Is a Landslide possible?

I think the answer is emphatically YES!

Political campaigns are deeply bound by tradition and generally follow along well worn paths. Many folks are reluctant to break out of habits well learned until they actually step into the voting booth. An election that illustrates this very well is 1980.

All through that campaign, the polls showed a relatively tight race. Reagan was considered by the chattering class as too much of a cowboy, dangerous, reckless etc. Many Americans thus kept their intention to vote for him to themselves. I have long felt that this explains why polls generally under count the GOP's support.

On election day Reagan destroyed Jimmy Carter. Reagan got 51% of the vote in a three way race and lead Carter by 10 percentage points. With the exception of Reagan's dismantling of the hapless Walter Mondale four years later, no presidential election since then has seen a margin anywhere near that large.

George W. Bush came into office under less than ideal conditions. He lost the popular vote (for what that is worth, more on that in a future post), and he won the electoral vote by the barest of margins and only after a several weeks long Gortantrum. Many pundits along with the Democratic Party, assumed this would cloud Bush's chances for a second term.

Then September 11, 2001 happened. In a single morning of horror, the earth shifted and politics as we knew it ceased to exist. That single fact, barring a bizarre and unprecedented meltdown by George W. Bush in tonight's debate, will re-elect the President and by a margin outside that which is suggested by current polls.

When voters across the nation enter the voting booth and prepare to pull the lever (or punch the screen, or whatever) the last thought they will have, the last image they will contemplate will decide their vote.

It won't be Social Security, or unemployment, or gay marriage, or tax cuts, or Vietnam. Enron won't matter nor will Halliburton or Damn Rather. Milk price supports, wind surfing, idiots from Hollywood, and gas prices won't matter.

What will rise before the mind's eye and fill Americans with resolve, will be two towers burning and falling, a national symbol with a plane embedded in one of its five sides, an open field in Pennsylvania where good men confronted evil.

I believe that when Americans make this most important of choices, a surprisingly large number of them will vote for George W. Bush. In five weeks we will know for sure, but at this moment I suspect the president will gather something on the order of 55% of the popular vote, well over 300 electoral votes, and John Kerry will join George McGovern, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis as men who ran for the wrong job against the wrong man at the wrong time.

The Road to 270

Alabama 9 Bush 9
Alaska 3 Bush 12
Arizona 10 Bush 22
Arkansas 6 Bush 28
California 55 Kerry 55
Colorado 9 Bush 37
Connecticut 7 Kerry 62
Delaware 3 Kerry 65
District of Columbia 3 Kerry 68
Florida 27 Bush 64
Georgia 15 Bush 79
Hawaii 4 Kerry 72
Idaho 4 Bush 83
Illinois 21 Kerry 93
Indiana 11 Bush 94
Iowa 7 Bush (a switch) 101
Kansas 6 Bush 107
Kentucky 8 Bush 115
Louisiana 9 Bush 124
Maine 4 Kerry 97
Maryland 10 Kerry 107
Massachusetts 12 Kerry 119
Michigan 17 Kerry 136
Minnesota 10 Kerry 146
Mississippi 6 Bush 130
Missouri 11 Bush 141
Montana 3 Bush 144
Nebraska 5 Bush 149
Nevada 5 Bush 154
New Hampshire 4 Bush 158
New Jersey 15 Kerry 161
New Mexico 5 Kerry 166
New York 31 Kerry 197
North Carolina 15 Bush 173
North Dakota 3 Bush 176
Ohio 20 Bush 196
Oklahoma 7 Bush 203
Oregon 7 Kerry 204
Pennsylvania 21 Kerry 225
Rhode Island 4 Kerry 229
South Carolina 8 Bush 211
South Dakota 3 Bush 214
Tennessee 11 Bush 225
Texas 34 Bush 259
Utah 5 Bush 264
Vermont 3 Kerry 232
Virginia 13 Bush 277*****
Washington 11 Kerry 243
West Virginia 5 Bush 282
Wisconsin 10 Bush 292
Wyoming 3 Bush 295

Bush 295
Kerry 243

These are very close to numbers I put out back in January. I have moved New Mexico back into Kerry's court, while switching Nevada back to Bush. Both states have five votes and thus offset each other.

The huge news, and the only changes I have made from the 2000 results, is Iowa and Wisconsin moving strongly into the Red State column.

Several states are really too close to call, including Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. I would not be shocked to see all four go to President Bush on election day.

In my next post I will explain why I believe the President will actually win by an even larger margin.