I agree the GOP does not have a "majority" in the sense that they can run the proverbial "Ham Sandwich" and win Nationally, but they do have a modest edge. (The GOP could run a homophobic/extreamist far right crazy in say, oh, Oklahoma, and likely win as a point of departure)
The 2004 exit polls had it 37/37/26 Rep/Dem/GOP (Actually if you take it out to the "tenths" the GOP won by about 0.8%) - But some of the Dems 37 is the so called "Dixiecrats" vote - GOP in everything by name only.
Self Identified GOP voters broke 93/6 for Bush (+87%) while self Identified Dem voters went 89/11 for Kerry (+78) - and the GOP voters being more solidly behind their candidate than Dems are behind theirs is a fairly consistent thing.
What it boils down to is the GOP has, due to their almost monolithic GOP loyalty is "about" a 3% or so national advantage right now.
This is a quite modest advantage, but it will tilt a close race to the GOP.
An approximate analogy is the Senate races in Maine. Maine is a modestly but not crushingly democratic state. If there was a fresh senate race with no incumbant, equal money and +/- equal candidates the Democrat would usually win a senate race in Maine, not always, but more often than not.
As it turns out, Maine has 2 very fine GOP Senators (Snowe & Collins) because both of the senators happen to be good to excellent candidates and very moderate members of the GOP
Nationally, the Dems now need the same thing - their Candidate needs to be a bit better and a little more moderate than the GOP candidate - not by a ton - but a bit better.
If the GOP runs say a Bob Dole, they likely lose, if the Dems run a Bill Clinton skill level candidate they likely win.
If it's "Dead Fish A" versus "Dead Fish B" the GOP fish will probably win.
Think of it as a .520 baseball club against a .480 baseball club.
The .520 club will over the course of the season win more games, but each individual game might turn on a strong pitching performance or a single great play...
The Republicans have had the edge in Presidential races for a long time now (lets say... 1968. Yes. 1968) I've got some stuff from the '80's claiming that there was a GOP "lock" on the electoral college.
It's difficult for a Patrician Liberal to win nationally... good news for the Democrats is that Kerry came close to winning, good news for the GOP is that he didn't.
As far as Party ID figures go, I think they're pretty misleading in that if... say Evangelicals... turnout in proportionally much higher numbers than normal voters then the figures will be distorted as a result of this.
Oklahoma is a good example of that actually.
Useful but useless. Nothing like statistics for that really...
It's actually strange to think that it's impossible to actually
know (empirically at least) whether there are more Democrats than Republicans or vice versa. Not all states register by Party, Party ID figures show only the partisan breakdown of people who voted... [interestingly the numbers of State Legislators is as close to dead even as makes no difference. Dems have advantage in State Houses, GOP in State Senates.]
Leaving plenty of room for arguments.
My take is that there are more Democrats (probably quite a lot more) but they are [much, much, much] less likely to vote than Republicans, [much] less likely to vote straight ticket (guess what: despite Bush cracking 60% in Alabama the Democrats *gained* seats in the Alabama Legislature) and the party's national organisation is a sad joke (state Parties are often the reverse of this though).
There are a lot of parallels with Labour in the '80's (except there's been no splinter group yet).
At least that idiot running the DNC is going soon...
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Oh, and as far as Dixiecrats go, WV isn't really part of Dixie, but the % of voters self IDing as Democrats in WV appears to have increased from 2000.
IIRC it was 47% in 2000, CNN has it as 50% for 2004. Either way
not even trying to a win a state where you have an advantage as huge as that is a disgrace.
