BillHobbs.com - Blogging about politics and media from Nashville.

I am extremely suspicious of this website, which purports to show the current state of the race for the White House based on state-by-state electoral vote counts based on which candidate - Bush or Kerry - is leading in that state.

Reason: The website, which I found via a Blogad on Instapundit, has Tennessee listed in the Kerry column, gving Kerry 270 total electoral votes (just enough to win the White House) and giving Bush 259.

That's absurd. Tennessee is a Bush state - it was in 2000 when Bush defeated Tennessee's native son Al Gore by 4 points.

Only one poll recently has found Kerry ahead in Tennessee, and that was within the margin of error. Every other poll in Tennessee this year has had Bush ahead. Details here. Incidentally, I'm told internal state Republican polls have Bush ahead by eight points in Tennessee. ElectionProjection.com, by the way, has Tennessee in the Bush column and Bush ahead of Kerry 284-254 in electoral votes based on all the most recent state-by-state polls.

There's another reason not to trust Electoral-Vote.com: It's a pro-Kerry site, with links to other sites that favor Kerry and oppose Bush, including one site that still pushes the already-debunked allegation that Bush was "AWOL" from the Texas Air National Guard.

The site is wrong about Tennessee, and I suspect deliberately so. Because if you switch Tennessee's 11 electoral votes into the Bush column, Bush wins 270-259, and that would undermine the website's real purpose: motivating Kerry supporters to contact Americans living overseas to register them to vote absentee for Kerry.

If you want to know how Bush is really doing in Tennessee, watch for the latest Tennessee poll from Mason-Dixon, and then add five points to the Republican's total.

UPDATE: Rasmussen has Bush leading Kerry state-by-state by a count of 213-207 in electoral votes with 118 in the "toss-up" category. Rasmussen lists Tennessee in the Bush column, based on a Rasmussen poll at the end of June that had Bush leading Kerry by eight points. Rasmussen says that in the last week, Arkansas, Virginia and Missouri have moved from Toss-Up to Leans Bush, and Minnesota moved from Leans Kerry to Toss-Up, while Maine and Michigan moved in Kerry's direction, from Toss-Up to Leans Kerry.

You're just now finding this site? Wow.

Actually, here they show that Bush barely has TN. Then the next day they show that Kerry barely has TN, although they call it a statistical tie in TN. So I don't understand why it isn't just white. :/

I've seen my home state of Ohio flip flop between Bush and Kerry, definately a battle ground state there, and in my current residency of Florida flip flop between the two, which is definately another battle ground state.

www.electionprojection.com at one time tracked right along with www.electoral-vote.com. And that was when Kerry was leading by a much bigger lead.

Posted by: Bryan Price at August 29, 2004 9:54 PM

I too was a little suspicious about calling Tennessee a Kerry state, but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt since they did list Zogby, August 21st as the source of their polling data.

That said, I have been following Rasmussen's electoral college projection and contrasting that with Tradesports.com market prices. The difference between opinion polls and the market is that there are two different questions being asked. Opinion Polls: "Who are you going to vote for?" Markets: "Who do you think will win?" Someone could both vote for Kerry and bet that Bush will win without any conflict of integrity because the two questions are fundamentally different.

Interestingly, by tracking the opinion polls vs. markets, what I have found is that the opinion polls lead the market by about three weeks. I expect this lead/lag phenomenon will contract the closer we get to November 2nd, but who knows for sure.

Finally, my personal tracking spreadsheet also has Bush up 284-254 with a definite strong trend in Bush's favor. Four weeks ago, Kerry very briefly gained the electoral college edge in the markets, but his lead only held for two days. Up until this week, Bush's lead was 274-264 on my charts. But in the last week, the trend has been for Bush in even pro-Kerry states, i.e. Kerry's lead is weakening even in states he is expected to carry.

Posted by: Scott Harris at August 30, 2004 3:05 AM