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Grex > Agora35 > #124: Win the electoral college but lose the popular vote? | |
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richard
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Win the electoral college but lose the popular vote?
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Nov 1 02:25 UTC 2000 |
Tonight, widely respected pollster John Zogby, released his latest
poll numbers. He shows Bush up by five points nationally, but losing
the electoral college. He says there is a real possibility that Gore gets
elected even though he loses the popular vote.
Zogby's national numbers are BUSH 46
GORE 41
UNDECIDED 8
NADER 4
BUCHANAN 1
(eight percent undecided a week before a presidential election is almost
unheard of)
Anyway Zogby also did state by statepolls in the battleground states.
Here's what he shows:
Florida (Gore now up 12 points)
Wisconsin (Gore up 12)
Illinois (Gore up by 6)
Pennsylvania (Gore up by 4)
Michigan (Gore up by 2)
Washington (tied)
Tennesee (Bush up by 3)
Ohio (Bush up by 7)
Missourri (Bush up by 4)
Those nine states have 153 electoral votes, and Zogby shows Gore getting
99 and Bush 43. Gore is viewed as having 164 safe and Bush 194. Add
these nine states and you get Gore 263 and Bush 237
This leaves Oregon, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada and Arkansas as the
remaining swing states. Under this tally, Gore only needs seven more
votes to reach the magic 270. He'd win by either winning any one of those
seven states, or winning Washington where he's tied, or winning his
home state of Tennesee (where race is now within marginof error and
probably will break for based on turnout).
Zogby says Bush's national lead is based on huge majorities in the
southern and mountain states, and Texas. Bush couild win the popular vote
if there is a heavy turnout in those states. But Zogby shows Gore winning
the electoral college.
This could get VERY interesting!
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| 409 responses total. |
bru
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response 1 of 409:
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Nov 1 02:31 UTC 2000 |
This contradicts the Zogby poll I saw this afternoon that showed Bush up in
all battlegrounds states...
Where you getting your zogby polls from?
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janc
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response 2 of 409:
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Nov 1 03:29 UTC 2000 |
Wow! Battling Zogbies!
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richard
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response 3 of 409:
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Nov 1 03:33 UTC 2000 |
got it at voter.com, and the electoralcounts from the wire reports on
abcnews.com Zogby is now doing daily tracking in allnine ofthose
states
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richard
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response 4 of 409:
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Nov 1 03:38 UTC 2000 |
Here'sone of the stories:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican George W. Bush established a five-point
lead over Democrat Al Gore in Tuesday's Reuters/MSNBC national daily
tracking poll, but Gore increased his strength in three key states.
The national survey of 1,209 likely voters in the Nov. 7 election,
conducted Saturday through Tuesday by pollster John Zogby, found the Texas
governor with 46 percent and the vice president with 41 percent. One week
remains until the Nov. 7 election.
Green Party nominee Ralph Nader polled 4 percent; Reform Party candidate
Pat Buchanan stayed at 1 percent; Libertarian Harry Browne had 1 percent,
and the rest remained undecided.
The race remained just within the statistical margin of error of plus or
minus three percentage points. A candidate would have to be more than six
points in the lead to be outside that zone of uncertainty -- something
neither man has achieved since the poll began on Sept. 29.
Still, the figures represented Bush's greatest lead since the daily poll
got under way.
Separate polls of around 600 likely voters in each of nine key
battleground states showed a somewhat different picture, with Gore not
showing any appreciable slippage and increasing his lead in Florida,
Michigan and Pennsylvania. These state polls had statistical margins of
error of plus or minus four points.
Zogby noted that the two findings were not necessarily contradictory and
raised the prospect of Bush winning the popular vote but losing the
Electoral College and thus the presidency.
"It is possible for one candidate to win 16 large states and lose 34 and
yet still win the election. We know Bush has large majorities in many
southern and mountain states, but the heavily populated states in the
Midwest and the West remain very, very close,'' he said.
The results showed Gore had expanded his lead in the key state of Florida
from 11 to 12 percentage points, outside the margin of error. Many
analysts believe that is a must-win state for Bush and doubt whether
Gore's true lead is that large.
Gore also had a 12-point lead in Wisconsin and a six-point lead in
Illinois. He was ahead by two points in Michigan and by four points in
Pennsylvania -- in each case a one-point increase for the vice president.
But Gore lost his lead in Washington, which was now tied.
Bush's lead in Gore's home state of Tennessee narrowed from to three from
four points. He led by seven points in Ohio, and by four points in
Missouri, increasing his advantage in these two states.
In total, 153 votes in the Electoral College are up for grabs in those
nine states. At the moment, Gore would win 99 and Bush would take 43 of
those votes. Washington's 11 electoral votes are up for grabs.
A total of 270 electoral votes are needed to be elected president. Most
analysts believe both candidates have definitely secured about 200,
leaving some 138 to be fought over.
In the equally tight race for the House of Representatives, the two
parties were tied at 42 percent. The Democrats need a net gain of seven
seats to regain control from the Republicans after six years in the
minority.
In the national presidential poll, men backed Bush, 51-31 percent; women
preferred Gore by 47-41 percent as the electorate continued to show a
substantial gender gap.
Bush led among whites by 50-38 percent while Gore was ahead among
Hispanics and blacks.
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mcnally
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response 5 of 409:
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Nov 1 03:57 UTC 2000 |
Can anyone think of a way to return to the days when political reporting
was about the candidates and their positions rather than an ongoing story
about poll results? Political campaigns are reported as sporting events
these days. A few spectacular plays may be mentioned on the evening
political roundup, but it seems the only other information reported are
the scores.. Does anyone else find this as bizarre as I do?
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rcurl
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response 6 of 409:
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Nov 1 05:01 UTC 2000 |
Not so much bizarre as a consequence of short attention spans engendered
by media. It takes *much* less time to report a poll result than to
listen to even one idea from a candidate.
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raven
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response 7 of 409:
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Nov 1 07:11 UTC 2000 |
re #5 Naders' trying to bring substance back to the campaign IMO.
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mdw
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response 8 of 409:
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Nov 1 08:56 UTC 2000 |
PBS had an interesting show on the minority parties recently. I finally
got more of a grasp on what Hagelin & the "natural law" part was about,
which was interesting. The "US tax-payers" party I think turned into
the "constitution" party, no better a name, and just as scary a group of
people. The "christian theocratic" party might at least be a more
honest name. The libertarians were as confused as ever, & the socalists
were kind of sad. Almost everything Nader said was about big
corporations, including an impressive array of one-liners.
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brighn
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response 9 of 409:
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Nov 1 18:14 UTC 2000 |
#5> The candidates have positions? I thought we were watching a horserace.
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senna
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response 10 of 409:
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Nov 1 18:33 UTC 2000 |
Election day will be interesting viewing for once, if nothing else. I haven't
seen a compelling election since the last Quebec separation vote. I think
I cared more about that than this.
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krj
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response 11 of 409:
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Nov 1 18:39 UTC 2000 |
Mike in resp:5 :: Perhaps this is the expected result
of a broadening of the information available to everyone --
we're up to three (or more) full-time cable news channels now,
plus the internet. There's plenty of news coverage of positions available
for anyone who wants it; there's plenty of evidence that few want
it. Consider Chicago TV station WBBM, which decided to abandon the
usual trappings of local TV news and only do serious news programming.
Yesterday it was reported that they are junking this experiment after
a couple of months of crappy ratings.
Walter Cronkite, in a letter to the NYTimes today: "Television, in news
and entertainment, has suffered a huge dumbing down because that is
where the audience is."
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richard
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response 12 of 409:
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Nov 1 19:54 UTC 2000 |
There's even a story today saying that the bush people a preparing
for the scenario where gore wins the electoral college, but bush wins
the popular vote. basically they'll fight it. there will intense
pressure on the folks elected as Gore electors to change their votes.
the electoral college doesnt meet to vote (and actually elect the
president) until december 18th. And the electors are morally bound,
but not constitutionally bound, to vote for the candidate they've been
designated to vote for.
the question is, as a gore elector, would you change your vote to bring
the electoral college into line with the popular vote and avert a
political crisis? would be an agonizing decision!
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gull
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response 13 of 409:
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Nov 1 20:29 UTC 2000 |
Re #8: The problem is that political positions are complicated and take a
long time to explain. You can tell who's ahead in the polls well before
people's attention spans exprire, and everyone likes a horse race.
Re #12: Why would it be a terrible crisis? It's happened before and it's
legal, though it would probably lead to pressure to end the electoral
college system -- not a bad thing IMHO. Many people have tried to make a
point out of the fact that our current President was elected by a minority
of voters, but it hasn't seemed to hurt his credibility. I don't think this
would hurt Gore's much, either, just give Republicans something to whine
smugly about.
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mcnally
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response 14 of 409:
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Nov 1 21:15 UTC 2000 |
Yeah, I'm another one who doesn't see why a popular/electoral vote split
would be such a dire crisis for American democracy.
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brighn
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response 15 of 409:
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Nov 1 21:31 UTC 2000 |
Do my job, or not do my job... oh wait an agonizing decision!
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richard
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response 16 of 409:
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Nov 1 22:14 UTC 2000 |
the difference is while Clinton didnt get fifty percent of the vote,
he got the plurality, he got more votes than any other candidate. This
year could be a different situation, where a president is elected even
though his opponent got more votes.
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brighn
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response 17 of 409:
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Nov 1 22:33 UTC 2000 |
Yeah, yeah, Richard. Been there, done that. We've had this discussion.
If the rules were at all vague, you'd have a point. But the rules aren't the
least bit vague, and any serious candidate for President knows the rules: The
winner of the electoral college wins the election. The national popular vote
doesn't count. All the players go into the event knowing the rules, none of
them can complain win they lose by the rules.
You're making something out of nothing. If you don't like the rules, join the
national groundswell to get them changed. Many other people don't like the
rules, and think the national popular vote should be the only relevant issue.
Personally, I like the Electoral College concept... it prevents regional
concentrations from dominating the country (the reason why Bush is likely to
win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote is readily apparent when one
looks at the states Bush leads in, the states Gore leads in, and the margins
in each -- Bush has firmer strongholds where he has leads, but he has leads
in fewer important states). But I see the validity of arguments against it,
as well.
Point being, Gore, Bush, Nader, and friends knew the rules; they can't
complain if they lose on Nov. 8 because they don't happen to like the rules,
and didn't bother to say anything about that until it was too late to do
anything at all.
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rcurl
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response 18 of 409:
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Nov 2 01:04 UTC 2000 |
I like the electoral college provision. College is a good thing. And it
is a rather quaint provision. It would never be *very* far off, when
it hardly matters which is the outcome in a national preference sense.
Polls change every day anyway, so the election count is just a snapshot
of a changing image. Who else has an electoral college? We should value
it as a vestige of an earlier battle, like a monument.
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johnnie
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response 19 of 409:
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Nov 2 03:51 UTC 2000 |
The more interesting scenario is an electoral college tie, at which
point it gets dumped to the (new) House for President (where each state
gets one vote) and the (new) Senate for Vice-President (each Senator
gets one vote). Now *that* could bring forth some serious brouhahas.
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carson
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response 20 of 409:
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Nov 2 08:09 UTC 2000 |
(that would rock my world.) :)
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senna
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response 21 of 409:
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Nov 2 08:27 UTC 2000 |
I agree with the reasoning, but I don't have *that* much faith in the
Republicans do do the right thing and take such a defeat sitting down. We've
seen other recent examples of what they can do...
I like the electoral college. I find it slightly flustering that they still
have actual people doing the votes, though. I'd just as soon simply assign
points for each state won. I can think of maybe one situation where an
elector didn't vote for the candidate they were supporting, anyway.
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carson
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response 22 of 409:
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Nov 2 12:52 UTC 2000 |
(yesterday Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) [who's a moron] and Rep. Ray LeHood
(R-IL) announced plans to introduce a constitutional amendment to abolish
the electoral college. I was tipped off by C-Span, but you can read the
press release here):
http://www.senate.gov/~durbin/PressReleases/001101.htm
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jp2
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response 23 of 409:
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Nov 2 19:37 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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polygon
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response 24 of 409:
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Nov 3 03:46 UTC 2000 |
A Ford elector voted for Reagan in 1976, I think. And a Nixon elector in
Virginia in 1972 voted for the Libertarians.
In Michigan, there is no agonizing choice, because if an elector attempts
to vote for someone other than who won the state, it counts as a
resignation. The remaining electors can appoint someone to fill the
vacancy, and life goes on. :-)
In 1968, Zolton Ferency was a Democratic elector, and decided he could
not vote for Hubert Humphrey. He attended the ceremony, and publicly
resigned, and IIRC a black autoworker was appointed to take his place.
In general, the electors are staunch party loyalists, and I don't expect
that Bush will have much success peeling them off. Nor would Gore be able
to, if the shoe were on the other foot.
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