Talk Elections

One thing that is  interesting to follow is how the "swing states" trended in 2004. 

And by one definitiion, the Dems actually did pretty well.

In Ohio, for example, Bush won Ohio by 3.5% in 2000, while he lost the popoular vote by 0.5% - By this definition, Ohio in 2000 was 4% more Republican than the entire nation in 2000.

By contrast, in 2004 Bush won the entire nation by 3%, but won Ohio by about 2.5% - so Ohio is now 0.5% LESS Republican than the nation as a whole - a shift towards the dems of 4.5% in the 4 years (went from +4 GOP to +0.5% Dem)

Here are the other states:

A positive value means the state became More GOP oriented, a negative value more Democrat oriented.

7.30%   Alabama
6.99%   Tennessee - 11 EVs
6.15%   New Jersey
6.13%   Hawaii
5.44%   Oklahoma
4.67%   Rhode Island
4.10%   New York
3.65%   Connecticut
3.33%   Louisiana
2.97%   West Virginia - 5 EVs
1.95%   Delaware
1.73%   Florida - 27 EVs
1.65%   Indiana
1.49%   Nebraska
1.42%   Kansas
1.25%   Georgia
1.24%   Kentucky
0.95%   Maryland
0.94%   Utah
0.87%   Arkansas - 6 Evs
0.80%   Arizona - 10 EVs
0.42%   Missouri - 11 EVs

A Total of 60 EVs in "swing states" became more GOP Friendly

-0.16%   Mississippi
-1.30%   Massachusetts
-1.45%   Illinois
-1.58%   Michigan 17 EVs
-1.65%   Pennsylvania - 21 EVs
-1.97%   Texas
-2.02%   California
-2.28%   New Mexico - 5 EVs
-2.29%   Iowa - 7 EVs
-2.29%   South Carolina
-3.37%   Virginia
-3.78%   North Carolina
-3.80%   Wisconsin - 10 EVs
-4.00%   Wyoming
-4.18%   North Dakota
-4.48%   Nevada - 5 EVs
-4.60%   Ohio - 20 EVs
-4.62%   Minnesota - 10 EVs
-4.96%   South Dakota
-5.11%   Washington
-5.51%   Colorado
-5.59%   Idaho
-6.22%   New Hampshire - 4 Evs
-6.57%   Maine
-7.07%   Oregon - 7 Evs
-8.02%   Alaska
-8.11%   District of Columbia
-8.18%   Montana
-14.11%   Vermont

A Total of 111 Evs are now more Democratically inclined

This total of 111 includes Washington (11 EVs) and Oregon (7) which, I think it can now be argued, are no longer 'swing" states but would in a close election be considered part of the Democrats base.

To be fair, you might howver be inclined to count Arkansas and West Virginia as now being GOP "base" states.

What about Colorado?
Does the number there indicate that it is going to be a swing state?

Would be very interesting if Bush was allowed to run again in four years time.

As it is, some academic interest, but of no practical use at all...

I calculated 1.18%

(52.22 - 51.04) - (48.85 - 47.87) = 1.18

The people in some states are more persuadable than others. Calculating trends based on the national offset is foolish.

We are just calculating it differently.

In 2000 the vote in Florida was tied, while Bush lost the PV by 0.51% - hence Florida was -0.51 in 2000.

In 2004, Bush won Florida by a tad under 5%, in a nation he won by 3% - hence a +2 GOP slant.

I was going from "margin of victory" - you were using GOP total vote.

Good point. Bush's gains were mostly because he ran up larger margins in the states that he won, and reduced Kerry's margins in the states that he lost. In the swing states, not much changed either way, and thus they are now more Democratic relative to the national average.

As a result, whereas in the last election, the EC had about a 0.5% bias towards the GOP (as evidenced by the fact that Gore won the popular vote by about 0.5%, but lost Florida, the state that he needed to win, by 0.01%) but this time, it was about a 0.5% bias towards the Dems, since Kerry lost nationally by 3% but only lost Ohio, the crucial state for victory, by 2.5%.

So the EC, at least this time, favored Democrats, unlike last time when it favored Republicans. In 1996 it favored the Dems as well by this standard, but favored the GOP in 1992. So it really seems to swing back and forth and not permanently favor one party.

Bush won Ohio despite the fact that the state lost jobs.  Were I a Democrat these statistics would not comfort me in the least.

Ohio's going to loose a heck of a lot more jobs in the future, and perhaps more importantly, the median income is going to continue to decline.  So many parts of the US now have no economic reason for existing.

Every race is different. I don't think there was a lot of real trend this year. I mean, is Rhode Island "trending" GOP?

The parties each have advantages and disadvantages in terms of their current position- obviously the GOP has a lot more power at the national level.

If Bush were allowed to run again these statistics would be useful. He can't. They're not.

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Democratic strategists messed up in Ohio as well... not the farce that was their WV "campaign" but still...
Wasting so much time in Florida was the biggest mistake they made overall... I don't like Florida. Kerry should have got strategists that don't like Florida either.

Vorlon's point is absolutely true...the Democrats were much more focused on swing states and swing voters, and it worked...despite a big gain for Bush in the popular vote, they held on to almost all of Gore's close states in 2000, and in many of these states, won independents by double digits.  Kerry just couldn't quite overcome the strong nationwide turnout by Republicans.

This demographics of this election bode well for the Democrats' Electoral College hopes in the future.  But they bode extremely poorly for their hopes of retaking the Senate.    Bush won 26 states by more than 6%, although these states have only 222 electoral votes.

Kentucky Results 2004:

Bush: 59%
Kerry: 39%

Bunning: 51%
Mongiardo: 49%

Without the boosted Evangelical turnout because of the Presidential campaign, Dr Dan would have won.

Because Bush will not run again, it makes most of these assumptions we're making with regards to these sort of things probably wrong.

However, I would note that I personally predicted many times (as opposed to Shira's theories) that in this election that Florida would be 2-3 to the GOP side of the Bush margin in the popular vote.  I thought Ohio would be 0.5% to the GOP side of the popular vote because the bad jobs economy (was 1% off there) and that Pennsylvania would be 3-4% to the Dem side of the popular vote.

As a rule, unless Franklin County in Ohio is getting more Democrat (and I don't think it is, unless this jobs thing continues to grow), Ohio will trend Republican in the future as the exurbs of Cincinnati grow and act like Kentucky and Indiana in voting patterns and Cuyahoga County and NE Ohio tends to lose population.

That's how the GOP won this election; it's how they will be successful in Ohio in the future if they can keep Franklin county under wraps.

The Democrats do not have any chance to take the Senate in the foreseeable future. The Reps won all heavily Rep states. There were only two real contests this time, in FL and in CO. Remember that the number of predefined Rep states is much greater than the number of predefined Dem states. The Democrat senators in ND, WV, MT and NE could be the next ones. On the other hand, Rick Santorum of PA and Gordon Smith of OR could also be removed.
In the house the Democrats have a better chance.

We control enough state legislatures to gerrymander our way out of any serious Democratic competition in the House. You'll just have to win the presidency, or you're screwed.

The "margin" is going to be screwed up because of the Nader collapse. If it was Kerry 48% Bush 48% Nader 3% before, and Kerry 50% Bush 49% now, with Nader not on the ballot or not receiving significant votes, Kerry's margin over Bush improved from 0 to +1, but Bush actually gained in the state because Kerry's improvement came from the fact that Nader is no longer such a force.

There are only three states that I can tell so far where Bush lost in his percentage from 2000: VT, MT, and ME.

Gordon Smith is well-liked in OR.  He works well with the state's Democratic Senator and the people of Oregon seem to like that arrangement.  He won by over 10 points in 2002.

Not true actually. Unless all the GOP controlled legislatures pull a DeLay (and that would NOT be a popular move) you can't gerrymander your way out until the next re-districting.

Vorlon,

After looking at some of these states, it seems that Nader's stronger 2000 showing relative to his showing in 2004 is skewing things a bit.  For instance, Montana looks like it became relatively much more Democratic.  However, Nader polled about 6% in 2000 versus 1% in 2004.  Not coincidentally, Kerry did about 5 points better than Gore did in Montana.  Therefore, combined with the national swing of Bush +3, it looks like MT swung much more than it did.

Is there any way to "weed out" the Nader effect in your analysis to figure out what the true swing is?  I suppose you could simply add the Nader vote to the Gore vote and do the whole excercise over, though assuming that all Nader voters preferred Gore is not a good assumption.  Any ideas?

Er, Vorlon, check this out:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/892gyemc.asp?pg=2

Dems won't win either senate or House for some time. Congress has now picked up on the national trend and realigned the South...Democrats in Congress are where Democratic presidential candidates were in the 70s and 80s...not in a good position.

It will improve later on, but senate favours Republicans due to their larger number of states and House due to gerrymandering and better control of state legislatures.

Also, I did some rought calculations and it appears to me that Bush heavily carried those persons who voted in 2004 but did not vote in 2000.