If you don't live in one of these eighteen states, the two parties really don't give a damn about you.
Candidates Narrow Focus to 18 States
Battle Has Begun In Most-Contested Areas of Nation
By Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 15, 2004; Page A01
The election-night mapmakers created an indelible image of political America in 2000: red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats, and a handful of states, crowned by disputed Florida, that remained competitive until the very end. Campaign 2004 begins where 2000 left off.
Strategists for President Bush and Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) already have conceded a majority of the states to one another, with the election likely to turn on battles in fewer than 18 states.
The principal battlegrounds range from familiar swing states of Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania to new arrivals of Nevada, West Virginia and Minnesota that reflect changing demographics or the clash of cultural values that can affect voters' behavior as much as the unemployment rate.
For many Americans, the election will be like a faraway war, witnessed in news reports on television and in newspapers but rarely experienced firsthand. But in the battlegrounds, the bombardment has begun, in the form of television ads from the Bush and Kerry campaigns and from a separate Democratic group called the Media Fund.
All have chosen essentially the same audiences for their appeals. Kerry's first ad targets 16 states, the Media Fund ad airs in the same 16 plus one, while Bush's ads cover those 17 plus another. Advertising money and the candidates' personal time will remain focused on those 18 states for the next eight months, to the exclusion of the rest of the country.
Democratic strategist Mark Gersh describes this geographic division of the population as a choice between the passionately coveted and the predominantly ignored, and 2004 continues a pattern that has existed through several presidencies. Former president Bill Clinton and now Bush generally bypassed those states in their presidential travels, except for fundraising. Bush and Kerry will do the same.
Two decades ago, political demographers and strategists talked about a "Republican lock" on the electoral college, a set of states considered so solidly Republican in their voting behavior that it would take a miracle to shift a presidential election to the Democrats. Beginning in 1988, Democrats began to pick that lock, and their two victories in the 1990s brought further changes in the electoral equilibrium.
Four years ago, red and blue states were so finely balanced that Bush was declared the winner with 271 electoral votes, one more than required. Five of the 50 states, led by Florida's dead-heat 537-vote outcome, were decided by less than a single percentage point.
In 18 states, the winner's margin was 6 percentage points or less, and at the start of the 2004 general election, at least 17 are seen as competitive battlegrounds, as the campaigns' initial advertising strategists suggest. The one exception is Tennessee, which cost Al Gore the presidency when it went for Bush. Without Gore on the ballot this year, the Republicans rate the favorite there.
Judging from interviews with strategists on both sides and with outside analysts, 10 of the closest states from four years ago are seen as the most competitive as the campaign begins. Bush and Gore split them five-five. The Bush states that may be most vulnerable to Democratic takeover are Florida, Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire and Nevada, while the five Gore states eyed by the GOP are Pennsylvania, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and New Mexico.
The results of 2000 underscore the electoral parity between the parties in both the competitive and noncompetitive states. In the 32 states and the District that were decided by more than 6 percentage points, Republicans won 21 while Democrats captured 12. But when measured in electoral votes, the two parties' bases are more even: The GOP states account for 179 electoral votes while the Democratic states, including California and New York, total 168.
The same equilibrium holds for the 18 closest states: The nine Republican states now account for 99 electoral votes, and the nine Democratic states add up to 92.
Republican successes in the 2002 elections were seen as a sign that the country might be shifting away from the 50-50 divide of 2000. But as the general election campaign begins, and early national polling puts Kerry even or ahead of Bush, the electoral geography appears as competitive as ever. Republican strategists say that could change in their favor once the Bush campaign spends a portion of its $170 million campaign treasury attacking Kerry, but for now, the state-by-state contests begin on relatively equal footing.
"It's fair enough to start by looking at that 2000 map again," said Rhodes Cook, an independent political analyst. "I was ready to pack it away thinking it was nice history and that we'd tilted a little Republican. At the presidential level, it still might be very, very close to even-steven, particularly with a nominee like Kerry, who has gotten off to such a good start and who doesn't have the negatives that a [former Vermont governor Howard] Dean candidacy would."
Four years ago, the loss of one more state of any size would have cost Bush the election. That is no longer the case because of reapportionment after the 2000 Census. If Bush were to win all the states he won and Kerry won all of Gore's states, the electoral count would be 278 to 260, an advantage of 18 electoral votes for Bush rather than four.
But another set of numbers could push some states toward the Democrats. Those are figures relating to unemployment and job losses. Democrats say their formula is simple: Any toss-up state from 2000 that has suffered a net job loss or whose unemployment rate is above the national average is a prime target.
Job losses have hit hardest in key midwestern battlegrounds, the region that Republicans and Democrats say will hold the key to victory in November. The economy has put Bush on the defensive in Ohio, a state he won by 4 percentage points and that shapes up as one of the two or three most contested in the country.
The jobs issue also could make Michigan and Pennsylvania, states Gore won narrowly, more difficult for Bush to take away. A top GOP lawmaker said Bush has little chance of winning Michigan because of the economy, although a senior Bush adviser sees noneconomic factors working in the president's favor. If the jobs picture brightens, Democrats anticipate a Bush surge and the need to reshape their battle plan.
Republicans express more optimism about their prospects in three other midwestern states: Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, where they hope cultural issues will trump economic issues.
In Iowa, a year of Democratic campaigning has left Bush damaged. In Wisconsin, the Bush campaign is running ads from the southern reaches of Madison to the rural lakes and woods country of Rhinelander to undo the impact of job losses and the damage Bush sustained during the Democratic primaries. But Republicans connected to the Bush campaign say all three could tilt to the president in the fall.
Earlier in the campaign, Kerry voiced a heretical thought. Democrats, he said, could win the presidency without winning any state in the South. Mathematically, Kerry was correct, but politically, he regretted making the statement and he has since vowed to compete aggressively in what has become the GOP's strongest region.
But with the exception of Florida, where a recent poll showed Kerry ahead of Bush, the South looks more forbidding to the Democrats in 2004 than it was in any of the past three elections, when southerners Clinton or Gore or both were on the ticket.
Arkansas, for example, is one of the 18 states that were decided by fewer than 6 percentage points in 2000, but unless Kerry picks retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, of Arkansas, as his vice presidential running mate, Bush could have an easier time there than he did four years ago. North Carolina, which Democrats have not won since Jimmy Carter's presidency, might not be competitive even if home state Sen. John Edwards were on the Democratic ticket.
The one southern state not among the 18 battlegrounds of four years ago that the Democrats are eyeing is Louisiana, which Bush won by 8 percentage points, but where Democrats recently won the governorship and retained a Senate seat in the face of a fierce GOP effort in 2002. Republicans say Kerry's energy and environmental policies will not sell in pro-oil Louisiana.
If Democratic prospects look worse in the South, they may be better in the Rocky Mountain West. The Rockies have been solidly Republican for years, but the growth of the Hispanic population could weaken the GOP grip there. Nevada, which Bush won by just 4 percentage points, is a top Democratic target also because of Bush's proposal to store nuclear waste there. Democrats say Arizona, too, could become a battleground, although they may be premature in their hopes there. To offset possible Democratic inroads, Republicans will be trying to pick up New Mexico, which Gore won by fewer than 400 votes.
The Pacific Coast has been solidly Democratic for the past four elections. Republicans hope the popularity of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will force the Democrats to spend money to hold onto the Golden State, but Democrats say there is no way they will take that bait.
The one state on the Pacific Coast seen now as a potential GOP pick-up is Oregon, which White House senior adviser Karl Rove visited last week. The jobless rate is well above the national average there, but Neel Pender, executive director of the Oregon Democratic Party, said, "It's quite a tossup."
In New England, Republicans are pessimistic about picking up Maine and worried about holding New Hampshire, especially after Democrats spent millions of dollars attacking Bush during their primary campaign. GOP strategists said they hope the state's below-average unemployment rate will ease criticism of the president, but former governor Jeanne Shaheen, Kerry's national co-chairman, said the record turnout in the Democratic primary shows how motivated voters are to defeat Bush.
Democrats are still steamed about losing West Virginia in 2000 and want to return it to its Democratic roots. Bush's on-again, off-again steel tariffs could cost him, but even Democrats say the issue has more potency in neighboring Pennsylvania and Ohio. What Kerry has to worry about is a reaction to his support for gun control, which badly hurt Gore in 2000. Kerry has played down the issue, but the National Rifle Association is planning to spend heavily in the state to remind voters of Kerry's past positions.
Four years ago, Gore's advisers knew they were in trouble in West Virginia in October 2000, but decided its five electoral votes were not likely to be decisive and focused their energy on Florida. With the country still divided, neither side will make that mistake this year.
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