for Kerry 4,754,934
Kerry leaning- for Kerry 2,214,713
Kerry leaning- for Bush 1,963,990

That's a total of 7,325,936 added to Bush, and 6,969,647 added to Kerry, for totals of 80,341,940 for Bush vs. 66,848,650 for Kerry. That adds up to 147,190,600 total, ****with 54.58% of them going for Bush, and 45.42% going to Kerry.*** Again, those numbers do not bode well for Bush if he's only pulling in 51%. It simply should be higher.

In short, Bush's 51% to 47% lead with the massive advantage he has in population is well behind where he should be.

BTW, I didn't even factor in the fact that, all in all, Bush's "strong" states are MUCH stronger than Kerry's. Bush's vote percentages in his strong states get up into the mid-sixties, while Kerry's only get into the high fifties in California, not even that high in Michigan. This must mean that the battleground states are voting heavily for Kerry.

[Guaranteed]

1. Kick.

Any responses? Yay, maybe?

This means Bush people aren't voting as much as Kerry people, folks. Based on these numbers, we're going to win BIG.

Any thoughts?

[RevolutionStartsNow]

4. My thoughts are "My God, man,

put down the Excel spreadsheet and go to bed!"

Seriously, thanks for doing this. I think you posted in the thread where these numbers were first announced that you would check it out and get back to us. I'm wondering if you worked for 6 hours on this.

In any case, your hard work proves what my first glance told me, that these numbers were actually BAD for Bush, not good. He should be much further ahead. I read somewhere that early voting typically breaks big for Republicans, mostly because of where the early voting is.

[Guaranteed]

7. Nah, that wasn't me, I don't think...

I only spent about an hour on this.

It's really important, though- this is an early look at what turnout is really going to be like. And so far, we're beating the shit out of this guy.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

10. Thanks for doing it!

Sometimes I look at these polls or other stats and I watch people freak out and I think "That can't be right", so it's good to see this broken down into real numbers.

You were very generous to Bush in this assessment, as you said, which makes it even better news for us.

[sonias]

2. kick for looking over some more

Thanks for all the hard work on this BullGooseLoony. Need time to digest it though.

Sonia

[Guaranteed]

5. It's not a perfect model, but it's lack of perfectness

is actually an advantage for BUSH- due to the fact that I didn't use voting percentages for the strong states (I used a 1-1 ratio), Bush's *expected* percentage should actually be even HIGHER than it is- like around 56-57%.

Seriously, we're going to KICK ASS in this election.

Thanks for reading it, though- I know it's tough to wade through.

[Randi_Listener]

3. Shit!

It's a hit in any man's league. Chimpy McFuckstain is fucked.

[high density]

6. FYI, the ABC Poll was not an exit poll

It was a typical poll, but with the added question asking whether or not somebody had voted or not. Nine percent said they had already voted, and of those folks Bush had 51% of the support, Kerry 47%. I think that given the sample size of this entire poll (2600 people or so?) that means about a 118 votes for Bush and 108 votes for Kerry.

[Guaranteed]

9. Hmmm...that's not a good poll to go by, then...it includes all states,

as all states have absentee voters. However, looking at the article it does say that Republicans are more likely to vote early than Democrats.

In any case, addressing only early voting, not by absentee, these are what Bush's numbers should be around in any exit poll. If it's close, even within six or seven points, we're winning handily.

[PermanentRevolution]

8. I'll kick because that's more math than I would do

But I'm just wondering what happens if you re-weight using the voter turnouts from 2000. Not everyone in each state votes, I'm sure, and other posts here have led me to believe that Dems typically vote in larger numbers.

I'm not bashing your work. I hope your math is right, because that would be great news. And I know early-voting trends are very different than election-day trends as far as party turnout goes. I'm just asking a few questions.

Good work, though. I'd have never even thought to re-weight the numbers according to state populations. Let's hope you're right!

[Guaranteed]

11. Well, like I said, this model is far

from perfect, but it only favors Bush.

Any poll for people who have voted had better show Bush winning about 56-44 (damn, I forgot Nader- oh well) or he's screwed (assuming the trend stays this way until election day).

[PermanentRevolution]

15. Works for me.

Thanks again for the hard work on this!

:toast:

[Carla in Ca]

12. What an impressive breakdown!

I have a thought, though. The repugs have a more solid base. The dems have, because of our big tent, many groups in our base. It has always been harder to get them all to the polls.
Your findings seem to prove that this year, his base is softer than it should be, and Kerry is getting unexpected votes, like college kids and some Arab and Jewish Groups.

[Guaranteed]

14. That's exactly what this shows.

Our turnout is massive in comparison to Bush's, at least so far.

[Carla in Ca]

16. So, tell me...

Do you think his 'civil unions' comment today will have an impact? Let's be honest. I don't see them flocking to Kerry but perhaps may cause them to not vote?

[Guaranteed]

17. I think Kerry's Mary Cheney comment might have

hurt the Republicans more than the media realizes.

Yeah, I think this wedge issue is actually working *for* us, now, perhaps depressing their turnout a bit.

On the other hand, I think a helluva lot of people just HATE Bush, and it could be, and this is pure speculation, that those who get polled and say they are going to vote for Bush just don't give a shit as much as the rest of us- they certainly aren't as well-informed as we are.

[Carla in Ca]

18. What about Keyes' comment about Mary?

A REAL insult?
And, *'s civil union comments today now put him in agreement with what cheney said in the 2000 debate. And where does the hate amendment now fit into all of this?
The repugs have got to be dazed and confused (I hope).

[featherman]

13. Glad you played with the math, Bull

Confirmed my first instinct on looking at the states "polled":
"hmmm... this looks pretty bad for Bush"

[Guaranteed]

19. Looks like my methodology is flawed

as the poll taken includes absentee voters from ALL states...this still bodes well for us because of the early actual voting (not absentee) being concentrated in red states, but it diminishes the lead that Bush should have in early voter polls.

Damn absentees. :(

[PermanentRevolution]

20. Take heart...

Most absentee ballots are usually military, no? I know we've been encouraging absentee votes in BBV states, but so have the Repubs. So the "new" absentees may offset each other, yes?

Still an interesting piece of work.