Election 2004 Landslide? 19 years, 10 months ago by Martey Dodoo

The only question is who will win? Oxblog pointed out this excellent map of the two candidates' current position, "state by state." On the other hand, Pandagon links to this New York Post article by Deborah Orin suggesting that Bush will triumph, like Reagan did in 1980 against incumbent Jimmy Carter:

But there's a big difference, since Carter kept getting bad news on both fronts, while Bush is starting to get good news on both the economy, with a surge in new jobs, and Iraq, with international support for the June 30 transfer of power.

I assume that at the Post, "starting" means "not yet, but I can feel it in my bones." She then attempts to further justify her statements through the Iowa Electronic Markets:

All of this could explain why the Iowa political futures market ? an intriguing online measure that lets anyone buy "stock" in a candidate and has a solid record in predicting elections ? is bullish on Bush.

The Iowa market (www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem) has predicted a Bush victory ever since Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination last winter ? yesterday it was predicting a Bush win with 51.9 percent of the vote to Kerry's 47.4.

This is true. But a look at the heavily contested 2000 election suggests that the IEM may not be as infallible at Orin suggests. If the graphs for the two markets (Winner Takes All and Vote Share) reflected the actual electoral conditions, Gore would be president right now.