Electoral Votes

There's a new Quinnipiac poll of Florida out today. It shows Kerry leading Bush 47-41 with Nader and 49-42 without Nader (on a side note, who the Hell are the Nader voters who go for Bush if Nader isn't in the race!?). This comes on the heels of an ARG poll from last week that had Kerry up 50-43.

These two polls seem to confirm that when you look over the electoral map, there are no states won by Gore in 2000 that Bush is winning right now. On the other hand, Kerry is now leading Bush in several states that went Republican in 2000: FL, WV, NH, and MO. Plus, a couple of states won narrowly by Gore in 2000, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Michigan, seem to have firmed up pretty well for Kerry.

The only place where Bush seems to be running pretty well compared to 2000 are in the upper Midwest states of MN, IA, and WI, though Kerry is leading (barely) in all of them. These states are a bit surprising. Yes, they have lots of rural voters but they've been reliably Democratic until recently. In 1988, all 3 went for Michael Dukakis. In fact, Iowa was his second best state after Rhode Island. Plus, these states have been home to a fair amount of isolationist sentiment stretching back nearly a century. Given the controversy over the Iraq War, I would have guessed they would have been more strongly for Kerry. Some of this might be explained by crop prices. In 1988, farmers were suffering from the worst drought since the Dust Bowl and crop prices had been down for several years. This year, good weather has analysts forecasting a bumper crop. That combined with decent prices could spell a pretty good year for corn and soybean farmers, and that might just mean more support for Bush.