The two major parties have declared their candidates and there’s a little less than 3 months to the elections.
Who do you think will win?
The two most possible scenarios in my mind are:
Gore wins, tho not by much. During the debates, Bush will flub something and show his temper (just like the infamous “pop quiz” of a few months ago). His popularity will plummet and he loses.
No candidate gets a majority in the Electoral College. Buchanan and Nadar draw enough votes away from Bush and Gore, respectively, that the election in thrown in the House and Senate.
If I recall right, you only have to win 17 states to have a majority in the electorial college. Which sucks, cause basically you can ignore small states and hope you win big in the big ones.
I dunno. I see a lot of Bush’s popularity coming from the fact he’s not connected to Clinton. Otherwise, I’m not any of that is going to help him.
Gore needs to distance himself from Slick Willie fast and big. Call him a womanizing bastard a few times or something.
Let’s say the debates happen, and Bush doesn’t improve, and Gore doesn’t excite enough. We have a stupendously boring election, no one cares enough to vote. Low turnouts, even more so that before. It might go to Gore simply because things are going seemingly well, so people are afraid to change. If Gore can get that point across, he’ll win.
I think he’ll take enough big states and a few small ones to give him the votes he needs.
I think Buchanan and/or Nader carrying a single state is approximately akin to pigs flying. Even at best, Nader is only getting around 10% in any polls; Perot got around 15% and didn’t carry any states. Unless a dozen more candidates, each getting 5% of the vote, jump into the Presidential ring, Nader would have to quintuple his popularity in order to carry anything.
Bush comes into the election with a strong lead in nearly all respects. While Gore’s convention bounce seems to be putting him neck-and-neck with Bush popularity-wise, Bush has less perceived negatives and less people saying “I’d never vote for him.” Bush’s base of “standard Republican states” has several more electoral votes than Gore’s base of “standard Democratic states”, so Bush needs to do less campaigning and can do more focused use of advertising money.
Finally- and in my opinion, most importantly- Bush doesn’t have as much opposition at his heels as Gore does. Buchanan is threatening to take away some of the more ‘social conservative’ Republicans; but Buchanan will probably take away just as many protectionist Democrats from Gore. Meanwhile, nearly all of Nader’s votes will come from Gore.
I discount the debates as being particularly useful; most polling data shows that who you think did best in the debate depends upon who you supported going in, and it’s rare for a debate to actually change someone’s mind about a candidate.
I also think that Bush’s chances of screwing up during a debate are equivalent to a scandal hitting the Democrats (either Clinton does something egregious, or Al Gore lets loose another half-truth-half-exaggeration, or Hillary makes another faux pas in her Senate race); so I doubt that the campaign season will actually change matters.
My prediction- which with two quarters will buy you a can of soda: Bush wins with 52% of the popular vote and 278 Electoral votes, and Democrats win back the House (though the Senate remains Republican, but with a slimmer majority).
Well, except by that generalization, it’s actually better to campaign/advertise in small states.
Why? You get electoral votes based on Number of Representatives + Number of Senators. Which means that individual votes in the smaller states are worth more- in an electoral sense- than individual votes in the larger state.
So if I know that making a campaign stop generally gets 30,000 people to show up and switches the votes of 5,000 of them, I’m better off campaigning in small states where that number of votes is more likely to result in carrying the state, and guaranteeing me 3 or 4 or 6 electoral votes.
And in practice, size doesn’t really matter in terms of attention; what matters is margin. California’s the biggest state in the Union, electoral-vote-wise, but you won’t see many campaign appearances or targeted ads there because it’s generally accepted that Bush will only carry California if the election is already landsliding in his favor.
I think personality is destiny, in these races (barring any overriding issues). This has been the case in the last 5 elections. Bush has the more likeable personality. So he wins.
I agree with John Corrado about Buchanon and Nader.
I think the impeachment issue is a big winner for the Democrats. If the race is close and the Republicans try to bring it up, they will be punished at the polls.
The debates can be big - they almost cost Reagan his reelection. And significantly, the outcome is almost completely dependent on who the media declare to be the winner. However, Bush benefits from a lowered expectation for his abilities, as compared to Gore.
I want to see a 269-269 tie in the electoral vote. I suppose it’s mathematically possible, but I doubt it will happen. Then I wonder if one of the electors will change sides.
Ahh, I can only dream.
Seriously, though, I see Gore having an uphill climb to get back into the race seriously. Bush would have to make a major gaffe for people to stop liking him. Most people are aware that Bush has a thin public record and most don’t seem to care.
> I think Buchanan and/or Nader carrying a single state is approximately akin to pigs flying.
I agree.
I see Bush winning about 40 states, & the GOP keeping their majorities, maybe losing or gaining a couple of seats, but no big change from what they have now. This election looks like 1984 or 1988.
As I’ve said for some time, Gore is going to win, for two main reasons:
1.) It’s still a long time until the election. Bush, in my opinion, has the potential to do something really stupid and blow it.
2.) Nader is pulling down 8% or so nationwide, and I think a lot of those people will chicken out and vote Gore. (Not to mention the fact that Nader won’t even be on the ballot in some states.) It might be enough to swing a few close states in Gore’s direction.
Here’s a better question–who is going to win your state? Kentucky is seen as a swing state, since it’s a state full of Republicans who are registered Democrats, but I think Bush will win by double digits. This is, after all, the state that keeps inexplicably electing Mitch McConnell (despite my best efforts).
I have a gut feeling Bush will come out on top, but even though I’m a liberal, I don’t think that will necessarily be a bad thing, and here’s why: I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that whoever wins, he will only serve one term. That means if Gore wins, he will come up for reelection in Naught-Four and be beaten. I’d rather see Bush win, do a piss-poor job, then lose to a real liberal next time 'round. It would be especially cool if it became evident that Nader’s influence caused Gore to lose, prompting a leftward shift in the Democratic party.
I’ll say that if everything stays the same (no major screwups or scandals on either side), Bush will win. Indeed, I don’t think Gore canwin this election–I think the Democrats have to hope that Bush losesit. (Which, given the Republican campaigns in '92 and '96, is certainly possible.)
In Congress, the Senate will remain Republican regardless–maybe with a smaller margin, or maybe not. The House is a tossup, no matter who wins–Clinton had no coattails in his elections, and I doubt Bush or Gore will either. (As a personal matter, I prefer that at least one house of Congress be controlled by the party out of power in the White House–it cuts down on the blatant stupidity that will otherwise emerge from the feds–but that’s neither here nor there.)
As for Pennsylvania, it’s the same situation as nationally–unless something changes, it’ll go for Bush.
Same in Georgia…but Gore has a chance. (Unlike Mississippi)
Nader isn’t on the ballot here, and that might go in Gore’s favor. Plus, we’ll have high turnout because of the Senate race, and a whole lot of people like Zell Miller (to the tune of 85% approval ratings when he left office last year).
Bush will win. We will revert to an 80s type of decade and have a strong fundamentalist hailstorm and have televangelists preaching the evils of the internet and electronic music.
I believe the race is too close to call at this time. Too many variables that need to be played out. As a moderate conservative, I am pulling for Dubya However, I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if we finally have an election where one side wins the popular vote yet loses electorially. What was it…1960…where it was under a 10,000 difference?
which is a difference of 118,550 in the popular vote.
A lot of the questions about that election centered around possible vote fraud in Illinois and Texas, either or both of which might have gone for Nixon with an honest count. Kennedy took Illinois by less than 10,000 votes (which may be what you were thinking of), and the tradition at that time was that Richard Daley The First held Chicago/Cook County election results until after Downstate totals had been reported–a fine way to know what vote totals were needed to win an election. Kennedy took Texas by less than 50,000 votes, and there were apparently some questionable things going on there as well.
Anyway, I doubt there will be a winner this year without a plurality of the popular vote.
I live in Houston (worst air in the US!). I think the Bushlet will win, and two things will happen :
The economy will turn sour.
People will realize how much of a moron he is. That, and we can share our Giant Texas Ozone with the rest of the country.
He’ll get the boot in 2004.
Only problem with this is the Supreme Court. I see a bunch of those old-school liberals retiring in the next 4 years, and I shudder at the thought of 10 more years of a conservative court. Prayer in schools and the rollback of abortion rights are just the tip of the iceberg. Next will be great legislation like English as an official language, school vouchers (yes, I know Lieberman is for this) and the complete deterioration of public schools, less tolerance and treatment of drugs, more mandatory minimums, flag burning amendments, less gun control etc etc.
Worst case scenario is of course, that the Bushlet will precipitate the end of the world. In August 2004, we’ll launch the first of the new comprehensive missile defense satellites (after cost-overruns of $1 trillion and limited proven efficacy), and to “test it out”, Russia, China, and North Korea will launch a full scale nuclear attack on us. Course, all the missile defense will do is hit one $39.95 ballon decoy stuck in one of the MIRVs, leaving 300 nuclear warheads to impact on fill in American city of your choice. All that’ll be left alive in this hemisphere will be D. radiodurans and Periplaneta americana.
However, I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if we finally have an election where one side wins the popular vote yet loses electorially. What was it…1960…where it was under a 10,000 difference?