Projected Electoral College Vote--2004

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FIGHTING THE TAPE

Howard R. Gold is editor of Barron's Online. Fighting the Tape runs twice monthly.

Why the President May Be Running Scared

Projected Electoral College Vote, 2004?

THERE'S BEEN AN UNUSUAL DEFENSIVENESS at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue these days.

First came the report by chief weapons inspector David Kay that Saddam Hussein probably didn't have weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war. Under pressure, President George W. Bush appointed a commission to probe the apparent intelligence failures that preceded the war.

Then came the astonishing release of controversial records about the president's service in the Alabama National Guard during the Vietnam War. The usually quiescent White House press corps was suddenly barking like a pack of attack dogs, demanding answers.

Meanwhile, Democratic primary voters, abandoning their usual self-destructive fractiousness, united early and have virtually anointed Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts as their nominee (see Fighting the Tape, "Democrats' Dustup Could Shake Up Markets," January 22).

Kerry and his straw man adversary, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, have had a clear field attacking President Bush's performance on Iraq and the economy.

So, it's no surprise that for the last three weeks, the president's approval rating has hovered below the key 50% level in a Newsweek poll.

But I'll bet none of this is what really keeps Karl Rove and the president's other top political advisers awake at night.

As we all learned in 2000, the only thing that really counts is the Electoral College.

Anachronistic as it might be, it's still the constitutionally mandated way of electing a president of the United States. And talk of repealing it after the 2000 fiasco went nowhere.

So, how does the electoral vote look as of today?

Well, Senator Kerry is clearly in the lead, and. President Bush could easily lose this election.

Barron's Online asked noted pollster John Zogby, president and chief executive officer of Zogby International, to lay out the electoral map as he sees it, based on various polls conducted throughout the country, including his own.

The table below spells it out: Senator Kerry is ahead in 18 of the so-called Blue states (including the District of Columbia), representing some 226 electoral votes.

President Bush leads in 21 of the Red states, with 176 electoral votes. A dozen more states, with 136 electoral votes, are considered "in play."

But if Zogby's current estimate holds, all the Massachusetts senator will need to do is take Ohio and Florida to pass the 270-vote threshold and win the presidency.

President Bush, despite his incumbency, would seem to have an uphill battle here, if things continue as they are now.

Why? Because only four of the states that we list as "in play" (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington) were Blue states in 2000, when they delivered a majority for Vice-President Al Gore.

The other eight states that are "in play" now (including Florida, Ohio, Arizona and Missouri), with a treasure trove of 98 electoral votes, were part of Bush Country in 2000.

That suggests the Democratic presidential candidate is holding his base of support better than the president is, allowing Senator Kerry to peel off a couple of the paler Red states from the president's column.

"National poll numbers are irrelevant," Zogby says. "What is relevant is how the president plays in the Red states, and how the Democrats play in the Blue states."

What's going on?

As we all know, the U.S. is a deeply divided country, whose fault lines are neatly defined by geography. The Northeast, industrial Midwest and California are true Blue. The Sun Belt, Corn Belt and Mountain States are deep Red. Everything else is pretty much in play.

"'E pluribus duo' is the operative word," says Zogby.

The divisions are economic, cultural and religious. Some 56% of Red state voters worship weekly, vs. 32% in the Blue states, Zogby notes. More than 60% of Red state voters carry a gun, as opposed to only 24% of Blue state voters.

Significantly more Blue state voters are unmarried, and more Blue state residents are likely to be under 30. Both of those groups are more likely to favor "live and let live" policies than more traditional-minded voters would. So-called "wedge" issues, like gay marriage, only reinforce those divisions.

But this year, two wildcards are at work -- jobs and Iraq.

The much-publicized "jobless recovery," the loss of more than two million manufacturing jobs and fears about outsourcing, which hits white-collar workers where they live, are cutting against the president in some key "swing" states like Ohio, which could be decisive.

Remember NBC's Tim Russert with his chalkboard in 2000, chanting, "Florida, Florida, Florida"?

This time, says Zogby, it may be "Ohio, Ohio, Ohio."

And even national security, an issue President Bush has owned since September 11, may be up for grabs. The failure to find WMD in Iraq has badly undermined the public's trust in him in that area, too.

A spokesperson for Bush-Cheney '04 did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

The president's campaign will hit back soon. It's reportedly ready to start spending some of its $150-million war chest on campaign ads. They will try to paint Senator Kerry as an undistinguished senator, an opportunist, weak on defense and, of course, a tax-and-spend liberal. And perhaps even worse.

At least some of that will probably stick. And a lot can happen in the eight months before the election. We may catch Osama bin-Laden. The economy may start producing a lot of jobs, and Americans in key swing states may start feeling more optimistic about the future.

"If they sense that we're on the right track and the economy is getting better, it's going to be hard to unseat Bush," says Hans Kaiser, vice-president for political affairs at Republican polling firm Moore Information, based in Portland, Ore. "It's tough to knock out an incumbent president."

But just 12 years ago, voters did knock out another incumbent President Bush whose approval ratings were at one point even higher than his son's.

That's why the electoral math as it stands today must be causing nightmares in the corridors of the West Wing.