What a great question for Great Debates. How’s about you bring it up over there instead of hijacking this thread?
Sorry. Mea culpa. George to win by 67 states.
Let me start by saying that this long before the election, polling numbers are not necessarily a good predictor. But just for fun, let’s go to the numbers anyway.
The Electoral Vote Predictor site collects the available state polls, and currently shows Kerry at 317. If we discard any poll with a margin of less than 5% (reasonable margin of error), then Kerry stands at 236 and Bush at 157. But if we try the gedanken experiment of only discarding polls with a margin of less than 4%, then we get Kerry at 269 and Bush unchanged.
It’s a long time until November, but if the election were tomorrow, I think Pres. Bush would be heading home to Crawford.
What about the effect the Bush-Kerry debates will have? I think a lot of people are waiting to see how each candidate performs before they make a choice.
First, know that my election predictions are always wrong.
I think it’ll be Bush again. Same score, too. 5-4 :dubious:
This gentleman seems to have a much more methodical approach to calculating the tally, and also subscribes to several polls that are not made public domain until 3 weeks after they’ve been closed. He uses the “old” convention for Red and Blue states, but aside from that seems like he does a pretty sound estimate.
He also shows that it’s close, but currently slipping towards Kerry. But he does give some historical perspective: this time four years ago, it was close and slipping towards Bush, and we all know that Bush eventually lost.
One other point to consider: in a two-candidate race, a 5% margin of error applies to each candidate. A 50-50 split with a 5% margin of error means that it could be 45-55, or a 10-point race.
EV margin by 100? No way.
I predict another squeaker, but not as squeaky as 2000.
Bush is gonna win again, and I think he’ll take the popular vote too, but not by much.
The Dems are pretty desperate so I could see another Supreme Court mess. They’re going to demand recounts in any county where they even remotely think they can gain ground.
If there is a big push for the black vote that actually gets some traction (maybe banging the drum on the 2000 Florida disenfranchisement) in October, I could see that skewing results. Historically, they haven’t been very pollable, and may be showing up as unlikely voters on the stats. In the past, there was pessimism about two rich white guys asking them for their vote. I think that at the least, we can count on Blacks who voted in 2000 to vote in 2004. Quite a statment considering their historic turnouts.
While I do care who wins, what I care about even more is that I hope that the election is not another one like the last one.
If have to sit through the Dems and Republicans both screaming that the other guys are trying to steal the election, I can see a high powered rifle and a bell tower in my future. 
I mean I will flat flip out and go postal.
I think Kerry’s pretty much guaranteed a popular vote victory. How many people do you know who voted against Bush in 2000 plan on voting for him in 2004? And Bush lost the popular vote in 2000.
It will be a squeaker, but pollingreport.com is favoring Kerry.
There is almost always a bump of some size after the convention, And with the Rep. convention still to be held, there’ll be at least a short term swing back toward Bush I figure.
Bush 53%.
Uhhhhh. Quick question: What sources lead you to this conclusion? Especially from abroad? Not attacking, just asking. 
I’m with those who say it’ll be a squeaker. And I think some surprising states will flip (in both directions) from their expected choices. There is an enormous pool of frustration and anger, and most people are lined up with their “gut” emotions and political philosophies. Neither Bush nor Kerry is a particularly inspiring speaker, so the number of votes either of them can sway is limited. Edwards could make a big difference for Kerry, but it’s too soon to really know, and may remain too soon until November 3rd.
Thanks to Jurph and JohnM for those links. Coming from a parliamentary democracy, it was really tough to understand exactly why the popular vote means squat in U.S. elections until I sussed out the electoral vote, but I’ve yet to go looking for something that analyzes the U.S. state-by-state.
I can probably manage another bet, Sam. What’s the US equivalent of $50 Canadian these days?
I’ve been contemplating some sort of link-dump thread in GD, to have a central clearinghouse on the board for election-related links. Maybe this weekend.
That’s about $3.98, right? 
http://www.electoral-vote.com/ is slanted towards Kerry; I suggest comparing its conclusions with http://www.electionprojection.com/elections2004.html which is slanted towards Bush, yet still projects a Kerry victory with 327/211 electoral, and 51.3%/46.9% popular.
The bias on that latter site is evident. Consider the link “21 Reasons Why Bush Will Win” and the bullet points on states won/lost.
Yeah, that’s one of the things that’s making me feel good about that bet. With 2.5 months to go Kerry’s in the driver’s seat.
Of course…so was Dukakis.