Swing State Updates

According to the latest Zogby Interactive Poll numbers, the sixteen "battleground states" are still up for grabs, but 14 of them are clearly on Kerry's side. The bottom line is that, if the election were held tomorrow, the popular vote would still be incredibly close (but in Kerry's favor) but the electoral college would be a comparative landslide for a Bush loss, 324 to 214.

To analyze Zogby's results, we start by assuming that the District of Columbia and the 34 states that aren't in the battlegrounds poll will vote for the same political party that they did in the 2000 election. That gives Mr. Bush 189 electoral votes and Mr. Kerry 172 votes. A total of 177 votes are up for grabs in the 16 battlegrounds; a candidate needs 270 to win the White House.

Adding the 152 votes from the 14 states that Mr. Kerry leads in the latest poll gives him a total of 324 electoral votes. (That's his highest total yet in our analyses of Zogby's polls, topping the previous high of 322 electoral votes that he had in on July 12.) Mr. Bush's two states have 25 electoral votes and give him a total of 214.

The report does go on to say that this is hardly set in stone. Some of the margins are still razor thin. Also, there is an unpredictable bounce coming following both the GOP convention and the televised presidential debates. The convention will doubtless help Bush. The debates? I don't think anyone can predict the outcome at this point, but Bush's poor public speaking ability combined with a historical inability to "think on his feet" and respond quickly can't possibly help him.