50 States.

I admire your optimism.

I myself will wait until Sep. '04 to forecast the margin of victory.

Chicken--anyone can do it then.

If it's 49 which state do you think will be the holdout?

Actually, the margin will be predictable once the remaining echo is identified - probably to within a state or two.

The economy will be going one way and the Dems. will be pointing the other (to their detriment), and the foreign situation will be the same: all their carping will ring empty as things improve in Iraq, and how will they run against any problems in NK, Iran, or Syria? All they can do is say that Bush isn't French enough - which will play great, won't it?

The real question is if all the bile will be worked out of the Democratic party in time for 2008, or if they will turn it up again, breathing a sigh of relief that Bush will be retiring.

Gideon - MA if Kerry is the nominee, VT if Dean is the nominee, otherwise some Dem leaning state that is out of touch with reality (WA, NJ). Lieberman won't get the nod so not CT

Unlike when Nixon lost MA or Reagan lost MN, both MA and VT have GOP governors now, which would seem to put them in play.

Today's headline is what would lead me to predict a 50-state sweep.
If the election were held today, the GOP would be playing TV ads with headline "300,000 BODIES FOUND IN IRAQ MASS GRAVES", with a voiceover of the Dem candidate "The US should not have invaded Iraq".

Next year, the headline will probably be, "1000 MASS GRAVES FOUND, 100,000,000 BODIES WITH BULLET HOLES IN THE BACKL OF THE NECK."
But the DEM voiceover will be the same.

A useful tool to help in making these SWAGS can be found here.

I think Bush will win fewer states than one would normally predict, because his campaign will be optimized to help Republicans downticket. The usual assumptions don't quite apply to this guy. After all, the poli sci models said he had no chance in 2000.

Mr. Hawkins:

Doesn't that require though an assumption that say voters in Ma will be turned off by how W campaigns in SD or voters in CA by how he works against Reid in NV? He certainly can't harm himself in IL by trying to elect Jack Ryan or in FL trying to carry in Katherine Harris--if they win he will. Reagan wasn't going to lose any states if he worked to carry in a friendly Senate, was he?

I rather see Bush "only" win 45 or even 40 states if it means getting to 60 in the Senate and holding the house.

oj:

OK, I'll predict right now that Bush will not carry Cali.

I've taken on Orrin for the fifty-state prediction before. There are just too many states that Bush lost by sizable margins last time. He can't flip them all.

But I'm starting to wonder. I really misunderestimated (love that sorta-word) the GOP margins in the CA, KY and MS governor's races. I thought they would all be close, three-to-five points at the most.

If Jindal wins LA by eight or ten points, I'll revise up my current prediction of 40-42 states for Bush in 2004. Especially if the Dems write off the south completely by nominating Dean.

But I'm also starting to wonder about Dean's nomination. Gephardt has gotten ahead of him in the Iowa polls. If Howie loses Iowa and wins New Hampshire in less than convincing fashion, he's in trouble. If he loses both IA and NH, he's finished.

Casey:

How often has the candidate from further North and East carried CA?

Orrin:

The more relevant question: how often has a presidential candidate lost California by twelve points and then come back to win the state four years later?

I looked through David Leip's history of presidential elections and couldn't find anybody who's pulled off that miracle.

The closest was Dewey in 1944 and 1948. He lost the state by thirteen and a half points in 1944 and almost came back to win in 1948. But he fell just short of Truman.

It's tough to flip such a large state previously lost by such a big margin. But then, I missed Ah-nold's margin of victory by light-years. So maybe Bush can do what nobody else has done for a century.

But I'm not betting on it.

Come to think of it, the last time the candidate from further north and east won California was...the last time anybody won California. Gore creamed Bush in 2000 and he was a lot more northeast than Bush - not just in geography but in personality and image.

Dewey seems an excellent example. Had he been the incumbent in 48 he'd certainly have carried the state despite losing by 13.5 points the cycle before. Such point movements probably aren't terribly unusual for an incumbent.

But Dewey was the exception to a century's worth of history - AND HE STILL DIDN'T WIN. Of course, we really can't know how he would have done in 1948 as an incumbent. Would he have encountered the same postwar economic problems (rising unemployment, nasty inflation) that almost sank Truman?

I'll admit that Bush will run closer to the Dem in CA than he did in 2000. But history shows it's awful tough to come back from a severe drubbing in the state and win four years later. Such a large state doesn't flip so easily.

Tell it to his Dad

Not sure what you mean by "tell it to his Dad." It's true that the Dems came back from a close California loss in 1988 (three and a half points) to win the state big in 1992. But that close loss proved the Dems were competitive already. They didn't have to flip much of the vote to win.

Also, a third-party candidate, our friend H. Ross Nutcase, upset the applecart by pulling almost 21% of the CA vote - most of it coming from the Repubs, IMO.

Even more important, Clinton was a much better campaigner than Dukakis. If we're playing what-if, I'd say the Slickster would have won CA close in 1988.

What happened to such a large state not flipping so easily? Perhaps we should ask Gray Davis?

If your argument is that it all depends on the quality of the candidate, I agree. But that's a truism.

42!

In fact, Gray Davis' vote hardly flipped at all. He won re-election in 2002 with 47.3% against a terrible candidate. The Repubs rightly sensed how vulnerable he was and forced the recall. Davis got 44.6% in 2003 - minor slippage but hardly a major change. Again, it's hard to move a massive electorate like California's very far very fast.

The Dems have had to endure a long hard slog to primacy in California presidential elections. The Dem percentage of the vote for each prez election since 1984: 41.3%, 47.6%, 46.0% 51.1%, 53.4%.

In other words, it took twelve years before the Dems could achieve the most modest majority in the state. And Bush will go from his 41.6% in 2000 to a win in four years?

Sure, anything's possible. But it's a very long shot. Bush does have the advantage that the country as a whole is trending Repub, and this may seap over into California. Bush is also the incumbent, and an improving economy will help.

But CA is increasingly a world of its own due to Hispanic immigration and white emigration. I think the Dems hold onto the state in 2004.

But the GOP had what a 14% swing from November to October?