Illinois or Michigan -- More likely to vote Republican

Which state is more likely to vote Republican in the 2004 Presidential Election?

Certainly not Illinois. Thanks to the recently indicted Governor Ryan, the Illinois Republican Party is in disarray. Also, Al Gore won Illinois in 2000 by a huge margin. I don’t see GWB making up that much ground this time around.

Neither. States don’t vote. :smiley:

Seriously, what Frostillicus said about Illinois – there’s some serious GOP discontent this time around because of local issues. No opinion on Michigan.

Frostillicus is dead on about the Illinois Republican Party: they’re still smarting after the Ryan scandal, and Illinois has been trending Democratic in recent years, anyway. Gore took Illinois by a huge margin over Bush, and it’s more Democrat-friendly than ever.

Michigan is a bit more variable. It leans Democratic, particularly with all the labor unions’ influence there. However, Bush’s weak dollar policy has been increasing overseas demand for American goods, which could be a shot in the arm for Michigan and other manufacturing states. If Bush can claim credit for helping Michiganders, then his chances in the state are improved. This tactic might work, since a weakening dollar is bad for interest rates and the trade deficit, but the short-term gain might serve Bush in this year’s election. If interest rates have to rise this year, then Bush’s trick could backfire.

Michigan also has a large Arab population, and they’re not all that enamored of the Bush administration right now. Michigan Arabs came out strongly for Bush in 2000, but he probably can’t count on that again. Looking at facts as they stand right now, Michigan will probably go Democratic in 2004, but with just under ten months to go, it’s too early to say for sure. Michigan was a battleground state in 2000, and unless Bush or the Democratic nominee is caught on tape saying something like “I fucking hate Michigan,” all indications are that it will be one again.

Illinois is too liberal to be anything other than democrat in 2004.

Michigan cant even elect a republican to a statewide office, both senate seats and the governor are democrats, and there are too many jobless in Michigan to vote for bush.

All the close states(from 2000) should go to Dean this time in 2004, giving Dean a near landslide, for 2 reasons, the democrats are not discussing gun control(no anti-clinton/gore vote this time) and too many people/ex-republicans have lost their jobs since bush got elected.

Actually, as the arab community in detroit is largely ex-pat iraqi chaldeans, there has been and still is a considerable amount of support for him. I live in a city with a large chaldean population and they actually had the only arab-based PRO-war rallies that I’ve seen.

My guess is that Michigan will go Democratic. This is more from personal experience than anything else.

Most of the people I knew outside my family were pro-Bush in the last election, but very few of them are now. (I get to say “I told you so” a lot). Also, during the last election, Engler was Governer who was big in the Republican Party (There was talk of him being a VP candidate) and Gore still took the state back then.

I’m no political science major, but it’s my gut feeling that it’ll go Democratic.

Sure they do. It’s called the electoral system.

There is an anti-affirmative action measure that’s going on the ballot in Michigan, and there is some noodling that this may get more people to the polls, especially democratic-leaning folk. Remains to be seen how much a factor it will truly be.

Um, correction, it might be on the ballot. They haven’t begun the process of collecting the signatures, but I don’t think they’ll fail to do so.

The Illinois Republican Party, as mentioned before several times, has, for all practical purposes, collasped. The Reps have gone from holding all statewide offices and both houses of the state legislature (in 1994) to holdng only one statewide office and neither house of the state legislature.

With Michigan, it’s hard to say. The Reps control both houses of the state legislature, but they lost control of the governorship in 2002. It depends on how the blue-collar, socially conservative part of the electorate votes.