Monday, September 20, 2004
Kerry is ahead of who?
An interesting site for Presidential elections is David Leip's Presidential Atlas, containing maps and detailed county by county results for all elections from 1788 through the present, where the data is available. One of the more interesting items on that site is a Mock Election, wherein members can vote. Oh, they have voted all right. And Kerry has a huge lead, with 266 electoral votes, or 4 short of victory.
The interesting thing is who is second. None other than Mike Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate. He is leading across most of the South and in the Rocky Mountain states, and even is taking Texas, slightly edging out Kerry for that honor. Alabama and Mississippi are going to Michael Peroutka, the Constitution Party candidate. Peroutka has several other states. Badnarik has about 165 electoral votes, and Peroutka about 50. Bush is trailing badly in fourth with 5 states and 18 electoral votes, including Vermont and Nevada. Nader has Wyoming. Don't ask me how Nader has Wyoming. He does. So what's going on here? Is this site being trashed?
The parties are out of balance. About 600 Democrats and about 500 Republicans have voted, but 888 Libertarians have voted! And they are almost all for Badnarik. So that skews the results. To put this election on a firmer basis, one must multiply or use weights corresponding to the percentages of the electorate that actually are these parties. Even so, that gives Kerry a huge lead. But does this mean that Badnarik will suddenly erupt on the national scene and garner 5% of the vote? I sure hope so. That would hand the election to Kerry, as it would cost Bush a sixth Lichtman key.
The interesting thing is who is second. None other than Mike Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate. He is leading across most of the South and in the Rocky Mountain states, and even is taking Texas, slightly edging out Kerry for that honor. Alabama and Mississippi are going to Michael Peroutka, the Constitution Party candidate. Peroutka has several other states. Badnarik has about 165 electoral votes, and Peroutka about 50. Bush is trailing badly in fourth with 5 states and 18 electoral votes, including Vermont and Nevada. Nader has Wyoming. Don't ask me how Nader has Wyoming. He does. So what's going on here? Is this site being trashed?
The parties are out of balance. About 600 Democrats and about 500 Republicans have voted, but 888 Libertarians have voted! And they are almost all for Badnarik. So that skews the results. To put this election on a firmer basis, one must multiply or use weights corresponding to the percentages of the electorate that actually are these parties. Even so, that gives Kerry a huge lead. But does this mean that Badnarik will suddenly erupt on the national scene and garner 5% of the vote? I sure hope so. That would hand the election to Kerry, as it would cost Bush a sixth Lichtman key.
