Post-Mortem: Where Did My "Electoral Landslide" Prediction Go Wrong?

From The End Zone:

"If the unreasonable happens, and Minnesota and Wisconsin both go to Kerry, Bush still wins: Kerry 251 v Bush 287."

The unreasonable happened: Kerry 252 v Bush 286. Bush still won by 34 Electoral Votes, which is more than a lot of experts predicted. Still, where did I go wrong?

Analyzing the math, Bush could've won the election by winning any one of these hotly contested states:

New Hampshire
Pennsylvania
Michigan
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Ohio

Since Bush did win one of these: Ohio, victory was his. Kerry won five of the six by very small margins. Amazing, and statistically fortunate- kind of like winning the daily double at the horse track. All five of Kerry's victory margins were equal to or smaller than Bush's victory margin in Ohio.

In retrospect, Kerry's only legitimate chance of victory was to sweep all six of these close states. I predicted Bush victories in all six states, reasoning that pollsters had underestimated the post 9-11 Republican turnout. I based that on the pollsters missing trends in the 2002 mid-term elections, and that is where my prediction went awry.

If Bush had swept all six states, my 352-186 prediction would've almost come true, as Bush would've won 348 electoral votes (Kerry won Hawaii's 4 EV's by a comfortable margin). I figured, if I was wrong, these states would follow pollster predictions and split about three and three for each candidate. Instead Kerry won five of the six. Again: Amazing.

So, the election was close, but not that close. Bush was equal or closer to winning any one of the other five contested states than Kerry was to winning Ohio. Overall, with the Republicans picking up seats in both the Senate and the House, and with Bush winning the popular vote by a significant margin of 3.5 million, this election was a very solid victory for Bush and the Republicans.

Talk of the nation being "divided" is starting to look a bit like bull**** carping by a minority party that is only now beginning to vaguely sense the reality of their circumstance. In the last forty years, only one Democrat President has won at least 50% of the popular vote:

Jimmy Carter. 1976. 50.5%.

Bill Clinton won two elections with about 45% of the popular vote. The nation is trending conservative. If it was not, Bush would've been bounced out of office yesterday. Conditions were ripe. Powerlineblog:

The country is divided, but the division is in favor of President Bush and his party. If the goal is to decrease division in the context of a democratic society, the Democrats will have to accept this voter-imposed reality to a much greater degree than they have shown any past willingness to do.

Its a shame, for the Democrats, that the election wasn't a big blowout. The close result will allow the Democrats to believe they need a simple bandage, when they really need surgery to remove the moonbats, followed by full courses of chemo and radiation.

Here are the numbers from the six states. If Bush had won any of the first five, including New Hampshire, he could've lost Ohio and still won the election:

• New Hampshire 1% margin; 9,000 vote margin
• Pennsylvania 3% margin; 122,000 vote margin
• Michigan 2% margin; 165,000 vote margin
• Wisconsin 1% margin; 12,000 vote margin
• Minnesota 2% margin; 98,000 vote margin
• Ohio 2% margin; 147,000 vote margin

What about Florida? Kerry could've won if he had won Florida. However, Florida was a small but solid Bush victory, and wasn't as close as the above six:

Florida 5%; 377,000 votes

I'm off to mow the lawn, pack, and drive to the heart of "Moonbats in mourning" country: Madison, Wisconsin (a town which can only be properly represented by Communist Red!). I shall visit my niece and nephew, and attend the big Wisconsin Badgers vs. Minnesota Gophers football game at Camp Randall Stadium, hoping that my seats are in the end zone. Go Badgers!