Your biggest state surprise...

[Bogart]

The only surprise--and not that much of won--was WI. Looks like that's the only one I got wrong---at this point.

[Sibboleth]

Minnesota shocked me.

I got three states wrong, Iowa & Wisconsin (the two states I got wrong in 2000 as well) and Minnesota.

Iowa and Wisconsin I had as pure tossups, but I figured Minnesota would be very close.

The GOP ground game just didn't show up in that state.

The DFL won MN the old fashioned way. I think that most of Kerry's "strategists" can learn a lot from that.

[bushforever]

I thought WI would go for Bush and MN would be a lot closer than it was.  I'm also surprised in the NJ results being a lot closer than last time...most likely due to 9/11 and Kerry's lack of appearances there.

[Erc]

Nothing was really too surprising...except for the general trend that the Bush PV margin was huge but his EV margin was ridiculously small (for the PV margin)

[angus]

two atoms bump into each other at a cocktail party.

the first atom says to the second atom, "I think I lost an electron!"

the second atom asks, "are you sure?"

and the first atom replies, "I'm positive!"



Yeah, I was fairly positive that Bush would win.  But I figured Badnarik would break 500 thousand.  I made two small bets.  ten dollars each.  just friendly ones.  so I broke even.

my only upsets were Iowa and New Hampshire, and, of course, the fact that for the first time in a very long time a candidate actually got a majority of the popular vote.  I think its nice when that happens.  And when the PV and EV winner is the same.  Now we can all play nice again.  I hope.

Can you feel the love? 

[Vasall des Midas]

I should have trusted my trash little weighted poll average thingy - I would have got only WI wrong then.
Instead, I moved the three closest Bush states, OH, IA and NM, into the Kerry column - and they end up being just that, the three closest Bush states...

[muon2]

I agree that there weren't really the type of surprises that we've seen in past Presidential contests.

From my prediction I suspected (and disclaimed) that NM and ME CD2 were going to flip from my August forecast.  That only left WI and the closeness of IA as minor surprises.

The Redskin factor may be broken, but the Lichtman 13 Keys factor remains true to form, regardless of OH. It predicted a popular vote win for Bush this year, just as it predicted Gore's PV win in 2000.

[No more McShame]

I was really disapointed by MN & WI.  Suprised more by WI but I thought we had a really good chance of pulling MN off.  After the 2006 election, I'll have to determine if Republicans are really gaining in MN or if 2002 was a blip.

[Beet]

I was really disapointed by MN & WI.  Suprised more by WI but I thought we had a really good chance of pulling MN off.  After the 2006 election, I'll have to determine if Republicans are really gaining in MN or if 2002 was a blip.

I was really surprised by WI. I felt sure it was going Bush.

[George W. Bush]

 Wisconson

[TheOldLine]

What is the state result wich really upset you?

I would say West Virginia, I tought that it would be Bush +3, it's Bush +13

West Virginia wasn't that surprising after considering how quickly Kerry conceded the State, even while campaigning in OH and PA.   I figured that the internals had to show them getting slaughtered there.

The biggest surprise for me was the closeness of Nevada.

TheOldLine

[Sam Spade]

The biggest shift to Bush from 2000:

Alabama: 12 points (next highest, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Tennessee: 10 points)  I was at least close at that.

The biggest shift to Kerry from Gore in 2000:

Vermont: 10 points (next highest, tie between DC and Montana: 5 points)

Howard Dean helped more than John Edwards did.

[nclib]

Almost all states went as expected, with the slight exception of Wisconsin (which was close anyway).

As far as margin of victory is concerned, these states surprised me:

More Dem than expected: Montana, Oregon

More Rep than expected: West Virginia, Rhode Island, Alabama

Does anyone have an explanation for why Alabama had the largest swing to Bush...

[Vasall des Midas]

Kerry got slaughtered in the Tennessee Valley part of the state, where Gore won a couple of counties.
He also got slaughtered in the "Little Dixie" area of Oklahoma - there was a midsized cluster of Dem counties there on the 2000 map. It's gone without a trace.
Oddly, despite the fact that Bush gained big in Tennessee, there's quite a few rural Tenn. Democratic counties left. I would have expected to see something similar to Northern Alabama in Central Tennessee.

[Sibboleth]

West Virginia wasn't that surprising after considering how quickly Kerry conceded the State, even while campaigning in OH and PA.   I figured that the internals had to show them getting slaughtered there.

While that would be a logical explanation, by the sound of some (very reliable) info I got three days ago, logic just doesn't come in to it...

Seems as though Kerry's "strategists" started to pull pretty much everything out of WV almost as soon as it got there... and re-located a lot to Virginia... at the time internals seem to have had Kerry up in WV.

I could rant about this all day if you want, but suffice to say that the Local Party Bosses (who run most of the State) went " you and the donkey you rode in on" and didn't lift a finger to help Kerry in WV (some appear to have covertly helped the Bush campaign, and those evil little leaflets that caused Evangelical turnout to soar where almost certainly circulated by a bitter Party Boss. The WV GOP just isn't capable of thinking like that... or even thinking...)

It was all the UMW could do to keep Coalfield turnout at 2000 levels... if they had done what the State Party did, Kerry would have lost ala Kentucky.

This is the second election in a row where State and Federal Dems have been at War with each other.

[Democratic Hawk]

Kerry's 2-point win in Pennsylvania was surprising considering when CNN called it with 63% of precincts reporting, Kerry was leading Bush by 57% to 43%.

I was surprised by the extent to which Bush carried West Virginia, but not surprised he carried it.

I was surrpised Florida wasn't closer.

Dave

[Sibboleth]

I was surprised by the extent to which Bush carried West Virginia, but not surprised he carried it.

Read my numerous rants

[Umengus]

did a dem win without west virginia?

[Sibboleth]

did a dem win without west virginia?

Not since 1916

Whoever the Dems nominate in 2008 (Manchin for President!) they are going to have to co-operate with the State Party.

State and Federal Dems have been at War two elections in a row

[Vasall des Midas]

did a dem win without west virginia?

Wilson lost it in 1916!? Amazing...
Anyways, these "not since" things are misleading. Before 1992, no Democrat had ever won without carrying Texas since it became a state.

[Umengus]

WV is not texas. I want to say that WV is a better indicator on the capacity for the dem party to catch working class and without working class, it's (or it should be) difficult for dems to win presidential election.

[Sibboleth]

WV is not texas. I want to say that WV is a better indicator on the capacity for the dem party to catch working class and without working class, it's (or it should be) difficult for dems to win presidential election.

Manchin 08!

[Hitchabrut]

1. Wisconsin should've been Bush's best chance at a pickup.
2. West Virginia was trending toward Bush, but I expected him to win there by about 6%
3. North Carolina was only 1% closer than in 2000. So much for Johnny Edwards.
4. New Jersey disappointed me because It was so close for such a long time and then Kerry blew open a 7% win. At least Bush topped his 2000 performance.
5. Florida looked like a complete toss-up with a slight edge toward Bush in the final days of the campaign, but Bush pulled off a pre-debate sized win of 5% there.
6. Minnesota was closely contested but Kerry topped Bush by a margin higher than I expected.
7. Vermont looked like it would go for Bush by anywhere from 10-15%, but it was one of Kerry's strongest states.

Also, the networks were stupid to call PA before OH, because in the end, PA was closer.

[Hitchabrut]

I got 101 points for my state prediction. (5th place) My 2 incorrect states were WI and MN, which I thought Bush would carry by less than 1%.

[Shira]

Bush winning by 8% in Virginia. Guess the trend theory is down the tubes.

It seems that you don't really understand the "trend theory"

Further more, Florida is my disappointment because it went slightly against the trend and Florida is the only state where it happened.