Ponder on this.

This is the pic of the 2004 Presidental election. The Blue states represented the Democrats and the Red states represented the GOP.

From my prior posting:

Missouri: In St. Louis, a judge, who was a former aide to House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, ordered city polls held open for an extra three hours. The suit filed by Democrats on behalf of two voters claimed that they had insufficient time to vote. Yet, one of these "voters" had died in August 1999, and the other turned out not to be registered. While city polls were eventually closed down after an hour, the Missouri gubernatorial and senatorial races might well have been affected, as the democratic margins of victory were slim - only 22,000 and 49,000 respectively.

Wisconsin: A Marquette University student newspaper found that 174 out of a 1,000 students surveyed had exploited Wisconsin's permissive Election Day registration procedures to vote more than once. Most voted twice (at school and at home by absentee ballot), though some voted four or more times. In Milwaukee homeless people were offered cigarettes so that they would go with Democratic campaign workers to obtain absentee ballots. Gore won Wisconsin by only 5,396 votes.

Oregon: In that state voting is now exclusively done by mail. Election officials caught four people posing as election officials and collecting mail-in ballots that voters were dropping off at the elections department on Election Day. Similarly, at a Bush rally in Oregon, voters who tried to hand in their ballots to Republican officials were apparently deceived into giving them to people not connected with the campaign. Gore won Oregon by 6,800 votes.

From John Dean concerning the 2004 election:

Exactly how close will the race be? Of course, polls are an imperfect measure, and they tend to be less reliable the closer it is to Election Day. Still, as I write, and based on the consensus of polls I believe (historically) to be the most reliable, the situation appears to be this:

There are a total of 538 electoral votes. A simple majority of 270 wins. (If the candidates tie at 269, the tie is broken by the House of Representatives.)

President Bush seems to have a lock on 176 electoral votes from twenty states: AL-9, AK-3, AZ-10, GA-15, ID-4, IN-10, KS-6, KY-8, LA-9, MS-6, MT-3, NE-5, ND-3, OK-7, SC-3, TN-11, TX-34, UT-5, VA-13 and WY-3. Senator Kerry seems to have a lock on 153 electoral votes in ten states and the District of Columbia: CA-55, CT-7, DE-3, HI-4, IL-21, MD-10, MA-12, NY-31, RI-4, VT-3 and DC-3.

Six states with 51 electoral votes tilt toward Bush: AR-6, CO-9, MO-11, NV-5, NC-15 and WV-5. But six states with 63 electoral votes lean toward Kerry: ME-3 (note that Maine apportions its four electoral votes, and one vote still appears to be up for grabs), MI-17, MN-10, NJ-15, OR-7 and WA-11.

Suppose all the tilting states indeed go in the direction in which they are tilting. That gives Bush/Cheney 227 electoral votes, and Kerry/Edwards 216 votes.

There are still eight true swing states. In total, they have 95 electoral votes: IA-7, FL-27, ME-1, NH-4, NM-5, OH-20, PA-21, and WI-10.

And there was a question for Rove concerning the 2008 election:


QUESTION: In 2008, what states do you think are going to be the swing states?...

ROVE: You know, I think in 2008, there will be a number of states which will be competitive that are familiar states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, maybe not Florida, Colorado, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa, New Mexico.