Election prediction, pre-GOP convention

Great Debates
1

So as of right now, before the GOP conclave in New York City, what’s everyone’s guess as to who will be elected President in November?

(Please note: I’m not asking who you would want to win, I’m asking based on the current political landscape, who do you think will win. Keep your policy debates in other threads.)

Some data points to consider:

Electoral Vote.com has a pretty nifty state-by-state breakdown based on the most recent polls in each state. Right now, it has Kerry winning the EV 280-238, although it shows California in the “Barely Kerry” column, due to a recent poll putting him at 49-46%. It’s thought this poll is an outlyer because it’s so out of line with other polls.

If you want a similar site that’s blatantly pro-Bush, go to www.electionprojection.com. It has Kerry winning by an even bigger margin, 311-227.

A pro-Democratic site with emphasis on polling discussion is Donkey Rising. Right now it shows a series of polls in the battleground states, with Kerry leading all but Ohio and West Virginia. But most of those leads are pretty small, less than 5%, and some are within the margin of error.

Today’s LA Times poll (free registration required) shows Bush ahead by 3%.

Things seem to be trending Bush’s way a little bit, and the convention should probably continue things in that direction. The Swift Boat ads are definitely hurting Kerry, and his response has been slow and anemic.

But the economy is not improving, we’ll soon hit 1,000 dead servicemen and -women in Iraq, and a majority of Americans still think the country’s heading in the wrong direction.

And of course, the electorate is highly partisan and things aren’t likely to swing drastically one way or the other.

So who do you think is going to win? What are the campaigns doing right or wrong? What other factors are out there that could tilt this thing one way or the other?

2

Kerry, barely. Best evidence: the Swifty Fiasco. People are notoriously suckers for political slime, it always works. And the Swifty slime was thermonuclear, if they could press it into the electorates mindset that Kerry lied about his medals and his service, no way could Kerry recover. He might as well have been caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy.

But the polling numbers indicate a marginal reaction on what should have been a devastating attack. If the Bushiviks could have retained even the slightest plausibility, they would have harvested huge rewards. As it is, they appear to have only affected such persons who read only the accusations, and never the retractions. To my happy surprise, this doesn’t seem to be as many people as I would have thought.

There is no more juice to squeeze from this rotten lemon, the Swiftie Slime party is over. And it will fade, there is no more news to keep it fresh. The Hannity/Limbaugh nexus will try to keep it alive, of course, but they are preaching to the choir, not changing minds.

The numbers for Bush have been on a long, slow slide. This blip will fade, and the long slow slide will resume. If he could have gotten 10 points, he might survive. But he seems to have only gotten 2 or 3, not enough.

Kerry will just barely win the election. Whether this means he will actually be inaugarated remains to be seen.

3

“Whether this means he will actually be inaugarated remains to be seen.”

Huh? Kerry’s not supposed to get shot, is he? I thought the Great White Chief elected in 2000 was the sacrificial doofus. Of course, with Cheney playing puppeteer & Gore winning the popular vote, the forces of the 20-year curse may just have been confused on whom to target. And then there was the whole discussion during Whitewater/Lewinsky of just replacing it with an impeachment every 20 or so years. I guess I’m just a traditionalist.

Oh, wait, this isn’t the Illuminati MB? Umm, ^fnord^YOU’RE NOT CLEARED TO READ THIS.

4

My personal feelings is that Kerry will win by a small margin or electoral votes, but a < 100,000 popular vote.

He has two months to reinforce what lying f*cktards the SBVFT guys are. I think he can do it.

5

:smack: feelings are…ugh me no spell

6

This won’t be an ordinary election.

Scenario 1: Bush procures ObL just before 09/11/04. No October Surprise connotation, and all the more fanfare. Probable Bush victory.

Scenario 2: Several assassinations take place on the night of the election and once the dust settles, Nader is the most significant candidate still alive. Eep.

7

Eternal pessimist that I am, we’re in for four more dreary years.

8

My current take on this is Kerry wins by a very small margin in both the EC and the popular vote.

This is subject to change of course…the biggest change being if the economy shows real signs of picking up. I’m almost of the opinion though that its too late now for an economic recovery to save Bush.

-XT

9

While I wish bloodshed upon very few (certainly not a PotUSA, that’s criminal) this sounds like a marvelous scenario to me. I think that it would have recuprerative effects on our political system as a whole for generations to come.

10

October is the month to watch. I’m predicting that third quarter retail sales results will be the worst in 2 years, oil will hit $50 a barrel, and job creation will fall way short of expectations. All three will produce a reality check of Perfect Storm proportions, sending the market into a tailspin (down 300-500 points). That it is a short term event is not relevant; the sheeple will be spooked, Kerry wins by 2 percentage points in the popular vote, and a walk away in the EC.

It’s the economy, stupid.

11

Remember Bush’s deal with the Saudis to suppress oil prices? October is the month to watch for that too.

12

I’m predicting a Kerry win (which I’ll admit I favor).

The two sites mentioned in the OP, which are basing their predictions on polls and electoral vote breakdowns, are both predicting a Kerry win. As the OP noted, one of these sites is pro-Bush and has no reason to predict this if it didn’t have some accuracy behind it.

Up to now, negative ads against Kerry seem to have done as much damage to Bush as they have to their intended target (as is evidenced by the fact that many Bush supporters are calling for an end to negative ad against Kerry). And now that the Bush campaign is acquiring a reputation for negativity it will be more dangerous for them to use any other negative material they have.

The RNC will probably give Bush a jump in the polls but I don’t think it will be big; after four years, the President is a known commodity.

The next big hurdle will be the debates. And I think even Bush’s most ardent supporters would agree that verbal sparring is not his strongest suit. The Presidnet would probably count it a victory if he emerges with a draw.

I think voter apathy will favor Kerry over Bush. The most passionate issue is Iraq. It’s obviously a hot issue and will prompt some voters to change their usual voting patterns. And I think the direction it will go will be voters who normally don’t vote who will vote for Kerry because they are against the war and other voters who normally would vote Republican but will sit out this election because of conflicted opinions.

And as I said in another thread, I look back on 2000. Gore got more popular votes than Bush did. And I’m confidentally predicting that more people who voted for Bush four years will be jumping lines than the other way. Add in the fact that many 2000 Nader supporters will probably vote for Kerry this time.

13

I’m going with Kerry. I really don’t think Bush will win Ohio. I’m in the battleground area of the battleground state. This economy has HURT Ohio badly. Lots of articles about jobs lost and layoffs. I wonder how bad Columbus would be if it wasn’t for the state Government, University, and health care?

I see Kerry winning Ohio, PA, MI, and a good chance at West Virginia and Missouri.
Even giving Florida to Bush, Kerry still wins.

14

On the other hand, Bush has managed to take Kerry’s best hits so far with only superfluous gains. It’s been neck-and-neck for months now.

But whatever. Whoever wins, I just hope it’s by more than a half-dozen votes. Another Florida Fiasco will… irk me. Slightly. To say the least.

First candidate to try to take the recount to court loses any support from me. :rolleyes:

15

Thre’s still some wicked nasty shit in store for the Bush team. Not from the DNC so much as the DoJ.

Even if Bush were to be elected this year, he’s still DOOMED. The next SSCI report on Iraq deals with the Admin’s use of the intel on Iraq. It’ll be like an official ‘fuck you’ to the current Bush Admin. If Bush loses, it’ll only be worse.

Members of my party are discreetly clambering over one another to get away from the Bush Admin. How many GOP Congressmen can you name who have asked Bush to campaign with them recently? Only the ones for who can’t unhitch their wagons to the dead bird.

Bush is an albatross around the neck of the party. It’ll be embarassing if he wins because we know that he’s fucked even so. It’ll mean nasty, nasty investigations that’re bound to pull in ‘bystanders’. No one who’s anyone wants to be one of those ‘bystanders’ who gets sucked in to the Bush Admin’s shitstorm. The prepositioning is already taking place. Here and there, you can hear a murmurs.

He’s going down and everyone knows it.

16

Watch Tom DeLay (R-Undead). Also known as “The Hummer”

If friend SimonX is right (from his lips to the ears of Allah!) then you will notice some slippage in his iron grip. Congresscritters are a feral lot, when they smell blood in the water, the flesh will fly.

But I disagree just slightly about the investigations coming up. Yes, the results are likely to be damning, but not as damning as they might be if the Dems hold the chairs of the investigating committees.

And frankly, I don’t think they give a shit. All they want is to get to the next Inauguration. Even if they win by 5 votes nationwide, they will pretend they have a thunderous mandate from the people. Hell, they did it last time and they lost by half a million! They are hoping that given another four years, they can turn things around and no one will care how badly they fucked up before. Not much chance of that, sure, but they’re choosing between slim and none.

With GeeDubya in office, they can cover up anything by declaring it a matter of national security. But if Kerry is in, then all the boxes will be opened, and the trajectory of the shit will intersect the locus of the fan.

And science will finally have the answer to that nagging question: can a middle aged man actually chortle into a coma?

17

If Kerry wins, we’ll get four years of right-wing slime attacks that will make the Clinton years look like a love sonnet by comparison.

If Bush wins, we’ll get four years of neoconservative politics, unrestrained by the fear of alienating voters in the next election.

Whoever wins… we lose.

18

Do most polls report likely voters rather then registered voters? I wonder if those people who are holding their noses and voting for Kerry are being pegged as unlikely voters. I believe it was the Aug 19th CNN poll which showed Kerry with only a 2% lead among likely voters but a 10% lead among registered voters. I was looking at the questions and they didn’t just ask who you would vote for among these candidates but polled how they viewed the candidates and a few issues. And it looks like the 2% was the one being used by at least one of those EC sites. If that’s the case some of those barely Bush states could flip.

I’m looking for an uptick in the voter participation. I expect Kerry will win a majority of voters nationwide by quite a margin and will take the EC with nearly 300 points. What’s amazing about the electoral-vote one right now is it has Kerry losing both Ohio and Florida and still winning. Although just by 2 if you toss even Colorado to the red side.

19

Bush win.

To this observer, Bush is the candidate who best characterises the blinkered nationalistic paranoia currently sweeping the US electorate (at least, the few who actually vote). It will take at least four more years of the consequences of backwards, Third World politics for the US electorate to start asking themselves “Hey, you know what? Maybe the entire rest of the industrialised democratic world isn’t so wrong after all”.

I wonder what might be better: Four years of right-wing Kerry’s minor ineffectual tinkering with the status quo which left the US electorate no less backwards, or four years of ultra-right-wing Bush’s major revision of the phrase “The Land of the Free” whereupon the electorate emerges, blinking, into the 21st Century sunlight.

Overall, I think a Bush win might make America better in the manner of a national political Heimlich manoeuver.

20

I’d like to believe this. I really would, but a lot of people have spent four years swallowing what’s been shoveled at them. Heck, there are people that still think France and Germany out to be next on the invasion list and Saddam was behind 9/11. I think it would take a pretty big oopsie on Bush’s part to make the electorate wake up.

As for the op, I think Kerry will squeak out a win due to increased voter turn out and maybe a few of Buchanans Florida votes going where they wanted to go before. Iraq is going to motivate those who would not have voted and some of those that voted Nader to vote simply to get Bushco out of office.