In an attempt to find out where the candidates are today in the electoral vote I used the following formula:
- Take median of Bush vs. candidate in the last four polls that the five major candidates appear in (these are the Rasmussen poll and the three most recent polls including all major candidates on the polling report). In order to compare the candidates fairly I used only polls where each of the candidates are included.
- Add Bush's lead over each candidate nationally to the partisan index for each state found here: http://www.fairvote.org/map/pres2000.htm#battleground
Example: In an even national election the Democrat is likely to beat the Republican by 12% in California according to this index. Thus Bush's national margin over a Democrat is subtracted from this (e.g. 12-3.5 means on average Bush would lose to Kerry in CA by 8.5)
- Add 8 points to any home state candidate and 2 points to any candidate whose state borders the state to include some small regional effect and a large home state effect.
- Average the combined total of procedures above to the latest state poll for each candidate. Where the result is a tie, give the state to Bush if the governor is Republican and to the Democrat if the governor is a Democrat. (note that the last CA poll has Kerry trailing Bush by 9 in CA..the worst of any candidate..so averaged with point #2 above gives Bush a 0.5% lead)
This method combines national polls, a state's partisan History and state polls to try to arrive at a relatively objective picture of where the candidates stand today.
First last week's Results:
Dean trails Bush by 8.5% points and loses the Electoral Vote 374-164 (Dean wins CA, CT, DC, DE, HA, MD, MA, MI, NJ, NY, RI, VT)
Clark trails Bush by 10% points and loses the electoral vote 456-82 (Clark wins DC, DE, HA, MD, MA, NJ, NY, RI)
Lieberman trails Bush by 10.5% points and loses the electoral vote 449-89 (Lieberman wins CT, DC, DE, HA, MD, MA, NJ, NY, RI)
Kerry trails Bush by 11% points and loses the electoral vote 449-89 (same states as Lieberman)
Edwards trails Bush by 12.5% points and loses the electoral vote 452-86 (same as Kerry and Lieberman but without Delaware).
Now this weeks results:
Edwards trails Bush by 6.5% points (a gain of 6) and loses the electoral vote 353-185 (he adds CA, DE, IL, MI, VT since last week for a 99 EV shift each way)
Kerry trails Bush by 3.5% (a gain of 9) and loses the electoral vote 393-145 (he adds IL, ME, MI, VT and WA since last week)
Lieberman trails Bush by 11.5% and (a drop of 1) and 449-89 in the electoral vote (no change)
Clark trails Bush by 10% (no chage) and loses the electoral vote 456-82 (no change)
Dean trails Bush by 11.5% (a drop of 3) and 461-77 in the electoral vote (he loses CA, MI and NJ from last week)
By the way a Genric Democrat ties Bush in the popular vote but trails 293-245 in the electoral vote. The Dem states are: all of the NE corridor from Maine to MD and DC including PA; the West Coast and HA; and the midwest staes of MN, IA, MI and IL. My feeling is that while right now none of the Dem candidates have locked up their base, any Dem can win all of these and the battle will be over what is remaining.