Following up on some previous comment threads and journal entries, I'd like to informally inaugurate what I'm calling the "Swing State Project". I'd like to see us (ie, Democrats, DailyKosians, anyone who wants to see Bush gone in 2004) gather as much relevant information about the states that'll be up for grabs in 2004.
Here's my list of 19 swing states, and the party they went for in 2000 in parentheses:
Arizona (GOP)
Arkansas (GOP)
Colorado (GOP)
Florida (GOP)
Iowa (Dem)
Louisiana (GOP)
Michigan (Dem)
Minnesota (Dem)
Missouri (GOP)
Nevada (GOP)
New Hampshire (GOP)
New Mexico (Dem)
Ohio (GOP)
Oregon (Dem)
Pennsylvania (Dem)
Tennessee (GOP)
Virginia (GOP)
West Virginia (GOP)
Wisconsin (Dem)
If you have any thoughts about why we might win some of the states we lost in 2000 - or, alternately, why we might lose some of the states we won - I'd love to know, and I'm sure others would as well.
I'm also including some thoughts below. Please click through for more info.
First, I'll explain my methodology as to how I chose the "swing" states. I'm including any state where the margin of victory between Gore + Nader and Bush + Buchanan was 6 points or less. I'm including one outlier, Louisiana, which had an 8-point margin (more on that later). MBW over at Wampum
used a similar methodology and came up with the same list.
So here's the list (where "W" stands for Bush and "B" stands for Buchanan):
ST G-W-N-B (G+N)-(W+B) EVs
MI 51-47-2-0 6 17
MN 48-46-5-1 6 10
PA 51-47-2-0 6 21
OR 47-47-5-0 5 7
NM 48-48-4-0 4 5
WI 48-48-4-0 4 10
IA 49-48-2-1 2 7
NH 47-48-4-0 3 4
FL 49-49-2-0 2 27
MO 47-51-2-0 -2 11
NV 46-49-2-1 -2 5
OH 46-50-3-1 -2 20
TN 48-51-1-0 -2 11
AZ 45-51-3-1 -4 10
WV 46-52-2-0 -4 5
AR 45-51-2-1 -5 6
CO 42-51-5-1 -5 9
VA 45-52-2-0 -5 13
LA 45-53-1-1 -8 9
The 14 truly safe Dem states give us a baseline of 183 EVs. The GOP's safe 18 states give them just 148 EVs. The 19 swing states have a total of 207 EVs. (There are 51 "states" because I'm including DC.)
Oh, and as for Louisiana, I'm including it because Clinton won it twice and because of Landrieu's recent victory. If Blanco loses to Jindal in the upcoming gubernatorial election, then I'll reconsider LA's inclusion.
So, getting to the heart of this "project", my preferred format for discussing each of these states is like this:
Why we'll win FL this time: Nader voters will come back to the Dem fold; anger over 2000 will increase Dem turnout, especially among minorities; no f-ing butterfly ballot this time around.
Why we'll lose FL again: Lots of pork provided by Dubya to FL; Jeb.
Several people have already posted some great thoughts on these states:
WI
AR, OR, MI & more
PA
At some point, I'll try to pull various comments together and post occasional updates. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what everyone else has to say about these swing states.
