President Elect 2004 Electoral College Analysis (2/10/2004)
President Elect's fifth analysis of the 2004 Electoral College vote pitting President George W. Bush against the probable Democratic nominee, John Kerry, shows that if the election were today Bush would be the first popular vote losing president to win a second term.
President Elect predicts that President Bush would win 286 electoral votes and Kerry would win 252 (Down from 307-231 in September).
For several months of there has been continuous coverage of the Democratic caucuses and primaries, with little coverage of Republican re-election efforts. As expected, the Democratic nominee's poll numbers have started to reflect the bounce historically received by the party getting the lion's share of the coverage when the incumbent does not have to campaign to win his party's nomination.
However, Kerry's support is strengthening because rank and file Democrats have been yearning to get behind a single person who would lead the charge against Bush. The SOLID KERRY states are solidifying behind him, while the LEANING BUSH and LEANING KERRY states are moving more in that direction.
In our last analysis, one of Bush's problems was that his LEANING states weren't traditionally Republican friendly. With Massachusetts Senator Kerry as the probable Democratic nominee that problem may even out. He may lose LEANING states north of the Mason-Dixon Line but those south of it will start leaning back Bush's way.
This analysis is just a starting point, since it is the first to seriously consider Kerry as the nominee. Now that President Elect 2004 is in full swing, we will update this analysis every other month until summer when updates will come more often.
BTW - for those curious: This analysis was delayed in the hopes that a Democratic frontrunner would emerge so we wouldn't have to guess or do another generic assessment. However, just to be ready, preliminary analyses were done of several other candidates. For curiosity's sake, here are how those prelim numbers were looking.
BUSH: ~273
EDWARDS: ~265
BUSH:~302
DEAN~236
BUSH:~320
CLARK:~218
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