Florida and Ohio

This is a post relating to my comment to wormwood’s post with regard to the possiblity of a victory for Bush without Ohio or Florida. His assertion is that it is unlikely that a Republican candidate can win any midwestern states (excluding IN, MO) and simultaneously lose Ohio. Below is a trend graph that highlights the recent electoral history of the result for the Republican Presidential Candidate (the percentages are relative to the result for each Republican nationally in the respective election years)

This graph includes results for the midwestern states of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Ohio plus Florida. The rank order of these midwestern states is idential between 1996 and 2000 – and almost parallel. From these data, wormwood’s assumption that other midwestern states will not likely “cross-over” to Bush without Ohio is reasonable.

Note the opposite trend in Florida. If the voting trend shown in the graph continues into 2004, it appears that Bush will lose Florida before he will lose Ohio. Without Florida, Bush must pick up Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Mexico or Oregon, while keeping New Hampshire and West Virginia.