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.
- 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
- Add 8 points to any home state candidate and 2 points to any candidate whose state borders the state (also added 4 for VP to Wyoming for Bush-Cheney)
- Average the combined total of procedures above to the latest state poll for each candidate.
- Determine winner of each state (ties go to Bush since we saw what happened in FL when there was a tie)
Results:
Bush defeats Kerry by 6% in popular vote and 353-185 in electoral vote {Kerry wins CA, CT, DC, DE, HA, IL, MA, MD, MI, NJ, NY, RI, VT)
Bush defeats Clark by 9.5% in popular vote and 370-168 in electoral vote (Clark wins same states as Kerry except MI)
Bush defeats Lieberman by 8.5% in popular vote and 408-130 in electoral vote (Lieberman wins same states as Kerry except CA)
Bush defeats Dean by 12.5% in popular vote and 471-67 in electoral vote (Dean wins DC, HA, NY, MA, MD, RI, VT)
Bush defeats Gephardt by 13% in popular vote and 471-67 in electoral vote (same states as Dean)
Bush defeats Generic Democrat by 0.5% in popular vote and 290-248 in electoral vote. (Generic Dem wins same states as Kerry plus AZ, IA, ME, MN, PA, WA)
Method caveat: Dean and Gephardt's negatives are inflated and Kerry and Lieberman's positives are inflated because I used the last 4 polls for each candidate and two recent polls with bad numbers for Democrats only include these two candidates. When compared in the same polls Dean and Gephardt's numbers vs Bush are comparable to Kerry and Lieberman's).