10-19 Zogby Battleground Poll -- Proves that turnout is everything

The final Zogby Battleground poll is out and confirms turnout will be everything. Because of shifts in electoral college, Bush would win by a mere 5 votes, even though Kerry picks up NH. (This would have been a win for Gore in 2000)
Zogby projected final tally:274 Bush to 264 Kerry

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-an1019.html &
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-frameset.html (Interactive map)

Important notes on the poll:

• Red states Missouri, Arkansas, TN & West Virginia each show Kerry only 3% points behind -- completely reversible with a big Democratic turnout.
  
• Poll has Nevada, Ohio & Florida to Bush, so if Nevada turns to Kerry, it's a tie.
  
• If Ohio or Florida goes to Kerry, Kerry wins.
  
• Poll doesn't show Colorado (presumes Bush), so if Colorado goes to Kerry or splits, it could shift it to Kerry.

Here's the poll info from the WSJ public site:
OCTOBER 19, 2004
President Bush took narrow leads in four more states in the days following the third and final presidential debate, giving the president his best showing in our battleground-states analysis since late June.

The latest Zogby Interactive poll puts Sen. John Kerry ahead in nine states and the president up in seven states. Mr. Bush's improvement erases the gains that Mr. Kerry had made just after the first debate on Sept. 30, when a survey found him ahead in all but three of the 16 hotly contested races that we've followed in twice-a-month polls since late May.

Ohio moved back into the president's column in the latest poll, after shifting briefly to Mr. Kerry. And Florida, which Mr. Kerry led by a narrow margin for five straight battleground polls, moved narrowly over to Mr. Bush.

All of the president's leads are slim -- within the polls' margins of error. But if they held up, he would secure a scant Electoral College majority and four more years in the White House.

Here's the math:

In analyzing Zogby's results we begin by assuming that the District of Columbia and the 34 states that aren't in the battleground poll will vote for the same political party this November as they did in the 2000 election. Therefore, Mr. Bush begins with 189 electoral votes and Mr. Kerry with 172. A candidate needs 270 votes to win.

Next, we add in the electoral votes from the latest poll, regardless of the margin or error or the spread between the candidates. Mr. Kerry's nine states have 92 electoral votes, while Mr. Bush's seven control 85. Adding up the votes from battleground and nonbattleground states, Mr. Bush would win by a slim 274-264.

The 10 electoral-vote margin between Messrs. Bush and Kerry is the narrowest we've found since beginning our battlegound analyses. The closeness mirrors what's been seen in nationwide polls taken since the debates ended, and it is similar to the results of several other Electoral College calculations, including one sent today to subscribers of a political newsletter edited by columnist Robert D. Novak. It also came up with a 274-264 tally.

While none of Mr. Bush's leads are greater than the polls' margins of error, six of Mr. Kerry's nine are -- including Pennsylvania, where Mr. Bush's standing had improved since the Republican convention.

And the only state that the Zogby poll shows changing hands from 2000 is New Hampshire. President Bush won that state's four electoral votes in 2000 by a 1.3 percentage-point margin. The latest Zogby poll shows Mr. Kerry ahead by 5.1 points, several points within the margin of error.

not counting it as a split 5-4 or are they? Is that proposition going to win or fail? Has anyone seen any polls on that?

It's been one of the states that Zogby wasn't polling and had assumed went to Bush. So, if Kerry were to win Colorado and the prop didn't pass, Kerry would win all and win the election.

If Bush won Colorado and they split under the prop, Kerry would pick up 4 votes and be one shy. But I believe Nevada will go Kerry, so if Kerry gets part of Colorado and all of Nevada, he would win. And that's without Ohio or Florida.
Hope that helps clarify.

to me.

Two weeks to go with momentum all to Kerry