The Armchair Election Analyst is open for business! With this blog, I'm attempting to track the upcoming U.S. Presidential primaries and general election as neutrally as possible. I'll be making observations and predictions, and drawing upon historical information in order to try to figure out where we're going.
Methodology
Unlike many observers, I'll only pay fleeting attention to national opinion polls (I'll pay closer attention in the primaries). Presidential elections come down to votes in the electoral college, not to popular vote counts. Each state has a number of electors equal to its total Congressional representation (Representatives plus Senators.) Washington, DC gets 3 electors, for a total of 538. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the Presidency. Thus, my focus will be twofold: who are likely to win the party nominations, and how the electoral votes will likely fall.
Starting Assumptions
All things being equal, one should assume a blank electoral slate. However, all things are not equal, and it is nearly a foregone conclusion that many states are already "red" or "blue", and will not change. Other states do not have sufficient electoral sway to make much difference unless they do so en masse. In 2004, George W. Bush won the election with 286 electoral votes to John Kerry's 251 (one vote went to John Edwards.) This is my starting point: based on the 2004 results, for a non-Republican candidate to win the Presidency, that candidate must find 17 electoral votes. The States of Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania all have 17 or more electoral votes, and are consistently closely contested. In 2004, Florida and Ohio went to Bush, while Michigan and Pennsylvania went to Kerry.
For the Democrats to win, they must win Florida or Ohio without losing Michigan or Pennsylvania. For the Republicans to win, they must simply hold the states they currently have.
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