54-46

Sorry for the absence lately. I've been working intently the last two weeks on a family genealogy project. Quite fascinating stuff.

Just a quick note then. Most observers of the GOP race have noted that John McCain has done very well this primary season in the so-called Blue States, those states that tend to go Democratic in the general elections. So i took a deeper look at that.

First, i made a prediction for each state, as to whether it would be blue or red this year. I based that primarily on what that state has done in the past 5 presidential elections (limited to 5 because that information was readily available at Yahoo's election dashboard.

Then, i compared the vote totals in each primary state thus far, McCain vs. Huckabee. Granted, most of those contests were not essentially head-to-head, and so the votes are clouded by votes for Thompson, Romney, et al. I then extrapolated those vote percentages to a force-fit total of 100% for the two candidates. For example, if McCain got 30% in state X, while Huckabee got 20%, then i adjusted that to 60-40 in favor of McCain.

The final step was to weight those respective state voting %s by the electoral votes assigned to each state. We couldn't take the raw votes because some states had caucuses, which have a much lower # of votes compared to regular primaries.

Result? In blue-states, McCain has had a 3-1 advantage over Huckabee. Domination. But domination in states where it won't matter. Those states are going to ultimately vote for Obama or Clinton over McCain. In red-states, McCain's lead narrows dramatically to only 54-46. Compare that to the results of the last 8 Democratic contests, where Obama has crushed Clinton 65-35 on average.

So what does this mean? I suppose if one believed that John McCain could turn historically blue states red, then this analysis would be encouraging for the GOP. If we were on a history arc where the trend was towards the GOP, rather than away from it, nominating a moderate Republican who could transform states into new electoral votes might be a good strategy. But we're on the opposite arc right now. Can the GOP even hold its base states this year with John McCain? I would still bet yes, but i'd be nervous if i were Mike Duncan.

I do still firmly believe that Governor Huckabee would easily hold the base-states, and with a half-year in the public spotlight, with the opportunity to hold debates, with the extra time for Obamamania to lose its luster, he could also hold the line just enough for a GOP victory in November. It doesn't look like we'll ever get the chance to prove that yea or nay.