My horse race numbers

The polls are still bouncing around a great deal.

National polls don't matter much in the end. This isn't 1 election, it is 50 elections.

Of those 50 elections, 33 can be conceeded. There are 10 states that Gore carried last time and 7 states that Bush carried last time which are by any stretch in play.

Kerry begins behind by 10. He has to pick up 10 Electorial votes (net) in order to get to 270. (If he gets 9 we go to the house of representatives which would be expected to pick Bush).

Next, we need a source of polling data. I'm using RealClearPolitics Battleground poll averages. I'm in the process of writing a screen scraper that will automate the process but that isn't done yet.

Right now, Kerry has a pickup of 4 from NH but he is losing 10 from WI and 7 from IA. He is behind by 23 EVs.

Bush currently has a cushion of 2.19%. If Bush does worse than the average of the polls in these 17 states, Kerry comes up 3 pts short even though he takes OH. If Bush does 2.2% worse Kerry wins after he picks up OH and NH while defending IA and losing WI.

Polling data is here.

I'll try to get that screen scraper to collect the data and format it this weekend.

The absolute worst case for the nation would be a situation where the EV reallocation measure passes in CO and the difference depends on whether that amendment is upheld. If you think a 5-4 court decision the first time was bad, how about another one? Or a situation where the congress counting the EVs disagreed with the court?