Blue Hawaii Swinging Red?
By Captain Ed on Presidential Election
The AP reports on a recent poll in Hawaii, usually a slam-dunk blue state, which shows Bush edging ahead of Kerry among likely voters:
The poll of 600 likely voters, conducted October 13-18 for the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper, gave Bush 43.3 percent and Kerry 42.6 percent, with 12 percent saying they were still undecided. The poll had a margin of error of four percentage points.
Hawaii has only four of the 270 electoral votes, awarded state-by-state, needed to win the election. But with a closely fought election battle, even small states have found that their votes could be decisive.
Even more, losing Hawaii could be a bellwether of an Electoral College landslide. Al Gore won Hawaii by a whopping 19 points in 2000, and now two different polls show Bush edging ahead of Kerry this past week. While Hawaii doesn't command a lot of electoral-college impact, its votes equal New Hampshire, considered a strategic state in any election. If Hawaii slips from Kerry's grasp, it's hard to see how he can compete among the previously-identified swing states.
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