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10/27/2004: "Analyzing Zogby's 10 State Numbers"

I have posted a quicky table which lists the 10 state Zogby polling numbers in a table. I used this format to spot trends; that is also why I restricted myself to a single pollster. I heard someone on Sean Hannity's radio show paraphrase George Will noting that polls tend to break in the 10 days prior to the election.

In addition to the 10 states Zogby is polling daily, I summarized the other 40 states and DC. Based on information from Election Projection, I claim that Bush has 213 safe electoral votes and that Kerry has 190 safe electoral votes. I call New Hampshire, with 4 electoral votes, a tossup.

Of Zogby's 10 states, I give Colorado, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania to Kerry (40 EV). The numbers keep hovering in his favor. I give Florida, New Mexico, and Nevada to Bush (37 EV); those numbers hover in Bush's favor. I give Ohio and Wisconsin to Kerry (30 EV); those numbers are trending in Kerry's favor. Michigan goes to Bush (17 EV), its trend favors Bush. If anything, I'd give Iowa (7 EV) to Kerry for the trend, but it's not that strong a trend, so I'll call it a tossup.

For the record, I picked the states before I did the math. And I'm not issuing an election prediction so much as I'm crunching numbers. Further, there are relatively large margins of error here. That said, this analysis suggests a final EV tally of Bush 267, Kerry 260, tossup 11.

With the tossup states (Iowa and New Hampshire) favoring Kerry, this is scary.

FYI, from the current Election Projection:

EV update for Oct. 27:  Bush 269 - Kerry 269 ... A TIE!! ... Kerry gains Florida