The possible results of 2008 as they stand now

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

How are WV and AR leaning Republican when the only polls out of either have shown the Republican candidates down by a fairly wide margin?

a) This is where I think things are now. b) I think the Dems could win AR and WV, assuming Clinton or Edwards is the nominee.

I do still have overall doubts about WV's turnaround - AR is winnable, I just think WV will be a tougher ask.

[Hatman 🍁]

Arkansas is in safe "D" territory right now, but I'm skeptical about West Virginia. For all those painting AR Republican blue, wake up and smell the Clinton!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I do still have overall doubts about WV's turnaround - AR is winnable, I just think WV will be a tougher ask.

What's so hard about it? Do two elections now mean that it's a solid Republican state (despite having absolutely no movement toward Republicans on the state level) and can never vote for a Democrat ever again?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

No, of course not.

We all know that state level officials don't exactly correlate to national electoral standing, SD ME?

Having said that - even though the Repubilcans aren't exactly the best friends of coal miners and the poor, my concern is whether the 13% gap can be brought back. In order to win WV they bring back a good slice of the vote in the area of the state that borders KY and W. VA, it was in those counties that Kerry got hit hard. I certain don't think it's unwinable - but I do think it will be much easier to win AR than WV.

With AR in spite of the 9.5% margin, and losing several states along the "Democratic corridor" - he was more competitive in some counties toward the OK border than Gore was.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's too early to have much of an idea as to what next years results will look like; we don't even know who the candidates will be yet, and that matters a great deal in Presidential elections (sorry to be stating the blindingly obvious, but sometimes...).

Incidentally, I'm not sure if the 2004 results (anywhere) will be much of an indication of how things are likely to be next year. Whether 2008 will be as marked by class as 2006 was depends on various unknown factors, but class will certainly be more of a factor in 2008 than it was in 2004.