America is headed for another tight presidential election, with a real possibility that Democratic candidate John Kerry could win the popular vote while Republican President George Bush wins the Electoral College, and thus four more years in the Oval Office.
HUMAN EVENTS surveyed the most recently published statewide polls pitting Bush against Kerry. We discovered 42 states where polls tested the match-up. Bush led in 25, with 264 electoral votes. Kerry led in 16, with 236 electoral votes. New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) was an exact tie.
Of the eight states where no poll was published, we assume that five with a total of 20 electoral votes (Alaska, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming) will go to Bush, and three with a total of 11 electoral votes (Delaware, Hawaii and Rhode Island) will go to Kerry. We also assume Kerry will win the District of Columbia's 3 electoral votes.
All the polls cited below have margins-of-error, of course, some equaling or exceeding 5 percentage points. Some were conducted two or three months ago. But, granting our predictions for un-polled states, and assuming the surveys gathered here are accurate indicators of how each polled state would vote, an election held today would yield a 284-to-250 Electoral College victory for Bush.
Bush would pick up two states (Wisconsin and New Mexico) that he lost to Gore in 2000. Kerry would pick up only one state (West Virginia) that Bush won.
Kerry, however, holds large leads in some of the most populous states (52% to 39% in Illinois, 51% to 32% in New York, 54% to 32% in Massachusetts, 45% to 36% in California) and this conceivably could tilt the popular vote to him.
Third-party candidate Ralph Nader could also hurt Kerry just as he hurt Gore. In 18 of the polls cited below (see asterisks), respondents were given the option of supporting Nader as well as Bush or Kerry (for space reasons we omitted Nader's numbers). In 11 of those states, Bush leads.
Bush Leads
ALABAMA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Mobile Register 5/9-13 5%
Bush: 55
Kerry 33
Electoral Votes: 9
ARIZONA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Behavior Research 5/16-24 4.1%
Bush: 49
Kerry 37
Electoral Votes: 10
ARKANSAS*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Arkansas State Univ. 3/1-4/8 5%
Bush: 51
Kerry 43
Electoral Votes: 6
COLORADO
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Rasmussen Research 4/15 4.5%
Bush: 49
Kerry 44
Electoral Votes: 9
FLORIDA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): SurveyUSA 6/12-14 3.7%
Bush: 50
Kerry 43
Electoral Votes: 27
GEORGIA*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Insider Advantage, The Mktg. Workshop 6/1-2 5%
Bush: 49
Kerry 32
Electoral Votes: 15
IDAHO*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Greg Smith & Associates 3/10-12 5.5%
Bush: 57
Kerry 23
Electoral Votes: 4
INDIANA*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Indianapolis Star/WTHR-TV 5/13-19 3.7%
Bush: 54
Kerry 33
Electoral Votes: 11
KANSAS
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): SurveyUSA 3/3-4 4.5%
Bush: 57
Kerry 39
Electoral Votes: 6
KENTUCKY
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): SurveyUSA 6/7-8 3.9%
Bush: 52
Kerry 39
Electoral Votes: 8
LOUISIANA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Marketing Research 5/19-26 4%
Bush: 48
Kerry 42
Electoral Votes: 9
MISSOURI*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): LA Times 6/5-8 4%
Bush: 48
Kerry 37
Electoral Votes: 11
MONTANA*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Mason-Dixon 5/24-26 4%
Bush: 53
Kerry 33
Electoral Votes: 3
NEVADA*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Mason-Dixon 3/15-17 4%
Bush: 49
Kerry 38
Electoral Votes: 5
NEW MEXICO*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): American Research Group 3/30-4/1 4%
Bush: 46
Kerry 45
Electoral Votes: 5
NORTH CAROLINA*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Winston-Salem Journal/WRAL-TV 5/14-17 4%
Bush: 48
Kerry 41
Electoral Votes: 15
OHIO*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Mason-Dixon 5/20-25 2.6%
Bush: 47
Kerry 41
Electoral Votes: 20
OKLAHOMA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Consumer Logic 3/26-4/5 3.5%
Bush: 55
Kerry 36
Electoral Votes: 7
SOUTH CAROLINA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Rasmussen Research 5/1-31 5%
Bush: 49
Kerry 39
Electoral Votes: 8
SOUTH DAKOTA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Mason-Dixon 5/19-20 4.5%
Bush: 50
Kerry 35
Electoral Votes: 3
TENNESSEE
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): SurveyUSA 3/20-22 3.9%
Bush: 52
Kerry 41
Electoral Votes: 11
TEXAS
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Scripps-Howard 5/3-15 3%
Bush: 58
Kerry 29
Electoral Votes: 34
UTAH
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Dan Jones & Associates 5/12 3.2%
Bush: 67
Kerry 22
Electoral Votes: 5
VIRGINIA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Rasmussen Research 5/1-31 5%
Bush: 47
Kerry 45
Electoral Votes: 13
WISCONSIN*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Univ. of Wisconsin 4/20-28 4.4%
Bush: 50
Kerry 38
Electoral Votes: 10
Kerry Leads
CALIFORNIA*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Public Policy Inst. 5/11-18 2%
Bush: 36
Kerry 45
Electoral Votes: 55
CONNECTICUT
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Quinnipiac 5/26-6/1 2.7%
Bush: 38
Kerry 50
Electoral Votes: 7
ILLINOIS
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): SurveyUSA 6/7-9 3.7%
Bush: 39
Kerry 52
Electoral Votes: 21
IOWA*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Research 2000 5/23-25 4%
Bush: 42
Kerry 46
Electoral Votes: 7
MAINE
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Critical Insights 4/23-5/20 4%
Bush: 39
Kerry 49
Electoral Votes: 4
MARYLAND
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Gonzalez Research & Mktg. Strategy 3/19-24 3.5%
Bush: 43
Kerry 48
Electoral Votes: 10
MASSACHUSETTS
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): UMass 3/25-4/9 5%
Bush: 32
Kerry 54
Electoral Votes: 12
MICHIGAN*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): EPIC/MRA 6/2-6 4%
Bush: 43
Kerry 45
Electoral Votes: 17
MINNESOTA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Mason-Dixon 5/24-26 4%
Bush: 41
Kerry 45
Electoral Votes: 10
NEW JERSEY
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Quinnipiac Univ. 5/10-16 3%
Bush: 43
Kerry 46
Electoral Votes: 15
NEW YORK*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Siena Research Institute 4/19-22 4%
Bush: 32
Kerry 51
Electoral Votes: 31
OREGON
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Research 2000 5/6-8 4%
Bush: 46
Kerry 50
Electoral Votes: 7
PENNSYLVANIA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): SurveyUSA 6/7-9 3.8%
Bush: 46
Kerry 47
Electoral Votes: 21
VERMONT*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Research 2000 4/28-30 4%
Bush: 36
Kerry 51
Electoral Votes: 3
WASHINGTON*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): SurveyUSA 6/1-3 3.9%
Bush: 44
Kerry 49
Electoral Votes: 11
WEST VIRGINIA
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): Mason-Dixon 5/26-28 4%
Bush: 41
Kerry 47
Electoral Votes: 5
Tie
NEW HAMPSHIRE*
Pollster, Date, MOE (+/-): American Research Group 6/7-9 4%
Bush: 46
Kerry 46
Electoral Votes: 4
*indicates Ralph Nader was factored into the poll
