I don't know...I think the latest round of Mason-Dixons reflect a closer race than that.
Compare the latest M-D results with the 2000 election:
State 2000 M-D Diff
FL TIED GOP +3 GOP +3
CO GOP +8 GOP +6 Dem +2
MO GOP +3 GOP +5 GOP +2
NV GOP +4 GOP +10 GOP +6
NH GOP +1 GOP +3 GOP +2
NC GOP +13 GOP +8 Dem +5
OH GOP +4 GOP +1 Dem +3
WV GOP +6 GOP +5 Dem +1
IA TIED GOP +6 GOP +6
OR TIED Dem +1 Dem +1
PA Dem +4 Dem +1 GOP +3
WI TIED TIED TIED
Six show a gain for Republicans, five a gain for Democrats.
The mean is a gain for Bush of less than 0.5%.
So I don't see at all how these show a Bush lead of 3-4% at all. It's more likely that they show a popular vote tied, seeing as how Bush lost the popular vote by about 0.5% in 2000.
NickG:
I see a problem extrapolating these state percentage margins to a national PV margin - it doesn't take into account the varying voting population of the diiferent states.
These numbers do illustrate trends in the states from 2000, which are reasonable:
Bush gains in Blue states:
FL
MO
NV
NH
Kerry gains in Blue states (not enough to flip):
CO
NC
OH
WV
Bush gains in Red states:
IA (enough to flip)
PA (not enough to flip)
Kerry gains or tied in Red states:
WI
OR
