Let's Talk Sense...

Sunday, September 17, 2000 Volume XXV, No. 28
Roswell, New Mexico

In this issue:

Who's Going to Win?
--------Part 1-------
Electoral College Analysis---
State-by-state

Electoral College Watch

Disturbing news out of the Bush camp involves allegations that "Illinois is an important state they are fighting hard to win."

If this is true, the election may well be lost. This is not because of any national polls, which may well prove irrelevant. Rather, it is because of what it would say about the Bush team.

If they have not understood from the beginning that Illinois is not in the cards, then they do not have a team which is capable of developing a careful, deliberate, viable Electoral College strategy.

If Bush were to carry Illinois, it would signal that he is in the process of a very large Electoral College victory---at least 200 votes (369-169), and probably headed toward a total of more than 400. I just don't see any model which suggests that is in the offing.

Anything can happen. More than seven weeks of potential gaffes, blunders and disastrous debate performances await, but we believe we can finalize the projection models, based on turnout probabilities, voting trends, voter population trends (including the demographic internals in each state).

Here goes:

The East (12 States and DC)
(127 electoral votes)

Maine(4), New Hampshire(4), Vermont(3),
Massachusetts(12), Connecticut(8), Rhode Island(4), New York(33), Pennsylvania(23), New Jersey(15), Delaware(3), West Virginia(5), Maryland(10), D.C.(3).

Gore sweeps the East, 127-0. A good start on election night for the Democrat nominee. The GOP needed Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. If Pennsylvania goes as expected, this will make Michigan an absolutely necessity. The loss of New Hampshire means Bush has to carry Arkansas.

This is a major disappointment for those of us in the Bush camp. We had wanted to see the East come out 100-27. It doesn't appear that is going to happen. The talk about West Virginia, Vermont and New Jersey are other examples of misplaced attention. Every dollar spent in those states, and in places like Illinois, are dollars lost to campaigns in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where they could make a difference.

Clearly, with fairly close losses expected in those two states, it is not out of the realm of possibility that dramatic shifts could put them in the GOPcolumn.

In my view Maine has never been in the realm of reality. Yes, Maine has Bar Harbor and Kennebunkport, Acadia National Park and all kinds of natural beauty. But go there and you'll see a land of surprising (perhaps to many of us westerners) poverty and just too many people looking for a handout, instead of the traditional hand up. In that environment Gore wins.

52 days out, this is the way we see it:

(Popular vote, in 000's)

23,455,000 votes

Where does this leave Bush?

For those of us desperately hoping he will win, all is not lost. It means, however, that he absolutely cannot lose Florida, or virtually any other southern state, except maybe Tennessee. He has to sweep the West---not the Pacific, the West, and he has to win Ohio, Michigan, Missouri and a couple of more key states.

Can he do it? We'll see in the coming issues.

In the next issue:

The South (11 States)
(123 electoral votes)

Virginia(13), North Carolina(14), Kentucky(8), Tennessee(11), South Carolina(8), Georgia(13), Alabama(9), Florida(25), Mississippi(7), Louisiana(9), Arkansas(6)