as i mentioned a few days ago, i've gotten really hooked on looking at the electoral vote projector map. i started looking at it last week, when the newspapers were abuzz about the bush bounce and some of my friends started to despair.
the map was reassuring because, as the media was portraying kerry as helplessly behind in national polls, a state-by-state electoral vote count showed kerry either ahead or effectively tied. (see e.g. 1 2 3 4 5).
beginning tuesday, however, even the electoral map started looking pretty grim (see tuesday, wednesday, and today). kerry still is not definitively behind most of the states that seem to have swung bush's way are pretty close--about 100 electoral votes seem to be from states where the polls are within the margin of error. so i expect the pendulum will swing back and forth a few times before election day.
but as i look at this map every morning, one thing is becoming pretty evident: while kerry does have a chance of capturing a majority of the electoral votes come election day and thus the election is still, practically speaking, a virtual dead heat, bush's support is deeper and more concentrated than kerry's. compare, for example monday's map with today's. in both maps, most of bush's electoral votes comes from dark red ("strong bush") states, whereas a lot of kerry's support is light blue ("weak kerry") or blue outline ("barely kerry"). as things move back and forth between bush and kerry over time, most of the dark red states are not changing, but some of kerry's blue states are.
the most surprising thing about today's map, for example, is that jersey is actually in bush's column. sure, it's only "barely" there, and thus bush's lead in the state is probably within the margin of error (and thus may not be a real lead after all), but bush should not even come close to being ahead of kerry in a state like jersey. jersey is to kerry as alabama is to bush. it would be a big deal if a poll suddenly showed that kerry was barely ahead in alabama.
the odd thing is kerry has a lot of ammunition at his fingertips. iraq is a disaster, the economy is not creating enough jobs to keep up with population growth, and bush's domestic programs (e.g. medicare reform, the no child left behind act) have gotten pretty lackluster reviews.
there's also the issue of the accuracy of polls. consider this, for example: polling firms conduct their surveys by telephone, but they generally don't call cell phone numbers. as there are a growing number of people who have ditched their landlines in favor of cell phone and these people tend to be a younger demographic, there is a question whether the polls this year are really a representative sample. sometimes i find arguments like that reassuring. other times i just feel like i'm grasping for straws.
either way, i can't wait for this damn election to be over with.
