In April, Tom Schaller argued persuasively that this year’s presidential race could look a lot like 2000’s, only in reverse — with Bush winning the popular vote, but losing the electoral vote. Over the weekend, there was new evidence to support this idea.
President George W. Bush is poised to gain 2 million votes this year in the three most-populous U.S. states: California, Texas and New York. None of those ballots will help him win re-election.
With national polls showing a deadlocked race between Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry, polls in individual states show Bush gains over his 2000 totals in some places he is already likely to win easily and in others where he is too far behind for his gains to matter.
Bush’s surge of support in states that aren’t in play in this election could even put him in the position of his 2000 opponent, former Vice President Al Gore: winning the nationwide popular vote while losing the Electoral College and the presidency.
The scenario of “Bush wins popular vote, loses Electoral College is very real,” said John Zogby, president of Utica, New York-based polling firm Zogby International.
This is actually helpful information for two reasons. First is with the electoral college in mind. Bush can, and apparently has, gained support in giant states like California, New York, and Texas. Texas was already in the bag for Bush, and even with a million new fans in California and New York each, it would not push the states into the “red” category.
Bush lost the popular vote four years ago by 500,000 votes. Could his new-found admirers in these three states give him a boost over Kerry in the race that doesn’t dictate the outcome? Absolutely. It’s worth keeping an eye on.
And second, it also highlights why national polls just aren’t helpful right now. One-in-four Americans live in California New York, or Texas. Bush may be picking up some new support in giant states who’s outcome is already clear, but it won’t mean anything on Election Day, at least as far as the presidential race goes. National polls, in other words, don’t tell us enough about how the voters in the key states plan to vote. The national polls’ value is somewhat interesting, but not for its predictive value.
It will be fascinating, though, to see how the GOP reacts if Kerry should win the presidency without the popular vote. I have a hunch it might renew some interest in doing away with the electoral college.