It is becoming increasingly clear that John Kerry lost the popular vote because Democrats only focused on swing states, while Republicans fought a much more nationwide campaign. This was the conclusion of Robert David Sullivan, and it was also the tentative conclusion I reached last week. Now, even though the final counting is certainly not complete, I think have run some numbers that make this claim nearly indisputable. My source is the incomparable Dave Leip:
Presidential Nominee, National Popular Vote (In Millions)
2000 2004 Change
DNC 51.00 57.30 +12.4%
RNC 50.46 60.70 +20.3%As everyone already knows, nationwide Bush managed a more significant increase in his popular vote total than Kerry managed to increase on Gore's total. However, if the twenty most closely fought swing states are compared to the other thirty states plus D.C., the relative increases are far more revealing: Presidential Nominee, Swing State Popular Vote (In Millions)
2000 2004 Change
DNC 21.67 25.82 +19.1%
RNC 22.16 27.08 +22.2%In the twenty swing-states the two campaigns spent the most time and money, Republicans and Democrats improved at almost exactly the same rate (the twenty swing states in these calculations are AZ, AR, CO, FL, IA, ME, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, OR, PA, VA, WA, WV, and WI). Further, Kerry improved on Gore's total by at least 9.2% in all twenty of these states. However, now look at the "safe" states: Presidential Nominee, Safe State Popular Vote (In Millions)
2000 2004 Change
DNC 29.35 31.47 +7.2%
RNC 28.32 33.61 +18.7%In fifteen of these thirty-one "safe states," Kerry imporved on Gore's total by less than 9.2%. In 2004, Bush turned a safe state deficit of more than a million votes into a safe state victory of more than two million votes. The overall swing in the safe states, nearly 3.2 million votes, accounts for over 93% of Bush's current national vote margin. Had Kerry increased the Democratic vote total in the safe states at the same rate that Bush managed to increase his safe state vote total, Kerry would currently be down by less than 50,000 votes nationwide, and few, if any people, would find the recount efforts unjustified. Bush would be under 50%, Kerry would be over 49%, and there would be no talk of a mandate whatsoever.
Unfortunately, by ignoring the non-swing states, we sowed the seeds of our own illegitimacy when it came to Ohio. Starting in 2006, Democratic activism must permanently work toward a fifty-state strategy.