Campaigns in Disarray

FHQ's Twitter feed was littered last night and this morning with reactions to the POLITICO story indicating infighting and disarray within the Romney campaign. Most seemed to either simply link to it or attack it for shortcomings like how inner circle those quoted in the story really were.

FHQ's reaction? I would place it somewhere between "meh" and "Sir, I'm not impressed."

This just isn't much of a story given the context of the race. If a general election presidential race is not exactly tied then there is a major party candidate who is ahead and a major party candidate who is behind. The 2012 presidential race is not exactly tied. Obama is slightly ahead nationally and ahead by varying degrees in enough states to total 332 electoral votes as of now. That means that Mitt Romney is slightly behind in this race.

And historically those candidates who are slightly behind can face an awful lot of scrutiny. When campaign strategic actions by underdog campaigns don't exactly move the needle, people (voters, the press, etc.) wonder why. When a series of those sorts of actions fall flat, those same people wonder what's wrong. That is where we are in this race. People are wondering what's wrong.

This is not something that is new. It hints at a structural mechanism in American presidential elections.

I humbly submit:

Kerry campaign shifts gear into attack mode 

Candidate seen setting agenda as debates near 

By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff  |  September 26, 2004 

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The perception of a Democratic presidential campaign in disarray remained so widespread Wednesday morning that Senator John F. Kerry got unsolicited advice from a woman attending a town hall meeting on Social Security: Beef up your rapid-response team, the retired lawyer suggested. 

The remark prompted laughter, including from the candidate himself. But the Kerry campaign was already undergoing a transformation. 

Between a speech Monday in New York that gave a point-by-point accounting of continued problems in Iraq, and a speech Friday in Philadelphia that accused President Bush of taking his eye off the real terrorist threat, Osama bin Laden, the Kerry campaign seized control of the political dialogue during a week that was supposed to have been dominated by the incumbent as he visited the United Nations and invited Iraq's prime minister to the White House.

... 

And it goes on.

Now, this is not meant to be yet another connect-the-dots-to-2004 post. That is a story/discussion for another time. [Truth be told, FHQ has drawn that parallel enough already.] No, the intent here is to point out just how difficult it can be to defeat an incumbent president in an environment that is not necessarily favorable but one in which silver linings can be found (...whether in terms of the economy growing (but not quickly enough) or razor-thin approval/disapproval margins that benefit the president). The fundamentals continue to point toward a close election on November 6, and the polling to some extent reflects that as well. The problem from the Romney perspective -- now -- is that when those two things are combined -- the fundamentals and the polling -- the major issue that surfaces is that the polling has been so very consistent throughout the summer and heading down the stretch in this race. That is a tough but not insurmountable obstacle to overcome.

Is the Romney campaign embroiled in discord? FHQ is dubious. The Romney campaign is in the same position plenty of underdog candidates/campaigns have been: behind and looking for the right combination of things to right the ship. There isn't an easy out and as FHQ mentioned earlier, time is running short.

Recent Posts:
The Iowa Caucuses: Still Not Going Anywhere

The Electoral College Map (9/16/12)

The Electoral College Map (9/15/12)

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Revisiting Candidacy Announcements: What's Different About 2012?

Sometimes we get grumpy here at FHQ. Sometimes we hate apples to oranges comparisons but fail to see an ounce of goodness in them for the, uh, fruit trees. I don't like the 2012 to 2008 candidacy announcement timing comparison because I think it is a flawed one mainly based on the structural differences between the two elections (in this case, the presence or lack of an incumbent). My preference is to use a similar election to which to compare 2012. However, that can draw the ire (and that's perhaps putting it a little strongly) of others. [If you haven't had a chance to read the comments to yesterday's post -- linked above -- please go do it now. Each makes its own fabulous point.]

Yes, 2012 and 2004 have some similarities, but there are also some significant differences between the dynamics of candidate entry. I don't know that my intention was to put all that much stock into the formation of presidential exploratory committees. Rather, I came across the information and felt that it would be disingenuous for me not to include. What I think I failed to adequately discuss -- and was rightfully called on it -- was the fact that the significance of the exploratory committee is on the decline. This is the simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating thing about the study of the presidential nomination process: the metrics are always changing. They are especially onerous when it comes to campaign finance rules. And that, of course, is where the exploratory committee piece of the puzzle lies. It is a campaign finance creation.

In the aftermath of Obama shunning the federal financing system in the general election in 2008 and in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, the mile markers of campaign financing within and among campaigns have changed. To be sure the federal campaign finance system has been eroded, but the raising and distribution of funds from the political action committees of prospective presidential candidates has also changed the game.

What's been lost is that step, that mile marker that was present before, the formation of the exploratory committee. Without that step, what's lost is a concrete metric for demonstrating proximity to jumping in to the presidential nomination race. PACs still do that, but candidates can run for 2012 without actually running in 2012. Candidates can roll any and all PAC efforts into a future senate or gubernatorial or another, but actual presidential bid. [And yes, it should also be noted that candidate visits to early primary or caucus states or the hiring of staff/renting of office space there are also good indicators of this as well.]

At the end of the day, we have a pretty good idea who is running for the Republican nomination. All we're lacking are the official announcements. That said, those candidates are moving more slowly in doing that than other recent candidates. Okay, fine, but why? That's the important question. Part of it is structural. I made the argument for that yesterday. But part of it also has to do, I'd argue (and so too would our trio of commenters from yesterday), with the changing landscape of campaign finance. More specific to 2012, some of these prospective candidates probably want to see how the relationship between the president and the Republican-controlled House plays out -- for a little bit at least -- first.

Regardless, this has been a different progression to the invisible primary than anything witnessed in quite a while. It is an interesting game of "who can hold out the longest" brinksmanship.

[Thanks to MysteryPolitico, Matt and Anonymous for their comments that led to this post.]

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2012 is not 2008. Not Even Candidacy Announcements

Is it just FHQ or are all these comparisons that are popping up comparing the relative lack of presidential candidacy announcements for 2012 to those at this time in 2008 flawed (Dave Weigel, Wall Street Journal)? Structurally speaking, there is a fundamental difference in the motivation to throw one's hat in the ring in a year with an incumbent president running for reelection and one in which both parties have contested nominations (Yes, incumbents can be challenged, but you know what I mean.). 2012 falls into the former category while 2008 does not. 2008 is also different because for the first time since 1952, no representative from the then-current administration was going to seek the, in this case Republican, nomination in 2008. In other words, there was some urgency to jumping into the race in both parties ahead of 2008 simply because both were so wide open.

The result is a false comparison or worse yet, a comparison that is only drawn to have something about which to talk. Look, FHQ wants to talk about the 2012 presidential election process as much as any site or media outlet. Outside of, say, GOP12, we are as guilty as anyone when it comes to talking about 2012. [And there is absolutely nothing wrong with what Christian Heinze has been doing over there since late 2008. That site serves as a solid chronology of actions taken toward what FHQ has called candidate emergence.] But if we're going to talk about 2012, let's at least talk about it in terms that actually advance the conversation in a meaningful way.

If one wants to compare candidacy announcements for 2012, then, one would be better served comparing it to another similar election, like, say, the pace with which Democrats announced their candidacies for the 2004 Democratic nomination. The truth is that at this point in 2003 very few Democrats had done much of anything toward a presidential run either as the table below indicates.

2004 Democratic Presidential Candidacy Announcements
Candidate	Exploratory Committee Formation	Candidacy Announcement
Wesley Clark	--	September 17, 2003
Howard Dean	--	--
John Edwards	January 2, 2003	September 16, 2003
Richard Gephardt	January 4, 2003	February 19, 2003
Bob Graham	--	May 6, 2003
John Kerry	December 1, 2002	September 2, 2003
Dennis Kucinich	February 18, 2003	--
Joe Lieberman	--	January 13, 2003
Carol Moseley-Braun	February 19, 2003	September 22, 2003
Al Sharpton	January 21, 2003	--
Source: P2004 Notes: *News on Dean's exploratory committee and candidacy announcement is not clear on the actual dates, but several articles on the formation of the Kerry campaign's exploratory committee describe Dean as being the "only declared candidate" in December 2002.

How does the 2012 Republican field compare to the Democrats in the 2004 cycle in terms of either the formation of exploratory committees or announcing their candidacies? No Republican has officially announced that they intend to run for the Republican nomination and only Herman Cain has formed an exploratory committee. In other words, there has not been all that much activity. But how active were prospective Democrats at this time in 2003? They had been far more active on the exploratory committee front than actually officially entering the 2004 Democratic nomination race. Heading in 2003, Dean was officially in and Kerry had announced an exploratory committee. Early in January 2003, John Edwards and Richard Gephardt had filed the necessary paperwork establishing their presidential exploratory committees with the Federal Elections Commission and Joe Lieberman had announced his candidacy.

At this time in 2003, then, there were two candidates in the race and another three who had formed exploratory committees. That's more activity than we've seen from the prospective 2012 Republican candidates, but not by much.

...and that serves as a much better baseline for comparison than 2008.

[H/t to Jonathan Bernstein and John Pitney for the Weigel and WSJ links.]

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Should Indiana Frontload in 2012? (Part Two)

The View from 2004 Continued

I left off the other day having predicted that Indiana would have received a much greater share (nearly 60 times greater) of candidate attention during the 2004 Democratic primaries and caucuses had the Hoosier state government opted to move their presidential primary from May to the earliest possible, non-exempt date (February 3). That Indiana would have gotten what amounted to about 5.25% of the total candidate attention -- in terms of both candidates visits and ad buys -- did not really leave us with any hard numbers in terms of what the state tangibly would have received. Instead of collectively then, let's look at the percentage of candidate ad buys and visits individually and parse this out a bit.

The model(s) here is (are) the same as it was in the previous post. All that is changing is the dependent variable. The result is that we'll construct two separate models (visits and ad buys) to get a clearer picture of what Indiana would have gotten out of an earlier presidential primary in 2004. Let's start with ad buys...

A Model Based on Candidate Ad Buys

Regression Analysis of State-level Ad Buy Shares (2004)
Variable	Coefficient	Indiana Value (actual/earlier)	Explanation of Measurement
Delegates	.026	1.87	Percentage of total Democratic delegates
Timing	.0001	106/15	Number of days since first contest
Primary?	.941	1	Dichotomous: 0 = Caucus 1 = Primary
Candidates	2.117***	2/7	Number of candidates vying for nomination at time of contest
Events/Day	1.569***	0/7	Number of other simultaneous events
Events/Week	-2.034***	0/7	Number of other events in the same week (Wednesday-Tuesday)
Neighbors?	.018	0/0	Percentage of neighboring states holding simultaneous events
Ad Buys (DV)	--	0	Average percentage of candidate ad buys
Constant	-4.646
R2 = .63 | n = 41 | Significance: *.05 **.01 ***<.01

In the 41 states where ad data was available for 2004, the number of candidates in the race during a particular contest and the number of events during a given Wednesday-Tuesday campaign week were significant factors (...as they were in the cumulative model). However, the number of simultaneous primaries and caucuses was also significant in this case. As was the case previously, though, the resultant relationship runs counter to what was hypothesized. It was expected that as the number of contests on any given day increases, the amount of attention -- in this case candidate ad buys -- would decrease. Again, this may have much to do with the high level of correlation between both "events" variables. To check this out, I ran the model twice more but without the events/day variable in one and the events/week variable in the other. In the events/day model, that variable loses its statistical significance, but the relationship with candidate ad buys is in the hypothesized direction. In the alternate model, events/week remains both statistically significant and in the hypothesized direction.

Before we get into interpreting what we see in the table above or the prediction, let me at least mention the model's fit. Performance-wise, this collection of variables explains nearly two-thirds of the variation in ad buy shares across states. That is an improvement over what was witnessed in the overall attention model. But effect of the statistically significant variables is largely the same (...save the events/day variable). A one candidate increase in the number of active candidates in the race creates an added 2.1% ad buy share for a state. Additionally, a one state increase in the number of states in a given Wednesday-Tuesday campaign week makes for a 2% decrease in a state's ad buy share. Beyond that, primary states got a bump of nearly 1% increase in their ad buy share over caucus states. Though that isn't a statistically significant finding it is substantively significant.

Fine, but what about Indiana? If the state had held its presidential primary on February 3, how much would the state's ad buy share have increased? After adjusting the timing (15 days after Iowa), the number of active candidates at the time of the contest (7), the number of other simultaneous events (7) and the number of other events in the same campaign week (7) variable values to reflect the that primary shift, Indiana would have significantly improved its stock. The Hoosier state had no ads bought/aired on its airwaves for its May primary (and thus a 0% share of the total ad buys). In February, however, the state's share of overall ad buys would have increased to nearly 8%, going from no ads to over 3000 ads aired. The other states holding delegate selection events on the same date (excluding Delaware and North Dakota because they had no data) averaged about 2700 ads aired. And while Indiana is predicted to have exceeded that number, the average of actual ads was weighted down by a relatively low number of ads aired in Missouri ahead of the Show-Me state's primary (see Gephardt discussion from the previous post).

Basically then, Indiana moves from getting nothing in May to garnering -- as the other states on the date had individually -- about half the ad buys as Iowa did to kick off the 2004 campaign.

A Model Based on Candidate Visits

And what about the other piece of the puzzle, candidate visits to the state? The results here are very similar to what we saw in the candidate ad buys model above.

Regression Analysis of State-level Visit Shares (2004)
Variable	Coefficient	Indiana Value (actual/earlier)	Explanation of Measurement
Delegates	.851	1.87	Percentage of total Democratic delegates
Timing	-.016	106/15	Number of days since first contest
Primary?	.156	1	Dichotomous: 0 = Caucus 1 = Primary
Candidates	1.414*	2/7	Number of candidates vying for nomination at time of contest
Events/Day	.855	0/7	Number of other simultaneous events
Events/Week	-1.627*	0/7	Number of other events in the same week (Wednesday-Tuesday)
Neighbors?	.020	0/0	Percentage of neighboring states holding simultaneous events
Visits (DV)	--	0.18	Average percentage of candidate visits
Constant	-1.303
R2 = .43 | n = 50 | Significance: *.05 **.01 ***<.01

Overall, the visits model isn't as good of a fit as the ads model. The included variables account for only 43% of the variation in the number of visits to a state (and that's despite the fact that there was visits data for all 50 states). However, the same basic group of variables was significant. Again, it is all about the number of candidates actively competing for the nomination at the time of a contest and the number of events in a week that matter at least statistically. The same phenomenon we saw above in terms of the two events variables is at play in this model as well. Namely, the events/week variable is significant and its relationship with visits is in the predicted direction, but events/day is neither significant nor in the hypothesized direction. Excluding each from the model has the same effect as well. Events/week doesn't change while events/day approaches statistical significance and has a negative effect on the number of visits to a state (as hypothesized).

Finally, a state's percentage of delegates also has a significant impact on a candidate deciding to touch down and actually campaign in a state. For each 1% increase in a state's share of delegates, the average state receives a bonus .85% of candidates visit shares. No, that doesn't seem like much, but the hypothetical difference between Indiana and, say, California would be 7% of the overall number of visits (based on delegates alone).

If Indiana would have moved its presidential primary to the earliest possible date in 2004, though, what would its share of candidate visits have been? The increase wasn't as great as it was in the case of ads, but Indiana's share of overall candidate visits increased nearly four and three-quarters percent by hypothetically shifting its presidential primary from May to February in 2004. At 4.69%, Indiana's predicted February share of candidate visits was 26 times greater than it was in actuality in May. A mere 6 candidate visits in May would have been nearly 160 visits had the Indiana primary been on February 3. The other seven states on February 3 averaged 57 visits, so the Indiana prediction greatly exceeds that average. The problem there is that the seven state average includes the depressed totals from Delaware and Missouri and the complete absence of visits to North Dakota for the state's caucuses. With those three states dropped from the average, the February 3 states averaged 88 candidate visits. Indiana, then, would have had a share of visits on par but shy of the number of visits South Carolina received on the same date.

Conclusion

In 2004, Indiana could have significantly improved the amount of attention it received from the candidates in the race had it shifted its presidential primary from May to February; going from 0 to 3051 ads aired and 6 to 158 candidate visits. But 2004 was unique in the opportunity it provided states in regard to moving delegate selection events in exchange for the spoils of the system. Only the Democratic Party had a contested nomination and their allowing for February contests opened the door for states to move, but only a handful of states took advantage of that rule change. However, those states on average increased their share of candidate attention. Yet that was probably a one and done proposition as many more states joined those seven at the front of the queue in 2008. The result was that those states saw a drop in the amount of attention each received. So, while Indiana could have significantly increased the attention the state received in 2004, that same increase would not have been available to the state in 2008 or in 2012 simply because, unless the rules change to regulate which states go when, there will be too much competition at the earliest allowable date (February 7, 2012).

The lesson? If the party rules change to allow for early dates, a state would be smart to move earlier rather than later to capture an increased share of candidate attention. Of course, Indiana was not in the most advantageous position prior to 2004. The Indiana House was controlled by Democrats who could potentially have been interested in moving the state's primary date for a competitive Democratic nomination (but never introduced a bill to do so). However, the state Senate was controlled by the Republicans. Had a bill to move the primary been introduced, the divided legislature could have proven a significant obstruction to such a move. It may, then, appear that Indiana missed an opportunity prior to 2004, regardless of legislative politics.

Up next? The 2000 primaries.


Recent Posts:
Michael Steele by the Numbers

GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee for 2012

Should Indiana Frontload in 2012? (Part One)

Should Indiana Frontload in 2012? (Part One)

The View from 2004

A couple of weeks ago I laid out a simple model for examining the variation in the amount of attention (candidate visits and ad buys) states receive during any given presidential primary season. I further offered that one could use the information from this model to then predict the amount of attention a state would have gotten had it been in a different, more advantageous, calendar position. Let's reproduce the list of factors hypothesized to have an effect on the amount of attention a state would garner:

• Delegates: As I have alluded to before, size maters. California is likely to get more attention from moving than Indiana.
  
• Primary or caucus?: Despite all the chatter about caucuses in 2008, primaries still get the most attention from candidates.
  
• Event Scheduling: This site is pretty much predicated on the idea that in the current system, earlier is better.
  
• Number of candidates: Obviously, the greater the number of candidates in the nomination race at the time of a state's contest, the more attention that state is likely to get.
  
• Number of simultaneous events: A crowded field of contests on any one day translates into candidate resources stretched thin. Look no further than Arkansas on this one.
  
• Number of events in the same week: The reasoning above holds true here as well. If a state has a contest on the weekend following Super Tuesday, it may receive short shrift from the candidates than if it had not been as close to so many other contests.
  
• Number of nearby states on the same date: Finally, resources are hypothetically more efficiently spent if a cluster of contests in neighboring states occur simultaneously. If John McCain is already in Missouri it is much easier (and more likely) to go campaign in nearby Oklahoma or Arkansas or Tennessee prior to February 5, 2008.

Since Indiana is in the process of looking into whether they want to form a committee to look into whether they should reposition their own presidential primary, I've been using the Hoosier state as my test case. [And incidentally, SCR 28 has passed the Senate by voice vote and has been introduced and read in the House as of March 10.] The question then is, "How much more attention would Indiana receive if it held its presidential on an earlier date?"

For the purposes of this exercise, we'll define earlier as the earliest date on which a state could hold its delegate selection event without sanction from the national party. And we'll be looking at this in terms of the 2004 primary calendar (Not to brag, but it is awfully nice to be able to reference all the primary calendars back to 1976 now.). I'll add in a 2000 projection later, but it is a bit messier with both parties having contested nominations. There are a couple of additional factors to consider. For now though, I'll focus on 2004, when only the Democratic nomination was at stake. In 2004, the earliest a non-Iowa/New Hampshire state could hold its contest was a week after the New Hampshire primary, February 3. Indeed, six states moved into the brave new world of February for the 2004 cycle, the cycle when the Democratic Party initially allowed for contests that early. In other words, there was some competition on that date but not anywhere close to the level of competition for attention on that same first Tuesday in February of 2008.

If Indiana had moved from the first week in May to the first week in February for the 2004 cycle, then, what would the Hoosier state have taken home? I looked at the descriptives of this recently and found that a handful of similarly-sized states to Indiana frontloaded in 2004 and gained as a result of the move. Tennessee and Wisconsin essentially went from nothing to around the amount of attention a state of their sizes would be expected to be if all other factors were equal. The other state, Missouri, unfortunately suffered because its favorite son, Dick Gephardt, was running and the contest had been pre-emptively ceded to the Congressman by the other candidates. [Yes, Gephardt had dropped out by this point, but the amount of attention the state got was far less than it would have been if Gephardt hadn't been in the race at all. He had only dropped out a couple of weeks prior and other states on February 3 -- especially South Carolina -- were getting much more attention.] Moving into February, then, had its advantages.

The Model

Before we look into the ramifications of Indiana having been the eighth state on February 3, 2004, let's look at how the underlying model performed.

Regression Analysis of State-level Attention Shares (2004)
Variable	Coefficient	Indiana Value (actual/earlier)	Explanation of Measurement
Delegates	.434	1.87	Percentage of total Democratic delegates
Timing	-.011	106/15	Number of days since first contest
Primary?	.569	1	Dichotomous: 0 = Caucus 1 = Primary
Candidates	1.496***	2/7	Number of candidates vying for nomination at time of contest
Events/Day	.753	0/7	Number of other simultaneous events
Events/Week	-1.366*	0/7	Number of other events in the same week (Wednesday-Tuesday)
Neighbors?	.022	0/0	Percentage of neighboring states holding simultaneous events
Attention (DV)	--	0.09	Average percentage of candidate visits and ad buys
Constant	-2.136
R2 = .47 | n = 50 | Significance: *.05 **.01 ***<.01

Looking at Indiana in particular, we're talking about a primary 106 days after the nomination race began -- well after it was over in fact -- that basically got nothing in terms of attention. Despite the fact that it is around the median for size and the fact that Indiana held the only event on its date or week, the Hoosier state primary just fell too far after the point at which the nomination had been decided to matter.

The Results

Across the board, though, what factors did matter?* I'm not terribly surprised that the percentage of delegates wasn't a significant variable. As I've said before, it just doesn't seem to matter in the context of frontloading. Timing didn't even matter, but that may have more to do with the fact that it is fairly highly correlated (>.8) with the number of candidates in the race at the time of the primary or caucus, which was a significant factor. Multicollinearity is a potential problem with the events/day and events/week variables. Obviously there is some amount of overlap between those two concepts, but the two are nearly perfectly correlated (>.9). That said, when events in a week is dropped, the simultaneous events on a date variable is still not significant. In events/day's absence, events/week remains significant. The oddity here is that with both are included in the model, they run in counter directions, which is not consistent with the hypothsized (the more events, the less attention). As it turns out, it is the significant variable (events/week) that runs in the proper direction. [Fortunately.] Together, these seven variables account for just shy of half of the variation in attention we see across the fifty states. Not a great fit, but not all that bad for a first pass.

The Prediction

With that baseline set, what level of attention can we predict Indiana would have gotten if it had shifted its presidential primary to February 3? We'll have to alter Indiana's numbers on events/day (7 events), events/week (7 events), percentage of neighbors going on the same date (0%) and the number of days after Iowa (15) to make this prediction. With those numbers imputed into the regression equation Indiana's predicted share of candidate attention rises from essentially nothing in reality to over five and a quarter percent had the Hoosier state's primary been held during the first week in February. That is consistent with the amount of attention Arizona actually got. Now, size doesn't matter in this model, but Arizona is a similarly-sized state to Indiana. Arizona did get the benefit of having a primary simultaneously with its eastern neighbor, New Mexico, which got a similar share of the total attention for the cycle.

Great, so, Indiana would have gotten about 60 times as much attention as it got in 2004 by moving from May to February, but how do we go about interpretting a share of attention. What does that mean in terms of the number of ads bought or the number of candidate visits to the state? I'm glad you asked. I'll pick up there tomorrow with part two.

*Yeah, but how do we go about reading those coefficients from the table above? We can see that the number of candidates in the race at the time of the contest and the number of events occurring in the same week as any given contest matter, but what do those numbers mean? In the case of the candidates variable, we can interpret that coefficient to mean that a one candidate increase translates to a 1.5% increase in the amount of attention a state receives. In a somewhat counteractive fashion, a one contest increase in the number of events in a given Wednesday-Tuesday week causes a 1.4% decrease in the share of attention a state garners. Of course the other variables play a role in determining this as well despite not being statistically significant. Substantively, both the percentage of delegates and primary/caucus distinction are significant, though the latter isn't as much as the extant literature might lead s to believe. In the case of the former, a one percent increase in the share of delegates a state had means a .4% increase in the amount of attention that state got.


Recent Posts:
WA-SoS Urges Steele to Back a Regional Primary System

2008 Electoral College by Congressional District

2008 Presidential Primary Calendar

2004 Presidential Primary Calendar

January

Friday, January 2:
Maine Republican caucuses (through March 19)

Tuesday, January 13:
Washington, DC primary (non-binding)

Saturday, January 17:
South Carolina Republican caucuses (through February 21)

Monday, January 19:
Iowa caucuses (both parties)

Sunday, January 25:
Hawaii Republican caucuses (through February 7)

Tuesday, January 27:
New Hampshire primary

February

Sunday, February 1:
North Carolina Republican caucuses (through March 31)

Tuesday, February 3:
Arizona primary (Democrats only)
Delaware primary (Democrats only)
Missouri primary
New Mexico Democratic caucuses 
North Dakota caucuses
Oklahoma primary
South Carolina primary (Democrats only, party-run)
Wyoming Republican caucuses (through February 29)

Wednesday, February 4:
Virginia Republican caucuses (through April 4)

Saturday, February 7:
Michigan primary (Democrats only, party-run)
Washington Democratic caucuses 
Louisiana Republican caucuses

Sunday, February 8:
Maine Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, February 10:
Nevada Republican caucuses 
Tennessee primary
Virginia primary (Democrats only)
Washington, DC Republican caucuses

Saturday, February 14:
Nevada Democratic caucuses
Washington, DC Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, February 17:
Wisconsin primary

Saturday, February 21:
Alaska Republican caucuses (through April 17)

Tuesday, February 24:
Hawaii Democratic caucuses 
Idaho Democratic caucuses
Utah primary (party-run)

March

Monday, March 1:
Delaware Republican caucuses (through May 15 -- State convention)
Kansas Republican caucuses (through June 15)

Tuesday, March 2:
California primary
Connecticut primary (Republican canceled)
Georgia primary
Maryland primary
Massachusetts primary
Minnesota caucuses (both parties)
New York primary (Republican canceled)
Ohio primary
Rhode Island primary
Vermont primary

Saturday, March 6:
Wyoming Democratic caucuses (through March 20)

Tuesday, March 9:
Florida primary (Republican canceled)
Louisiana primary
Mississippi primary (Republican canceled)
North Carolina Democratic caucuses
Texas primary (both parties & Democratic caucuses)
Washington Republican caucuses

Saturday, March 13:
Kansas Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, March 16:
Illinois primary

Saturday, March 20:
Alaska Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, March 23:
Utah Republican caucuses

April

Sunday, April 3:
Arizona Republican caucuses (through April 17)

Tuesday, April 13:
Colorado caucuses (both parties)

Tuesday, April 27:
Pennsylvania primary

May

Tuesday, May 4:
Indiana primary

Tuesday, May 11:
Nebraska primary
West Virginia primary

Tuesday, May 18:
Arkansas primary
Kentucky primary
Oregon primary

Tuesday, May 25:
Idaho primary (Republicans only)

June

Tuesday, June 1:
Alabama primary
New Mexico primary (Republicans only)
South Dakota primary (Republicans canceled)

Tuesday, June 8:
Montana primary (Democrats only, Republican beauty contest -- no delegates at stake)
New Jersey primary

Thursday, June 10:
Montana Republican convention (through June 12)

[Primaries in bold; Caucuses in italics]

States that are split vertically had different dates for different party contests. The shade to the left of that line corresponds with the month in which the Democratic contest took place and the right side represents the Republican contest.

[Source: The Green Papers and news accounts from 2004. The latter was used to double-check the dates or discover missing ones.]


A few notes:
1) North Carolina. It isn't often that we witness a traditional primary state -- one that has held a primary every presidential election cycle in the post-reform era -- adopt a caucus system for the purposes of delegate allocation. But that's exactly what North Carolina did in 2004. Of course, the move was one of necessity and not the state parties'/state government's desires. Due to a battle of redrawn congressional district lines, the North Carolina primary (typically in May) was postponed until the conflict was settled in the courts. The primaries for state and local offices occurred in July, but the state parties (mostly just the Democrats) had to scramble to put together a means of delegate allocation. So, while North Carolina technically frontloaded in 2004, it was not a purposeful movement forward. The reason most of the caucuses fall before April or May is so the first step in the process is early enough that the process will be at or near its completion by the time the window in which contests can be held closes.

2) With the Democrats opening the door to February contests, 2004 saw a host of states take them up on the offer. Democratic primaries in Arizona, Delaware, Michigan and Virginia followed GOP contests in those states four years earlier -- when the Republicans had first allowed for more widespread February contests. Plus, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin all shifted their state-funded primaries into February as well. Again, as was mentioned in the 2000 calendar discussion, those allowances by both parties set the stage for the massive shift that brought about 2008's de facto national primary on February 5.

3) In all, there were 11 primaries prior to March, 14 during March and 13 after March. That's actually not a bad distribution of contests. Basically, that means there were 11 contests in February (if New Hampshire is included), 14 in March and then 13 contests somewhat inefficiently distributed across the remaining two months of the process. Sure, that focuses on the primaries, but if you have that same distribution above across March, April and May/June and hold the caucuses in February, that's essentially the same idea as the Ohio Plan the GOP debated last year. Those caucus states are, on the whole, the smaller states which are frontloaded in that plan for the sake of retail politics. An interesting parallel.


Recent Posts:
2000 Presidential Primary Calendar

Shoveling Out from Under...

The Supreme Court Weighing in on Frontloading?

2008 vs. 2004: Glass is Half Empty/Glass is Half Full

If you're like I've been today, you've been clicking refresh every so often over at Pollster to see if any new state-level polls have emerged in this post-convention period. [There were several late-day releases, but I'll get to that in a bit when I post the first of the daily electoral college updates. I think we'll have enough polling volume that we'll be able to pull it off. At the end of the election, we'll have a much richer picture of what was happening over these last fifty-seven days.] It is one thing to answer the "convention bounce" question with national polls, but I've always been inclined to discover how this is working out on the state level. Is that national bounce that we've witnessed for McCain uniformly distributed across all states, or is it the case that McCain/Palin just fired up partisans in already-red states with their convention last week? I suspect the answer is somewhere in the middle, but I'd like to take an opportunity to cast an eye to the past for a guide in all this. As you'll recall, about a month ago, I examined how, using FHQ methodology, 2004 would have looked at the same, mid-August point of the campaign. The middle of August in 2004 was roughly two weeks after the conclusion of the Democratic convention, so we would expect to have seen Kerry in a somewhat advantageous position in the electoral college projection relative to Bush. And that's exactly what we saw. Kerry had essentially the same projected lead in the electoral college that Obama held in the same mid-August period.

However, given that mid-August was in the time after Kerry's convention, we'd expect to see a bounce for him as well, right? Well, since Kerry got basically no bounce (see the graph and point D04) out of his convention that isn't necessarily the case. The Massachusetts senator didn't get anything out of the convention in the national polls, but did he in the state polls? The thing that marked 2004 was the tight equilibrium that we saw across much of the campaign cycle. The Democratic convention didn't do anything to shake up the steady state of the race. In fact, as you'll see below, that state was held through and even past the Republican convention in 2004. September 8, 2004 was roughly a week after the conclusion of the GOP's convention and at that point there had not been any change to the distribution in the electoral college. Kerry, then, didn't get a bounce out of his convention, nor does it appear that he was hurt in any way by the modest bounce Bush received from his convention -- at least not in the week following the conclusion of the Republican convention.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

After the conventions then, Kerry still held just enough of an advantage in enough states to provide him with a 44 electoral vote edge over the incumbent president. But as I'm sure President Kerry will attest, that lead did not last. While the margin stayed the same the fundamentals of the race were changing. The states that shifted over the last 100 days of the race had begun, in most cases, their moves toward President Bush. New Mexico shifted from a Kerry lean to a toss up favoring Kerry. And though Florida continued to ever so slightly favor Kerry, the Sunshine state was basically a tie and was slowing inching toward the Republican nominee. The only other state that shifted sides was Iowa and the Hawkeye state actually moved slightly toward Kerry in the mid-August to early September period in 2004. Still, the lead was under three points and Bush was obviously able to swing just enough votes to pull out a victory in the state in November.

Colorado was also an interesting case over this period. The Centennial state, like Iowa, moved toward Kerry over this period, in the process shifting from an Bush lean to a toss up state. Why is that interesting? Well, obviously the trend is counter to what we might expect of a Bush state in the post-convention period, but Colorado also had a special measure on the ballot that fall. The measure, if supported by voters, would have distributed the state's electoral votes by congressional district in the manner that Maine and Nebraska do and would have taken effect for the 2004 electoral college session in Washington in December following the election. The measure was voted down, but in the context of this tightening, is an interesting footnote to the election.

So how does this enhance our understanding of what is happening in the current race for the White House. For that let's start by comparing the map above to the map from yesterday's electoral college projection update.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

There is quite a bit of overlap between the toss up states in each cycle. But 2008 has brought several atypical states into the mix. Indiana, Montana, North Carolina and North Dakota are all much closer than they were just four years ago. All still favor the Republican candidate, but are closer. States like Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon and Wisconsin that were toss ups four years ago are all leaning more heavily toward the Democrat in 2008. That has helped to provide Obama with a cushion that neither Kerry nor Gore enjoyed in either of the last two elections. Obama is ahead and doesn't need Florida to cross the 270 electoral vote threshold. And though the Illinois senator is slightly ahead in Ohio as of now, he could cede the Buckeye state to McCain and still eke out an eight electoral vote victory assuming McCain also inches ahead in currently tied Nevada. In fairness, we don't have even a partial picture of how the conventions are playing on the state level. [Well, we do now, but I'll get to that in a little while.]

The Electoral College Spectrum*
MA-12 (15)**	HI-4 (168)	WI-10 (264/284)	NC-15 (167)	KS-6 (45)
RI-4 (19)	WA-11 (179)	FL-27*** (291/274)	AZ-10 (152)	AK-3 (39)
NY-31 (50)	ME-4 (183)	NV-5 (296/247)	SC-8 (142)	OK-7 (36)
CT-7 (57)	MN-10 (193/355)	OH-20 (316/242)	GA-15 (134)	MT-3 (29)
VT-3 (60)	NM-5 (198/345)	MO-11 (327/222)	SD-3 (119)	ND-3 (26)
IL-21 (81)	OR-7 (205/340)	AR-6 (333/211)	LA-9 (116)	NE-5 (23)
MD-10 (91)	MI-17 (222/333)	WV-5 (338/205)	KY-8 (107)	ID-4 (18)
CA-55 (146)	NH-4 (226/316)	CO-9 (347/200)	IN-11 (99)	MS-6 (14)
NJ-15 (161)	IA-7 (233/312)	VA-13 (360/191)	AL-9 (88)	WY-3 (8)
DE-3 (164)	PA-21 (254/305)	TN-11 (178)	TX-34 (79)	UT-5 (5)
*Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. **The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Bush won all the states up to and including New Hampshire (all Kerry's toss up states, but Michigan), he would have 323 electoral votes. Both candidates numbers are only totaled through their rival's toss up states. In those cases, Kerry's number is on the left and Bush's is on the right in italics. ***Florida is the state where Kerry crosses (or Bush would cross) the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That state is referred to as the victory line.

Both the Electoral College Spectrum and the Watch List of this period in 2004 underscore the precarious position in which Senator Kerry was at the time. His hold on Florida was the only thing keeping him above 270 and then it was only by a fraction. Plus the number of light blue toss up states had snaked all the way into the the second column of Kerry states. This was compounded by the fact that all the states that were near moving -- those on the Watch List below -- were predominantly Kerry states. And while many were on the line between toss up and lean, most had already moved into the toss up category and would end up staying there or in the case of Iowa and New Mexico, would move into Bush's column.

The Watch List*
State	Switch
California	from Strong Kerry	to Kerry lean
Florida	from Toss Up Kerry	to Toss Up Bush
Maine	from Kerry lean	to Toss Up Kerry
Maryland	from Strong Kerry	to Kerry lean
Michigan	from Toss Up Kerry	to Kerry lean
Minnesota	from Toss Up Kerry	to Kerry lean
Nevada	from Toss Up Bush	to Toss Up Kerry
New Hampshire	from Toss Up Kerry	to Kerry lean
New Mexico	from Toss Up Kerry	to Kerry lean
Oregon	from Toss Up Kerry	to Kerry lean
Tennessee	from Bush lean	to Toss Up Bush
*Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

So, glass is half empty, Obama is in the same position Kerry was in (in terms of an aggregation of electoral votes). But, glass is half full, Obama has built-in advantages that neither Kerry nor Gore before him held in their respective runs for the White House. Where the 2008 race stands now, though, depends on how these states begin breaking with the information the conventions of the last two weeks have added to the discussion.

We'll get to those shortly.


Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (9/7/08)

On to the Debates! -- And a Note on Compression

Presidential Primary Reform: Still Alive with the GOP?

A Follow Up on the 50% Mark: The View from 2004

Yesterday I made note of Barack Obama clearing the 50% mark in the daily tracking polls from both Rasmussen and Gallup. Now, I mentioned the significance of the 50% barrier and the timing -- September polls are better predictors of November results than late October or November polls -- but let's try and add a bit of context here. What did things look like in the national polls four years ago and how does that mesh with what we have seen and are seeing in this current race?

A quick glance at what Real Clear Politics has to offer from four years ago gives us a good start. By my count, there were 155 national polls that were conducted between March and election day. 76 came prior to the beginning of convention season in late July and the remaining 79 polls were conducted in the period during and after the conventions. Obama became the first candidate during this cycle to hit the 50% mark, just after the beginning of September. By contrast John Kerry hit that mark in early April. He didn't stay there, but the Massachusetts senator broke that barrier first. In fact, he hit it at various other points 10 other times prior to the Democratic convention in late July. President Bush, by contrast, was only over 50% in any of the national polls two times out of those 76.

The post convention story was a bit different. Of those 79 polls during and after the conventions, Bush broke the 50% threshold 27 times (over one-third of the time) while Kerry managed only five polls over that mark in that time. Granted, across the entire 155 polls (before and after the conventions), that leaves 61% that showed a closely contested race with both candidates in the mid- to upper 40s.

In fairness, this is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison (Alright, perhaps a Granny Smith to red delicious comparison.). Yesterday's numbers were from tracking polls, but the above data are from national polls, yes, but not tracking polls. As I mentioned, though, the 50% trend would have to extend to state polls in battleground states and national polls and last for a period of time for this to resonate in any way. The other caveat is that 2004 was a different year with a different set of variables. The presence of an incumbent in the race may have a lot to do with the differences we see. In a campaign without one, voters are still attempting to figure out who the two candidates are in 2008. They got a pretty good idea about Obama last week, and are hearing the rebuttal and McCain pitch this week.

Still, those 2004 numbers speak for themselves. During September, Bush led in 23 of the 25 polls that were conducted (Kerry led in one and was tied in the other.). Once we clear the next week or so (past the conventions), we should get a pretty good idea of where the race stands in 2008.

For a deeper look into the history of the national polls during the course of the presidential campaign, Andrew Gelman had a post up in June that had a figure from his 1993 paper with Gary King charting the polling trends from the 1952-1992 elections.


Recent Posts:
Obama Cracks 50% in the Daily Trackers. What Does It Mean?

And What About the Green Party?

It's Never as Easy as Taking Away Half the Delegates

2008 vs. 2004, Part II: What Happened in the Final 100 Days in 2004 and What That May Mean for the Rest of This Campaign

Now that we've seen that John Kerry's state-level poll leads over Bush in 2004 were similar in the aggregate to the electoral college vote distribution we see currently in the 2008 race, we can focus more on what appears to have happened over the final 100 or so days of the race four years ago. By extension, then, we may be able to make some educated guesses as to what we may have in store between now an November. Here again is the map that shows how the electoral college would have looked in mid-August if FHQ's weighted average methodology were used on the polling from 2004.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Based on Florida (or at least on Kerry's edge in the average there in August), Kerry held an advantage over the incumbent president in the August electoral college projection. Florida, though, wasn't the only mover between August and November. It was however, among a group of states that shifted their electoral votes from one side of the partisan line to the other -- Iowa and New Mexico were the other two. Below are the final results from the 2004 election. Each state was color coded based on the final vote percentage margin four years ago. California, for example, was firmly within Kerry's column throughout 2004, but the final percentage margin (9 points) put the Golden state in a position to be deemed a Kerry lean state. While Florida, Iowa and New Mexico were the only three states to have shifted sides, there were twelve overall movers when comparing the August projection to the final results.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Let's isolate those twelve states just to get a visual on where exactly the movement occurred. Not only do Florida, Iowa and New Mexico turn red, but several states became more intensely red and all twelve moved toward Bush including the two blue states on the map, California and Minnesota. The momentum seems to have been squarely on the incumbent president's side coming down the stretch. Bush made his biggest gains -- moving across two categories -- in Florida and New Mexico and seems to have outperformed state-level polling average through August most consistently in the peripheral South and in border states.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

That momentum translated into a shift of 39 electoral votes over the final three months of the 2004 campaign and into an electoral college victory for Bush. So what does any of this have to do with the current race for the White House? It should serve as a cautionary tale for all you President Kerry enthusiasts and Obama supporters. Much can change and likely will over the course of the next two plus months, and though, in 2004 that meant a shift toward the incumbent, in 2008 it may mean something different. One pattern that has emerged in this current race is that things often return to normal after a "shock" to the system. Obama wins the Democratic nomination and gets a bounce that trailed off in some states. McCain punches back while Obama is abroad and upon his return and draws closer to the Illinois senator. But even that has given way to a regression toward the mean. You see different pictures of this depending on where you look. Real Clear Politics shows Obama rising ever so slightly while McCain dips since last week. Over at Pollster the picture is a bit different with both candidates trending upward, but McCain is doing so at a quicker rate.

Granted that focuses on the national picture and Alan Abramowitz has already covered that. One thing that we can note of 2004 is that half of those movers from August on were toss up states. We can then feel comfortable that that is where most of the action will be from now on. That's 13 states as of FHQ's most recent accounting of the electoral college. [I'll have an update up tonight. Yeah, I know -- late.] Of the big hitters, Pennsylvania is trending toward Obama, Virginia and Ohio are holding steady but very close, Michigan and Colorado are closing a bit, and Florida, after moving hard toward Obama has held steady like North Carolina at a distance just outside of Obama's reach. One thing that should be noted is that both Indiana and Nevada have not been polled very recently and are certainly in need of updating. With that said, one thing that struck me in going over the data from 2004 was how big the uptick in polling was once September started. We have been lucky to have had as much information during this cycle as we've had, but it should really start to pick up after the GOP convention during the first week in September.

I should also put in a request to all FHQ readers. I have access to an incomplete set of the polling from 2000 and would like very much to do a similar sort of analysis with that data. If anyone knows where that data can be found just let me know in the comments section below. Thanks.


Recent Posts:
2008 vs. 2004, Part I: What Things Would Have Looked Like 4 Years Ago This Time

The Electoral College Spectrum

The Electoral College Map (8/10/08)

2008 vs. 2004, Part I: What Things Would Have Looked Like 4 Years Ago This Time

Just last week, Alan Abramowitz posted on Sabato's Crystal Ball an examination of how the 2004 presidential race looked in early August. I've been sitting on the state polling data from 2004 for most of the summer, but have yet incorporate it in this forum. I don't particularly like to jump on a bandwagon, but if I've got to follow someone, Abramowitz is a good person to follow up on. His focus was primarily on polling from the national perspective, so an investigation from the state level dovetails nicely with that and augments our understanding of the overlapping dynamics in both races as well as their differences.

In this first part, I want to treat 2004 as if it was the election FHQ was currently examining twice every week. To put it slightly differently, this post applies both the format and methodology of the electoral college projection posts to the state level polling of 2004. Given polling conducted prior to August 12, 2004, what did things look like on August 13 four years ago? Which states were in play? Who held an advantage in the electoral college?

[Click Map to Enlarge]

In the aggregate at least, the Bush-Kerry race looks an awful lot like McCain-Obama does now. Four years ago, Kerry would have held a 44 electoral vote lead over George W. Bush. Over the course of the summer, Barack Obama has had a 298-240 electoral vote edge over John McCain. Notably, Florida and Ohio have switched places in the interim: Florida turning pink and Ohio going light blue. Like Ohio since 2004, Colorado and Nevada have gone blue as well. Other than those four states -- all of which remain toss up states in 2008 -- everything is exactly as it was four years ago.

So should John McCain be feeling pretty good about his position in the 2008 race?

Well, yes and no. It is true that the numbers look eerily similar [Democrats are getting that nervous feeling again.] to the ones in 2004. However, there's more to it than just reds and blues on a map. If we shift our focus to the Electoral College Spectrum, we can get a better idea of exactly how intensely red or blue those states were (ranked from most Democratic to most Republican). This is where the two races look totally different. Bush had at least a 5 point lead (lean or strong states) over Kerry in 22 states with 187 electoral votes. McCain on the other hand isn't as strong overall with strong and lean states (19 of them) totalling 157 electoral votes. In a tight race 30 electoral votes is a big difference. On the flip side, John Kerry's strong and lean state electoral vote tally summed to 198, whereas Obama's total of similar states adds up to 222. From 2004 to 2008, then, the intensity has shifted from the right to the left. But primary season really already told us that. Higher turnout for and a higher number of new registrants participating in the 2008 Democratic primaries are fairly good indicators of that.

The Electoral College Spectrum*
MA-12 (15)**	ME-4 (168)	WI-10 (264/284)	CO-9 (166)	AL-9 (79)
RI-4 (19)	HI-4 (172)	FL-27*** (291/274)	NC-15 (157)	TX-34 (70)
NY-31 (50)	WA-11 (183)	OH-20 (311/247)	SC-8 (142)	OK-7 (36)
CT-7 (57)	MN-10 (193)	NV-5 (316/227)	GA-15 (134)	AK-3 (29)
VT-3 (60)	NM-5 (198)	WV-5 (321/222)	KY-8 (119)	ND-3 (26)
IL-21 (81)	MI-17 (215/340)	MO-11 (332/217)	LA-9 (111)	NE-5 (23)
CA-55 (136)	NH-4 (219/323)	AR-6 (338/206)	SD-3 (102)	ID-4 (18)
MD-10 (146)	OR-7 (226/319)	VA-13 (351/200)	IN-11 (99)	MS-6 (14)
NJ-15 (161)	PA-21 (247/312)	TN-11 (187)	KS-6 (88)	WY-3 (8)
DE-3 (164)	IA-7 (254/291)	AZ-10 (176)	MT-3 (82)	UT-5 (5)
*Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. **The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Bush won all the states up to and including New Hampshire (all Kerry's toss up states, but Michigan), he would have 323 electoral votes. Both candidates numbers are only totaled through their rival's toss up states. In those cases, Kerry's number is on the left and Bush's is on the right in italics. ***Florida is the state where Kerry crosses (or Bush would cross) the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That state is referred to as the victory line.

As always, these presidential races come down to what happens in those states competitive enough to be considered swing states. In mid-August of 2004, John Kerry needed every last one of those states in shades of blue and Florida to even hypothetically cross over 270 electoral votes. 2008 and 2004 differ on the spectrum in the fact that in 2008, Barack Obama's toss up states push the partisan line beyond the victory line. The Illinois senator has two states in Nevada and Ohio that he could cede to McCain and still top 270 electoral votes. Kerry's lead in 2004 was much more tenuous. The junior senator from Massachusetts didn't have a similar cushion. In fact, four years ago, the partisan line and the victory line would have converged on Florida. All Bush had to do then was to swing the Sunshine state a little less than a percentage point and the election would have been his. As it turned out, he just had to show up in the state during a hurricane season that ravaged the Florida coast to accomplish that. Sure, both Ohio and Nevada were close enough to have been put on the mid-August Watch List in 2004. And Bush certainly had to work to keep the Buckeye state from turning blue.

The Watch List*
State	Switch
Arizona	from Bush lean	to Toss Up Bush
Florida	from Toss Up Kerry	to Toss Up Bush
Michigan	from Toss Up Kerry	to Kerry lean
Minnesota	from Kerry lean	to Toss Up Kerry
Nevada	from Toss Up Bush	to Toss Up Kerry
New Hampshire	from Toss Up Kerry	to Kerry lean
New Mexico	from Kerry lean	to Toss Up Kerry
Ohio	from Toss Up Bush	to Toss Up Kerry
South Carolina	from Strong Bush	to Bush lean
Tennessee	from Bush lean	to Toss Up Bush
*Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

As you look at the Watch List, you'll note that seven of the ten states were on lines that would have put them close to switching in Kerry's direction. Part II will show that those shift didn't come to fruition for Kerry and that something entirely different happened between August and November 2004.


Recent Posts:
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The Electoral College Map (8/10/08)

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