Wampum

I definitely agree with what you are saying. I think Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico are really turning into the new battleground swing states and the economy is the biggest reason. Demographically and economically, Colorado and Nevada are already "blue states" -- mostly urban, expensive to live in, hurting from the high tech bust, and getting way less back from the federal government than they pay.

P.S. Your EV numbers are from 2000, not 2004. AZ is 10, CO is 9, and NV is 5.

Thanks, Luis. I'll change the EVs when I get back from my daughter's birthday party (if I still have a brain after chasing a dozen first graders 'round a pool.)

I've been thinking that Colorado might shift ever since I started tracking this data back in February. I was surprised it was so high up the list - here in the East, we really only hear about the dot.bomb effecting the Pacific coast and Northeast - didn't think much about Colorado, or even Idaho, being effected.

I live in Oregon, and let me say that the employment situation is quite bleak here, especially in the Portland metro area. One of the most populous suburban counties, Washington County, voted for Bush by a slim margin in 2000. I cannot imagine Bush will win that important county again in 2004 for two reasons. One, the economy is awful and people hold Bush responsible for paying so little attention to it. A lot of white collar workers have been unemployed for months, even years. Secondly, the growing Hispanic contingent in the county tends to vote Democratic. In essence, the votes from Washington and Multnomah (home of Portland) Counties tend to cancel out the rest of the state, which is solidly Republican with a few exceptions (such as Eugene).

The $87B for Iraq is tough for voters to swallow out here when our state is so desperate to make ends meet. Services have been slashed and state taxes have been raised (pending a possible referendum) to make sure days won't be trimmed from the school year as they were last spring.

Oregonians, both liberal and conservative, tend to have a libertarian streak about privacy and government intrusion into their private affairs. Ashcroft is unpopular here for the PATRIOT Act and his desire to overturn the voter-approved assisted suicide laws. Both he and Bush are greeted with large protests whenever they visit Portland.

If all of this isn't enough to irritate Oregonians, the conspiracy theorists are convinced that Bush had something to do with the large B&B wildfire burning across the central part of the state. Bush arrived in Redmond last month to give a speech about his "Healthy Forest" initiative. The day before, the infamous black helicopters appeared in the skies over Central Oregon. The fire erupted the next day, giving Bush a suitable backdrop to scare people into turning over America's forests to Bush's timber constituents.

The Democratic candidate for president will likely win by a larger margin in neighboring Washington, but I think that Oregon and its seven electoral votes will swing to the Democrats again in 2004. Gore won Oregon in 2000 despite a strong showing from the Green Party. I doubt that as many Greens will vote for their party in 2004, given the current political climate and the need to remove Bush at all costs. With all of these factors in mind, it is my belief that Bush can't count on the Beaver State for his re-election.