Election Prediction
For posterity sake, I am making my prediction of the 2004 election. The polling has been so back and forth with the added difficulty of probably lacking accuracy that it has been tough to make a good estimate, but here goes nothing.
John Kerry wins the presidency. Kerry will garner about 51% of the popular vote and will collect between 300 and 310 electorial college votes. Of the battleground states, Kerry will probably win the following; Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Florida, New Hampshire, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Nevada. George Bush will take Missouri, West Virginia, and Tennessee. Arkansas is a coin flip, but I'll give it to Kerry. Two states that were not considered battleground states seem now in play, Hawaii and Virginia and I think Kerry wins one of them.
Here are the various reasons that I think Kerry wins bigger than the media seems to think.
One, I believe the polling has been generally underestimating the Kerry numbers because of the youth vote (many that can't be polled because of cell phones), the many newly registered voters (the get out the vote effort by Democrats has been very good), and finally I think the polls have been slightly biased to Republicans (only about 20% of calls to poll respondents are in the statistics and I think Republicans are more likely than Democrats to finish a poll survey).
Two, at this point in 2000 Al Gore was down about 4% to Bush and look how close that race was.
Three, of the last undecided voters they will mostly break for Kerry. Historically about 60% of undecideds break for the challenger rather than the incumbent.
Four, Kerry has the slight momentum due to the last week of news events that have been mostly toward the negative for Bush. Iraq news, missing explosives, bin Laden tape that shows Bush hasn't captured him.
You can bet I'll be up all night watching election returns. I think this year the networks are going to be much more cautious about calling the election for either candidate, but then again if one makes the call the others might succumb to follow-the-leader-itis. So unless it seems to be breaking big for one of the candidates, we may have a long wait. Naturally I'll be pulling for Kerry as I just can't stomach another four years of Bush. I'll be highly disappointed if Bush wins.
It certainly could come down to lawyers and legal challenges in as many as three or four states. Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Iowa all seem like possible recounts and courtroom contentions. I hope I'm right in my prediction in Kerry winning bigger than expected as maybe the election will not be dragged on for weeks and months. I'm not sure our country could go through another 2000 without a mass disgust with our election system from both sides of the political spectrum.
At any rate, go vote tomorrow and may the candidate with the most votes win!
John Kerry wins the presidency. Kerry will garner about 51% of the popular vote and will collect between 300 and 310 electorial college votes. Of the battleground states, Kerry will probably win the following; Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Florida, New Hampshire, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Nevada. George Bush will take Missouri, West Virginia, and Tennessee. Arkansas is a coin flip, but I'll give it to Kerry. Two states that were not considered battleground states seem now in play, Hawaii and Virginia and I think Kerry wins one of them.
Here are the various reasons that I think Kerry wins bigger than the media seems to think.
One, I believe the polling has been generally underestimating the Kerry numbers because of the youth vote (many that can't be polled because of cell phones), the many newly registered voters (the get out the vote effort by Democrats has been very good), and finally I think the polls have been slightly biased to Republicans (only about 20% of calls to poll respondents are in the statistics and I think Republicans are more likely than Democrats to finish a poll survey).
Two, at this point in 2000 Al Gore was down about 4% to Bush and look how close that race was.
Three, of the last undecided voters they will mostly break for Kerry. Historically about 60% of undecideds break for the challenger rather than the incumbent.
Four, Kerry has the slight momentum due to the last week of news events that have been mostly toward the negative for Bush. Iraq news, missing explosives, bin Laden tape that shows Bush hasn't captured him.
You can bet I'll be up all night watching election returns. I think this year the networks are going to be much more cautious about calling the election for either candidate, but then again if one makes the call the others might succumb to follow-the-leader-itis. So unless it seems to be breaking big for one of the candidates, we may have a long wait. Naturally I'll be pulling for Kerry as I just can't stomach another four years of Bush. I'll be highly disappointed if Bush wins.
It certainly could come down to lawyers and legal challenges in as many as three or four states. Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Iowa all seem like possible recounts and courtroom contentions. I hope I'm right in my prediction in Kerry winning bigger than expected as maybe the election will not be dragged on for weeks and months. I'm not sure our country could go through another 2000 without a mass disgust with our election system from both sides of the political spectrum.
At any rate, go vote tomorrow and may the candidate with the most votes win!
posted by jon at 11:45 AM
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