[Electoral] College Bowl

In My Humble Opinion
1

This thread was inspired by Freedom’s GW Bush wins by a landslide.

He predicts that Bush wins over 400 electoral votes (out of 539).

OK, who do you think will win the election and by how many votes do you think he/she (there might be a woman running) will get.

Or give me your most interesting, wild, outrageous opinion on who wins what state. Darkhorses welcome. Please give a good reason why you think this candidate will win and which states. And limit multiple fatalities of disqualifications to four candidates, of your choosing. I will select the winner for this one on the basis of plasible absurdity. The situation can be as absurd as you want, but it must remain plasible.
The winner of the who will win, will be determined who is closest to getting the totals correct. You can announce it in your signature or something.

This contest closes Monday at 12:01am Eastern Standard Time.
Partial List of Candidates
[ul]
Main Contenders
[li]Al Gore (D)[/li][li]George W. Bush ®[/li]
Potential Spoilers
[li]Ralph Nader (Green)[/li][li]Pat Buchanan (Reform)[/li]
Battling for the Asterisk
[li]John Hagelin (Nat. Law and The other Reform)[/li][li]Harry Browne (Libertarian)[/li][li]Howard Phillips (Constitution)[/li][/ul]

Others can be found at http://www.darkhorse2000.com .

States and their electoral totals
[ul]
[li]Alabama – 9[/li][li]Alaska – 3[/li][li]Arizona – 8[/li][li]Arkansas – 6[/li][li]California – 54[/li][li]Colorado – 8[/li][li]Connecticut – 8[/li][li]Delaware – 3[/li][li]District of Columbia – 3[/li][li]Florida – 25[/li][li]Georgia – 13[/li][li]Hawaii – 4[/li][li]Idaho – 4[/li][li]Illinois – 22[/li][li]Indiana – 12[/li][li]Iowa – 7[/li][li]Kansas – 6[/li][li]Kentucky – 8[/li][li]Louisiana – 9[/li][li]Maine – 4[sup][/sup][/li][li]Maryland – 10[/li][li]Massachusetts – 12[/li][li]Michigan – 18[/li][li]Minnesota – 10[/li][li]Mississippi – 7[/li][li]Missouri – 11[/li][li]Montana – 3[/li][li]Nebraska – 5 [sup][/sup][/li][li]Nevada – 4[/li][li]New Hampshire – 4[/li][li]New Jersey – 15[/li][li]New Mexico – 5[/li][li]New York – 33[/li][li]North Carolina – 14[/li][li]North Dakota – 3[/li][li]Ohio – 21[/li][li]Oklahoma – 8[/li][li]Oregon – 7[/li][li]Pennsylvania – 23[/li][li]Rhode Island – 4[/li][li]South Carolina – 8[/li][li]South Dakota – 3[/li][li]Tennessee – 11[/li][li]Texas – 32[/li][li]Utah – 5[/li][li]Vermont – 3[/li][li]Virginia – 13[/li][li]Washington – 11[/li][li]West Virginia – 5[/li][li]Wisconsin – 11[/li][li]Wyoming – 3[/li][/ul]

Good luck.

[sub]* – Unless I’m mistaken, the states of Maine and Nebraska can split their electoral votes by proportion.[/sub]

2

Bush: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine (3), Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska (4), New Hapmshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming

298

Gore: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine (1), Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska (1), Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington

240
Nader support will be about 2-3% nationwide; the only states going over to Bush because of Nader support will be Iowa and Wisconsin.

No other third/fourth/fifth party candidate will get over 1%. Buchanan will get less votes than Browne.

3

I predict 319 electoral votes for Gore, and 219 for Bush. The specific breakdowns I laid out in the following web site that I put together:

[url=“http://www.geocities.com/nuclearfurniture/Election2000/soothsaying.html”>My state-by-state calls for the 2000 election.

As you can see on the site, my score of 319 to 219 is by no means definitive; that’s just an educated guess. I still think Gore’s going to come out on top, even if not by such a margin.

4

My predictions

Sorry. I screwed up the link. Why don’t we just post in regular HTML here, anyway? Sheesh…

5

I predict (unprofessionally, of course) that Bush will get the most electoral votes, and Gore the popular vote.
Ralph will get 6%. I hope.

6

Gore, 288-274.

I think Gore could actually lose the popular vote, but pull it out in the Electoral College. I don’t think that’s a good thing, but considering I’d rather see Nixon back from the dead and in the White House than have President Dubya, I’m willing to live with it.

Bush: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine (1), Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska (4), New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming

274

Gore: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine (3), Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska (1), Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin

288

Cthulhu 2000 – why settle for the lesser of evils?

7

Unless the get out your dead vote campaign gets out of hand in Chicago, that total can’t be possible. There are only 538 electors not 562.

[sub]Leeme double check my math in the OP.[/sub]

8

OK, as a reference point, 270 votes are needed to win (unless a third party manages to win in a state, which now is unlikely)

and RTF, it looks like you did the math right for Gore, so I’ll assume that you are predicting Bush with 250 votes, right?

9

I don’t think Maine and Nebraska split their votes by proportion. I believe they do it by precinct. And I don’t think they’ve split in quite a while. Any help or urls?

10

I’ve been searching of info on that, Connor.

From NARA.gov’s Electoral College FAQ

I assume Nebraska follows similar procedures.

11

MSNBC has (or at least for awhile had) a handy little game where you can award electoral votes and watch the candidates build up totals.

Under my scenario, if Bush wins Florida and Pennsylvania, it’s damn near impossible for him to lose, whatever Gore does. I figured this various ways (Gore wins California, Bush wins California, Gore wins Pennsylvania while Bush wins Arkansas and Tennessee, etc.) However, if Gore wins Florida, there are all sorts of scenarios that come into play.

My feeling is that, despite the volatility in California, Oregon and Washington, the race may be over by 9:00.

12

I’m not sure that site is right that Nebraska and Maine are the only states that allow exceptions to this rule. In 1988, four of West Virginia’s electors voted for Michael Dukakis, while one went for Lloyd Bentsen. One of Washington’s electors voted for Ronald Reagan in 1976, I believe, while the other electors went for Gerald Ford. I haven’t heard of this happening since 1988; every state went solidly one way or another in 1992 and 1996. I’ve looked at the results of past elections, and some states have had two- and even three-way splits, but that’s always been uncommon.

Maybe these states recently changed their policies on casting electoral ballots? I dunno. Personally, I prefer the winner-take-all policy; it seems to remain in step with the spirit of the electoral college. I’ve never been sure what the policy was on this.

13

Maybe[sup]*[/sup] you’re thinking about ‘faithless’ electors who decide not to vote for whomever they pledged to when they were chosen by the various delegations.
Generally all the states but ME and NE operate on a winner take all stragtey.

14

Well, remember- you’re not voting for a specific person’s electors, you’re voting for a specific party’s electors. Generally, those electors will toe the party line and vote for their party’s candidate, but if it’s already a losing battle, they’ll throw out votes to other candidates. Note that in the elections you cite- Reagan in '76, Bensten in ‘88- they weren’t actually candidates on any ballots. Reagan had lost the Republican Party nomination to Ford, and Bensten was Dukakis’ VP candidate. Any votes the two of them got were write-in votes, and certainly not enough to be worth an electoral vote no matter how you divide up representation. It was just electors deciding “Well, we’re losing anyways, so I’ll vote for the person I think would have been the better candidate, party loyalty be damned.”
Also, Chance, a few critiques upon your site-

*“Utah became a state in 1896 and has voted Republican in every presidential election since.” Actually, in 1964 Utah voted for Democrat Lyndon Johnson.

*“South Dakota didn’t even go for native son Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 elections.” Actually, you’re really talking about native son George McGovern in 1972. Hubert Humphrey also lost SD in '68, but Humphrey was from Minnesota.
And as far as HTML goes- it was disabled on this board several months ago when a hacker decided to show us how HTML could be used to screw with the vB software. Not fun.

15

**John Corrado—**Thanks for the fact-checking. I just went in and changed the site to read accurately. I was sure about Utah, but sure enough, you were right. Ditto about McGovern. (Regrettably, losing your own home state in the 1972 election is less of a statement, since that year the election was such an utter blowout, and McGovern, well… he was something of a zero.

Also, thanks for clearing up that stuff about split votes in the electoral college. That makes sense now.

16

D’oh! And to nitpick my nitpick, Utah also went for Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and FDR in '32, '36, '40, '44, and Truman in '48. So it’s a bit of a stretch to say it’s been Republican since it became a state.

Mea culpa for the inadequate nitpick.

17

**John Corrado—**Yeah, I just ran across that on a web site this afternoon while I was on hold. I’m going to have to pick some more nits when I get home. I can only get away with so much goofing off at work. I think it’s important, and so does my boss, but we’ve got different priorities, I guess.

I guess what I’m thinking of is the visual of Utah floating in a sea of Democratic votes in the 1912 election. Considering that it’s been going Republican for the past half century, that only reïnforced my misconception of its monoëlectoral history.

I’m gonna do some serious fact-checking tonight. Regardless, my call for Utah this year still stands.

18

I have my hands on the Washington Post’s Sunday Outlook section. On the cover is their 10[sup]th[/sup] Outlook Crystal Ball contest, where ‘pundits’ do their College Bowl predictions – as well as who’ll win the House and Senate (and as a special treat, Clinton vs. Lazio). It doesn’t seem to be online though[sup]*[/sup], so I’ll give you some highlights.

[li]Peggy Noonan predicts Bush winning 52% of the popular vote (Gore 43%, Nader 3%, Else 2%) and 411 electoral votes. She told me to say hi to Freedom[/li][li]Ben Stein believes Bush will carry California (nationally 50%-280 Bush / 45%-258 Gore /Nader 4%)[/li][li]William Kristol (46%-221B/47%-317G/6%N)[/li][li]William Saletan of Slate and Chris Matthews of Hardball predict a popular-electoral split. (S: 47%-254B/45%-284G/6%N – M: 47%-265B/46%-271G/5%N)[/li]
[li]Herndon [VA] High School AP government Has Bush winning 48% vs 46% (288-250)[/li]and Montgomery Blair HS [winner back in 1998] of Silver Spring, MD, gives Bush 46.4%-297 vs 43.9%-241 (and Nader just barely missing his target at 4.9%)

[sub]* The Washington Post is a wonderful newspaper website. Unfortunately, one of their shortcomings is they have difficulty with putting charts and tables online. Either they’re non-existant, or formatted strangely. Sigh[/sub]

19

Just wait a day and everything will be all right. The Washington Post now has their guesses up.

20

I’m pretty darn sure Gore will win.

I remember back when I was 15, watching the Dole/Clinton election. I hadn’t followed it closely at all, but I remember thinking that if Dole won, our country would be screwed.

The possibility of Dubya winning horrifies me beyond belief.

I think Gore will take the electoral college, but it will definitely be close.

Maryland will no doubt vote democratic.

I also think Gore will take California.

I’m also hoping Nader wins his 5%, which could happen. I know a hell of a lot of people voting for him.