In each of the battleground states, which candidate will win and by how much? On what logic and evidence did you base your prediction?
When I make my predictions, I start with some objective criteria. I begin by estimating the vote in each state without considering the candidates or the campaign. How should a generic Republican do against a generic Democrat in this particular political climate? Then I add the candidates and their campaigns to the mix.
What you do not want to do is start by looking at the current poll numbers. That is not an explanation. These numbers do give you some indication on how effective their campaigns have been in that state, so you can use it to help you estimate the final numbers.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
18 comments:
Pennsylvania
Before I made any predictions, I wanted to do a little research regarding Pennsylvania, and the political breakdown of the state. Pennsylvania is a very diverse state, where there is no one dominant political ideology. The state is comprised of working class individuals within areas like Pittsburgh, while also including many white-collar business owners in the wealthy suburbs of cities like Philadelphia. Democrats tend to dominate in the urban areas of Pennsylvania where as Republicans are strong in the rural regions and suburbs. When I also investigated the United States Senate and Congressional break downs of the state, I found that these positions were also evenly divided. Pennsylvania has to Senators; Arlen Spector, who is a Republican and Bob Casey Jr., who is a Democrat. The state also has 19 congressional districts, represented by 11 Democrats and 8 Republicans. Such an assorted mix of people ultimately gives no one presidential candidate an advantage when targeting potential voters within Pennsylvania. Therefore, Pennsylvania is constantly divided during election time, and candidate’s battle to gain majority to win the key 21 electoral votes.
I believe it is also important to view the breakdown of past elections before making an educated extrapolation of the 2008 Presidential election in Pennsylvania. In the 2004 election, Kerry vs. Bush, Pennsylvania was cut right down the middle. Kerry barely pulled out the victory, winning 50.92% of the popular vote to Bush’s 48.48%. Interestingly, Kerry only won 12 of the 67 counties within the state, but still managed to win the electoral votes because the urban cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Erie had the highest populations. It is also important to note that Pennsylvania, although usually a key battleground state in most elections, has not voted Republican in a Presidential election since 1988.
Now that I have compiled all of this information, I can now make an educated guess regarding which candidate I believe will win in the upcoming election on November 4th. Urban cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia make up a larger population than the rural areas and therefore, I believe Barack Obama will win the 21 electoral votes of Pennsylvania. Especially now, where I believe we are undergoing a political realignment, I feel the Presidential race will not be as close in this swing state like it typically has been in past elections, notably 2004. In 2008, I believe Obama will win Pennsylvania by a striking 10% margin. Currently, in the RCP Average Poll, Obama is winning in Pennsylvania 52.5% to 41.5%, an 11% margin. Although McCain has been heavily campaigning in the area over the last few days, his efforts will not be enough to sway swing voters over to the GOP. At least in 2008, and like it has been for the last four Presidential elections, I believe Pennsylvania will be a blue state.
I think predicting the winner in Georgia is as simple as looking at the past presidential, senate, congressional races, the demographics and how they traditionally vote. In the senate races of the last 6 years Republicans have defeated the Democratic candidates successfully and this year the incumbent is expected to retain the senate seat. The congressional districts of Georgia are a little more evenly split (7-6 in favor of the GOP), and the 2008 race for the 8th district is going to be very competitive and the Democratic incumbent could possibly lose his seat. For President, Georgia has voted Republican since 1996 and Bush won in 2004 by 17%. Another area to look at is the demographics of Georgia. 62% white, 40% of household incomes are above $50,000, and 37% are Baptist. These demographics are consistent with the typical southern Republican. In the most recent Rasmussen poll McCain is leading by 5%. Many other polls have McCain leading by as much as 16 or 18%. The Real Clear Politics average poll has McCain leading by 4.2%. I feel confident that Georgians will vote for the old Republican in this election, staying true to their demographic and consistent with other political offices.
In the 2008 presidential election, I believe that the State of Virginia is going to vote for Senator Barack Obama. Virginia has been more of a Republican state over the past presidential races. A Republican candidate has won Virginia since 1968 and there have only been a few Democratic winners before that. Although in the past four elections, Virginia was only won by a Republican by a small amount. However, Virginia has been leaning more Democratic as the presidential race nears an end. This state has a large African-American population and many suburbs in the northern part of the state that are tipping Democratic. So Senator Barack Obama has a good chance of winning Virginia. Bill Clinton only lost Virginia by only 48% to 46% in 1996. George W. Bush won in this state by 52% to 44% in 2000, but lost Northern Virginia. As more and more people are looking for change, the polls project that Senator Obama will win Virginia by 6.4 points (52.7% to 46.3%). I think that in this election, Barack Obama take the state of Virginia by 4 points. This state has tended to be more Republican in the past and if it votes Democratic, I think that Obama will only win slightly.
Colorado
Colorado has an interesting demographic. This state has one of the highest Hispanic populations, as well as a significant Mexican population. This could steer Colorado to be more democratic than republican. The more metropolitan areas of Colorado are also increasing in size dramatically, pushing the state more on the democratic side as well. However, there is a strong republican affinity in certain parts of Colorado, and for the past two elections, Colorado has voted for Bush. Still, I think the ever increasing Hispanic, Mexican, and Asian population may cause Colorado to become more democratic.
For this campaign in-particular, Obama seems to have a strong likelihood to win in Colorado. The continuous growing immigrant population will continue to have an effect on how Colorado will vote. Not to mention, the surrounding states tend to go more liberal, and an overwhelming majority of polls seem to predict a democratic win in Colorado. According to fivethirtyeight.com, there is a 94.1% chance the state will go democratic. Not to mention, McCain has removed a lot of funding for his campaign from Colorado. All of these factors combined seem to predict a clear cut win for Obama. I am pretty confident that he will win by about 5 points.
Missouri
Before I made a decision I wanted to do some research on the state of Missouri considering I knew very little about it besides that it held the city of St. Louis. I learned that it is a Mid-western state which holds many different types of blue collar workers. The state has a population of about 5.9 million with about 70 percent being Catholic. Missouri is the only state with 2 federal reserve banks, which makes me assume that it has a deep interest in the country’s economy. Also the state was a part of the confederacy during the civil war which could be a problem for a black political candidate if racial discrimination still dominates in the state today.
The recent polls have shown McCain to be about 1 point ahead in Missouri at the current moment. I think by the end of the election McCain will win the state by 2 percentage points. I came to this conclusion by looking at the trend of polling from Missouri over the last few weeks and months. McCain did hold a strong lead in Missouri but recently the trend has been shifting more towards Obama. I think with the lection so close and McCain’s lead still intact he can pull out the win by a small margin. Obama has been spending 3 times as much in Missouri and has more than double the campaign offices there but I think some of the racism and conservatism will overpower Obama’s push for a victory there. Also since this has been a Republican state for so long I think it will be hard for any democratic candidate, let alone Barack Obama, pull out a victory there. Bush won handily in Missouri in the 2004 election and I think the history between the state and the Republican party still runs too deep for Obama to overcome it.
West Virginia
I am predicting that Senator John McCain will win West Virginia with an 8% margin. This state has strong unions and is actually 56.21% Democratic and only 29.38% Republican. Many of their political offices are held by Democratic incumbents. However, these Democratic incumbents are considered conservative by Democratic standards. Also, West Virginians are 94.9% white and 75% of them are Christians. George W. Bush won West Virginia in 2000 and 2004. His policies on gun control and abortion played a significant role in this. In addition, the New York Times said that “two in 10 white West Virginia voters said that race was an important factor in their vote.” This gives Obama a distinct disadvantage.
McCain’s campaign only has one office in West Virginia and it is right in Charleston. This means that he thinks he will win the state, but hopes to persuade some of the more liberal voters in the city to support him. Obama on the other hand, has six campaign offices and has been spending a lot of money on advertising in West Virginia. He recognizes that he will not win the state unless he manages to convince a lot of people to vote for him and I do not think he will.
I determined that McCain will win because he has advantages with the culture of West Virginia. However, I think he will only win by 8% because the people are predisposed to want to vote Democratic, as a majority of them are. Real Clear Politics has recent poll results in West Virginia and the average is 8.5 more for McCain. One of the polls has an 8% win by Obama. Since I think McCain will win, I am throwing out this result. The new average is 8.13% which is very close to my 8% prediction and enforces this as a reasonable assumption for McCain’s win.
Before making a prediction of who will win Indiana, I first looked at previous presidential elections in the state and found that 14 of the last 15 elections were won by a Republican candidate. The last time a Democratic candidate won in Indiana was in 1964. Even though this may suggest that Indiana will be an easy victory for McCain, recent polls predict that it will be a close race. According to Survey USA, there is likely to be a tie in Indiana between McCain and Obama. Rasmussen suggests that McCain will win by three points, while Selzer has Obama as the victor by 0.6%. This inconclusive data from the polls is not enough to make a prediction of which candidate will win Indiana.
As a result of this unconvincing data, I decided to look deeper into the make-up of Indiana’s government. I found that a democrat was much more likely to win a race for state government than for presidency in this state. Five of nine districts in Indiana are represented by a democrat. However, when it comes to presidential candidates, historically, Indiana is almost certain to vote Republican. Since 1900, the state has only supported four Democratic presidential candidates, in 1912, 1932, 1936 and 1964.
Taking into account Indiana’s voting history as well as the current polls, I predict that Sen. McCain will win in this state with a 2.2% margin.
New Mexico
This state is mostly, although not strongly, democratic. Right now in the state 50% of registered voters are democrats and only 33% are republicans. The state voted for democratic presidential candidates in 1992, 1996, and 2000, but voted for Bush in 2004. Bush's win however was a very narrow one and I think was mostly contributed to the fact that he was an incumbent. Also, very recent results of early voting in New Mexico show that about 53% percent of people who voted early were registered democrats and only 33% of early voters were registered republicans. Of course these results do not indicate who was actually voted for, only what party they are from but it is still a good indication. Realclear politics indicates New Mexico as leaning democratic and according to fivethirtyeight.com Obama should win by a pretty decent margin. Based on these predictions and the tendency of the state to vote democratic in the recent past, I predict an Obama win by 6 points.
Nevada
First, I looked at the polling histroy in Nevada. Ever since the election of 1988, Nevada has been a battleground state that has been won by under 4% every year. They voted for Clinton and the democrats and then Bush and the Republicans. Also, Nevada is split with 1 republican 1 democrat in the Senate, but had two republicans, and one democrat in the House of Representatives. Next, I looked at some of the current issues. The biggest issue in Nevada is the foreclosure issue. As of May 2008, for 17 straight months, Nevada had the nations highest foreclosure rate. This issue will appeal to a president who leans towards lower and middle class homeowners, typically the Democratic nominee. Another big issue in Nevada is Immigration laws. Nevada's casinos and agricultural jobs are filled with immigrants, so they are desiring a president that is supportive on liberalizing immigration laws. Also, all the residents are worried about using Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a site to drop off nuclear wastes.
Next, I checked the demographics of Nevada and saw that the percent of Hispanics is much bigger than the normal percentages. Also, there is a less percentage of people that completed there bachelors degree in comparison to the United States as a whole.
After looking at the past elections, the main issues, and the demographics of Nevada, I get the general idea that they will be edging towards the Democratic side this year. Obama seems like the best candidate to deal with Nevada's main issues. Real Clear Politics has Obama with a 5.8% edge. I predict Obama will win, but not by as much. Since the election has been decided by under 4% in the last 4 i expect the trend to stay. Obama will win, but only by 3.7%.
North Carolina
Prediction: McCain +5%
A brief look at North Carolina's history would suggest that McCain is a lock to win this state. Located in the heart of the Bible Belt region of the South, once can instantly guess why. North Carolina is known to be overwhelmingly Protestant, specifically Southern Baptist. In addition to sharing the same faith as McCain, this bloc makes up a large part of the "religious right", which almost always vote heavily Republican. As well as having two republican senators, the last time the state of North Carolina voted for a Democratic candidate for president was Carter in 1976. In recent presidential elections, George W. Bush won by more than 12 percentage points in both 2000 and 2004. Also, North Carolina's population is 70% white, a group that tends to vote more Republican.
So then why do I only pick John McCain to win by only 5% in this supposedly GOP stronghold?
First, there has been an influx of Roman Catholics and Jews to the state, two demographics that tend to vote Democrat. Second, a quarter of the population is African American, a traditionally left-leaning demographic that polls indicate will vote overwhelmingly for a black candidate. Third, North Carolina's urban centers, which also tend to vote Democratic, have experienced rapid growth in recent years.
And perhaps the most important factor hurting McCain's hopes of an easy victory is the current public backlash against the Republican Party and the current administration. In the current political climate, a Republican should expect heavy resistance just about everywhere, which explains why some polls actually show Obama leading in North Carolina by the slimmest of margins.
Having said all this, I still believe McCain will decisively win this state, as I believe that old habits die hard. I feel this southern, formerly segregated, state will be heavily influenced by race on election day, which added to the other factors will presumably give the state to McCain.
Montana
To predict Montana’s candidate selection, I first looked at the exit polls from the 2006 senate election. I did not look at which candidate won the election, but rather, the political ideologies of the voters. The data shows that 32% of the people who voted in the senate race identified themselves as democratic, 39% republican, and 29% independent. Looking at these numbers, I then temporarily assumed that each person will vote for his/her party’s candidate. I then evenly split the independent vote giving one half to each party. At this point, John McCain would have 53.5% of the votes, while Obama would have 46.5% of the vote. This method of determining how Montana will vote neglects the individuality of this election. With recent problems in the economy, the Democratic Party’s ideal of regulation is appealing to society. America’s dissatisfaction with Bush benefits the Democratic Party as well. McCain’s experience helps the Republican Party but his age and his selection of Palin have harmed his party. Montana’s strong family values increases popularity for the Republican Party. With all these considerations, I feel that the democratic base will strongly vote for Obama and two thirds of the independents will also give their vote to Obama. This dispersion would result in Obama winning the state by 2 points.
FLORIDA
For the past 40 years, Florida has voted predominately Republican in the presidential elections that take place every four years. Democrats have won the Florida electoral votes only 2 out of the past 10 elections. While this obvious Republican majority exists, it is also true that Florida is much different than the other southern states population-wise. With the influx of Cubans, retirees, and service workers to the theme park economy, among many other groups, Florida has become a much more diversified state – both economically and politically – than the rest of its neighbor states. Because of this large amount of diversity, Florida can be considered very representative of the United States as a whole. It is for this reason that, in the past 80 years, the candidate that won in Florida ended up winning the presidential race overall in every election except for in 1960 and 1996.
Florida is also unusual in that it's a place where the northern part of the state is southern and the southern part is northern. The main place where this doesn’t hold true is in Miami where many Cubans live; that demographic group tends to vote predominately Republican. However, despite these two pretty polar opposite sides of the state, some say that central Florida represents the state as a whole in that they tend to fall straight down the middle between Republicans and Democrats. This area of the state, according to the Miami Herald, houses 20 percent of the population but has 38 percent of the states registered independents. So the qualities that make Florida such a distinct swing state can be said to lie in the citizens of central Florida.
Republicans have had a history of winning presidential races in Florida. However, that doesn’t always apply for other political offices in Florida as well. The past two governors of Florida, Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist, were both Republican; however, they only comprise 2 of only 5 Republican governors in Florida history. Almost every other governor has been a Democrat.
So far this year, early-voting Democrats are outnumbering Republicans at those sites by more than 20 percentage points, and a WSVN–Suffolk University poll has Barack Obama leading over John McCain 60% to 40% among early voters. The majority of polls in the past week have seen a lead for Obama. Polls by American Research Group, Mason-Dixon, Quinnipiac, and CNN/Time show Obama anywhere between 2 and 4 percentage points ahead of McCain. Around this same time 4 years ago, Bush was ahead of Kerry by 5 percentage points. Overall, it seems as though Obama is just barely going defeat McCain in Florida. I would say that he will defeat McCain by only 2 or 3 percentage points in the end.
Despite the fact that most of this information shows that Florida is leaning towards an Obama win, I am still pretty skeptical and would not be surprised in the least if McCain ended up winning the state overall on Election Day.
Since 1968 and in 10 presidential elections, the state of Iowa and her seven electoral votes have gone 6 times to Republicans (1968, 72, 76, 80, 84, and 2004) and four times to Democrats (1988, 92, 96, and 2000). However, prior to the Democrats five victories in a row starting in 1988, the state has voted mostly Republican, “choosing a candidate from that party all but five times” since the Civil War. In 2004, Iowa picked George Bush over John Kerry by just .8% or 10,000 votes. However, due to the closeness of the 2004 presidential race and the eventual overall failure of Iowa’s chosen candidate for office (Bush), and despite Iowa’s history of voting Republican, I believe Iowa will choose a democrat (Barack Obama) for office in the 2008 election.
Iowa, with a population of 2,926,324, is 94% white. As of Aug. 1, 2006 there were 606,168 active registered Democrats in Iowa and 590,165 Republicans. There were also 724,925 independent voters as well. 31.3% of the population was in management or other professional related occupations, 25.9% worked in sales and office occupations, and 18.1% in production, transportation, and material moving occupations. The median Household income in 2000 was $39,469, below the national average of around $44,000. The majority of Iowa citizens work blue collar jobs as middle class Americans. Despite the Republicans’ tendency to win rural states such as Iowa, I believe the poor state of the economy will influence the middle class majority to vote democrat. Barack Obama has focused his campaign on targeting such a class of voters and has emphasized the change Iowa citizens are hoping for, in terms of the economy. Furthermore, 30% of the population consider themselves Protestant Christians and 25% are Catholic. Historically, Protestants have been a split vote in presidential elections and Catholics have tended to vote Democrat. This would give the Democratic Party the majority of Christians in Iowa. In light of the demographics of Iowa, I believe Barack Obama will be able to successfully win the independent and undecided voters of Iowa, soundly defeating John McCain.
According to realclearpolitics.com, the latest, average poll for the state of Iowa shows Barack Obama will defeat John McCain by 15.3 points, with the highest poll at a 17 point spread and the lowest at 14 points. I predict Barack Obama will win by a slightly smaller, though very convincing 12%. I predict a small drop in Barack’s victory margin due to rising fear that he may be too radical and liberal. Recently, the polls have showed a slight increase in McCain support, as the GOP and McCain campaign have launched last ditch efforts to portray Obama as a radical socialists. However, I believe this will not affect his overall victory in Iowa, and most likely the entire nation.
As a swing state, Ohio has had incredibly close outcomes in the past several elections. Furthermore, it is very important state for both candidates, as it holds 20 electoral votes, which is more than most swing states and can easily sway the outcome of an election, as was the case in the 2004 Kerry-Bush race. This year follows suit. McCain and Obama are extremely close in this state. The last several statewide polls, however, have come out in Obama's favor by a few percentage points. In the most recent ones, Obama has been able to reach a majority.
What makes Ohio tricky is that it has a fairly even balance of conservative and liberal population. This balance is defined by the urban and rural areas with both large blue-collar industries and white-collar commercial districts.
Although state politics are controlled by the Republican party, I believe Obama will win the Ohio vote. The main reason for this is because he has been able to narrow the gap between him and McCain with his weaker demographics. Recent statewide polls have shown him at 43-47 against McCain with older voters, which he has always had trouble gaining votes from, and 42-46 with white voters, compared to his overwhelming 91-6 majority with black voters. Based on these several statistics, I predict a 2 point win for Obama in Ohio.
Also, based on Ohio's past results, I think this will be a good indicator of who will win the election as a whole. Ohio has only sided with the losing candidate in two elections ever.
While Michigan has historically been a strongly Republican state since the turn of the century, in the last four presidential elections the state has begun to shift more towards the Democrats. This is reflected in the 2004 Presidential election in which John Kerry won the state with 51.2% of the vote. Additionally, fifteen of the last eighteen Senate elections have gone to the Democrats. I expect this trend towards the Democrats will continue in the next election, leading to Obama taking the state and its seventeen electoral votes. I think a large part of this support has come from the difficulties faced by the automakers, which constitute a huge part of the local economy in Michigan. Many of the autoworkers will connect to Obama’s policies, over McCain’s, which largely resemble Bush’s. The state has one of the largest unemployment rates in the country at 8.5%, which will undoubtedly play a larger role in this. Recent polls reflect this prediction, with the average poll having him ahead by about ten points.
New Hampshire
After looking over the polls it seems that Obama has about an 11% lead. New Hampshire is unique because it holds the first primary and receives a lot of compaign attention. McCain is well known throughout the state because in addition campaigning this year, he also won the 2000 primary in NH. The NH voters have been able to meet John McCain over the last eight years, he's held a lot of town meetings, and has given many speeches. Will it be enough for tomorrow? My best prediction says, no. I feel the polls are overstating the margin that Obama will win by, but at the same time I think Obama will take the state with ease. My guess has Obama taking the state by 6 points. In 2000 NH went to Bush, then for Kerry in 2004. It shows that NH has been fed up with the Bush administration for awhile, but I also looked at the Senate race between Shaheen and Sununu. Recent polls show Shaheen, the former Democratic governor taking the seat hands down. This provides further evidence that New Hampshire is ready to change things up. The economy in the North is struggling with the paper mills being shut down, and the last eight years have not been anything to brag about.
Post a Comment