Amateurs on the web are not the only people trying to project the results of the Presidential election.
As Charlie Cook notes, many academics are doing exactly the same thing. Well, I shouldn't say "exactly the same thing," because what they are doing is trying to predict the presidential election right now, while all of the people I link on the President 2004 page will be regularly updating their projections. In fact, the academics are the real predictors, while we amateurs are just trying to give accurate snapshots:
Depending on which numbers you find most persuasive, you can convince yourself that President Bush is virtually certain to be re-elected or will surely lose in November. The vast majority of political scientists and economists who forecast elections based on computer models will be presenting their papers at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association this week in Chicago, and they are projecting a Bush victory over Sen. John Kerry -- in a landslide, some say. Other analysts, myself included, think Bush faces an uphill struggle.
In the spirit of friendly competition, I am going to go ahead and offer my best guess of the final 2004 election results right now. In the comments, I encourage people to do the same:
% EV
Kerry: 51.8 327
Bush: 46.2 211
Other: 2.0 0
Kerry wins all the Gore states plus FL, MO, NV, NH and OH. I base this prediction on the
long-term trial heat mean that has shown Bush stuck at just below 45 since late April,
the partisan index, and undecideds breaking 60-40 in favor of Kerry as a result of the
Incumbent Rule. Also, this is the result I have seen appear more often than any other during my own projections.
Step right up and make your guess. I have alaso made a permanent link to this thread on the President 2004 page.
