Trends for 2008

[12th Doctor]

Trends from '80, '84, '92, and '96 are worthless because 84 was a landslide year and the rest had strong third parties whose votes could've broken either way.  Trends in themselves are pretty worthless anyway.

'88 is pretty worthless too because of the farm crisis.

Agreed.  Under nirmal conditions Wisconsin, Iowa and possibly Minnesota would have gone Bush.

But it is worth noting that rural famr communities in those states still trend Democrat, probably because of that crisis.

[12th Doctor]

Sometimes one can see a clear trend and then it's valuable. I think people some times over-estimate the speed of trends. There is no way for instance that a generic Northeastern Democrat takes Virginia, North Carolina or Arizona in the next election. The key battlegrounds remain the same: Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. After that comes Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. I don't expect the candidates to make any effort at any other states for various reasons.

So that leaves the Dem candidate with the Kerry states minus PA and WI=221 EVs and the Rep candidate with the Bush states minus FL, OH, IA, CO, NV and NM=213 EVs.

Why is everyone ignoring Michigan?  I think it is in the key battleground group.  It was a 51-48 state.  And Bush didn't even show up with his best stuff here.