Are only 10 states still "competitive states" (as suggested by Wash Post)

[papau]

Does DU agree with Dan Balz of the Washington Post that only 10 states are still "competitive states"

Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia and New Hampshire, with West Virginia and Nevada major, major challenges for Kerry - more so than the other 8.

Are the other 11 "battleground states" really leaning too far to be called "competitive, because - per Baltz- we have -7 Leaning toward Bush which are: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia - with 4 leaning toward Kerry which are: Maine, Michigan, Oregon and Washington.

And of the 10 that are still "competitive", the Bush team will be putting major money to win into Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, while they view Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as states they can make Kerry work very hard to defend, and see West Virginia and Nevada as quite likely to go their way.

Is it really down to a huge effort to fight the above battle, while the winner of 2 out 3 of Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio wins the election?

[blondeatlast]

1. I'm a Zonie, and I still say AZ is winnable.

Edwards is in Tucson, a Dem stronghold and the second most populous county, tomorrow. Pima County is also geographically large and near the southern US border, which leans heavily Dem.

Northern Arizona is in play, too.

Send us your karma, prayers, spells, and what-have-yous!

[Awsi Dooger]

2. Regarding your last sentence, yes

I would estimate that candidate has at least a 70% chance, probably much greater

[olddem43]

5. If Kerry wins 2 out of these 3 he wins for sure but

If Bush does the same, it may be about even.

[tridim]

3. Kerry just took a 2 point lead in Colorado

It's definately competitive, leaning and trending towards KERRY.

[speedoo]

4. I would say Colorado could be added to the 10.

Maybe Virginia, North Carolina and Arizona as well. Polling in all of these states over the next couple of weeks will tell the story.

I am hoping that Kerry can start reeling in some of these contested states soon.

The Ohio/Florida/PA two out of three arguement won't hold up if Kerry can win a state like Colorado.

[Ediacara]

6. Where else is winnable for Kerry?

Missouri and Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada and Arizona (Kerry leads in Colorado according to the latest polls, and is tied in Nevada), Tennessee and North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, and West Virginia. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as Washington and Oregon are strawmen put out by the Bush camp of states they think they can pick off, but have little to no chance of doing that.

[elperromagico]

7. Arkansas is highly competitive.

I haven't seen any polling from here in a while where Bush had a commanding lead. A few polls have had Kerry with a narrow lead. Arkansas is going to be close, IMHO, though I give Bush a slight edge.

[Guaranteed]

8. Missouri is definitely still a battleground state.

Have a look at my analysis, which is slightly different than Balz's:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=794871

[Lefty48197]

9. Pretty much. We don't NEED to win 2 of 3(FL, OH, PA)but it sure would help

If we don't win two of those three, then we have to win MO, or else WV and NV.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. We really need Ohio --

I think Pennsylvania should go our way, but I wouldn't count on Florida even if we win it again -- someone posted an editorial today from the St. Pete newspaper that served as a reminder that the Florida legislature was willing to send their own Bush electors to D.C., no matter what the Florida vote count was.

[knight_of_the_star]

10. As far as I know

The West Coast is a lock for us, in spite of what the polls may say. In the last three elections the West Coat has done dem, I doubt that is likely to change anytime soon. That and in '92 and '96 we took Nevada and considering how some of Bush's policies have been for the state I would not say it is out of play for us, not by a long shot.

[askew]

12. I would take NH out of the battleground states.

There hasn't been a close poll for quite a while in this state. NH is going to go Kerry. I would put MN in the lean Kerry category. The reason MN was close in 2000 was due to Nader and he isn't even polling above 1% this year in MN.

I would put CO and MO as battleground states. There has been very close polling in both of these states. Has anyone seen polling on LA? At one time it was close.

MI, OR, WA and ME appear to be locks for Kerry according to current polling. Kerry is above the margin of error in the polls for all of these states. I would consider that more than a "lean Kerry" state.

From this article, it looks like they want it to appear that Kerry needs to defend the Gore states, but Bush has sewn up his states. And I just don't think that is true.

[MAlibdem]

13. I think most polls show colorado for kerry??? nt

[featherman]

14. Balz' list is kind of silly

Very much tilted to some kind of "popular President Bush" bias but let's work with it.

First, It is misinformation to list OR, WA, ME, MI, NH as competitive. More competitive than, say, Kansas or New York, I suppose, but they will all be DEM in the end. Bank on it. I'd probably add PA and NM to this list but will cover them in next group for the sake of argument.

Of his 10 so-called battlegrounds, five are historically DEM and likely to remain so, closely perhaps. I have seen no real signs, however, to indicate these will actually flip to GOP in 2004:
PA, MN, WI, IA, NM

The "anybody could win" battlegrounds at this point are probably:
NV, FL, OH, WV (all Bush 2000 states)

Kerry's possible flips include all seven of the above listed as leaning GOP. I don't disagree that historical trends indicate they are soft GOP at this time but consider some of them more likely to go DEM than his list of "leaning to Kerry" are likely to go GOP:
AZ, CO, MO, AR, LA, NC, VA

The GOP strategy of going after MN, IA, WI is a good one, though. My guess is that the target there is white Catholics. All are polling close (about +2 for Kerry) on the one hand but all three have voted DEM for 4 straight elections on the other. A wildly popular GOP candidate might pull it off.

The "two out of three" formula from 2000 is outdated, I think. PA is a likely Kerry win. The new "big three" are MO, OH, FL and Bush needs all three or he is in trouble in the EC count.
Caveat: How does Bush win without taking all three? Only by winning two of MN, IA, WI.
Caveat #2: How does Kerry still win if he loses all three? Winning NV and something else (most likely a split of CO"s 9 EV's, but also possibly flipping WV, AR, AZ , NC, VA, or LA)
Caveat #3: this all presumes hard work, good turnout, no major scandal or October surprise, etc and national horse race polling that is as it stands right now (within 3% or so).

[Sheldon Rowan]

15. I think he's off

I usually see most of the Gore states safe for Kerry and a bunch of Bush states weak for Bush.

There's enormous variation in the polls this year, partly because turnout is uncertain, but partly I think for dishonest reasons. I think they lowball Kerry to prevent a bandwagon effect. I think Bush is in serious trouble.

[wuushew]

16. There are some possible ties in this list of 10 states

FL,MI,WA,WI,MN,OR,NV,NM,WV,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,OH,MI,WA,MN,OR,NM,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,OH,MI,WA,MN,OR,NV,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,OH,MI,WA,MN,OR,WV,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,OH,MI,WA,OR,NV,NM,WV,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,OH,MI,WA,WI,OR,NM,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,OH,MI,WA,WI,OR,NV,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,OH,MI,WA,WI,OR,WV,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,PA,MI,WA,MN,OR,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,PA,MI,WA,OR,NM,WV,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,PA,MI,WA,OR,NV,NM,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,PA,MI,WA,OR,NV,WV,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
FL,PA,MI,WA,WI,OR,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
OH,MI,WA,WI,MN,OR,IA,NV,NM,WV,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
PA,MI,WA,WI,MN,OR,IA,NM,WV,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
PA,MI,WA,WI,MN,OR,IA,NV,NM,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
PA,MI,WA,WI,MN,OR,IA,NV,WV,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
PA,OH,MI,WA,MN,OR,IA,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
PA,OH,MI,WA,OR,IA,NM,WV,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
PA,OH,MI,WA,OR,IA,NV,NM,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
PA,OH,MI,WA,OR,IA,NV,WV,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME
PA,OH,MI,WA,WI,OR,IA,NH,CA,IL,NY,VT,MA,RI,NJ,DE,MD,DC,HI,CT,ME

[rookwood]

17. .

the head of the bush/cheney campaign in virginia just sent a worrisome (for republicans) memo out to loyalists.

it indicated that virginia may be in play, and is certainly competitive.

i think that is remarkable, considering virginia's voting history.

ultimately, even if kerry doesn't win virginia, if he can make bush spend precious dollars there it's good for the (kerry) campaign.

cheers :)