Why Kerry Will Win

My conclusion that John Kerry will win the Presidential election is based on the following analysis: The reason why incumbents generally have an advantage is because, by definition, they won the last election. Thus, an incumbent can only lose a re-election if there is a net shift in voting patterns from the last election. That is, in order to defeat an incumbent the challenger either has to pick up voters who voted for the incumbent (or a third party) in the last election or else win overwhelmingly among voters who did not vote in the previous election, such as by an increase in turnout among groups supporting the challenger.

However, this reasoning does not apply in Bush's case. Gore got more than 500,000 more votes in 2000 than Bush did. Setting aside the peculiarity of the electoral college, Gore won the last election and Bush lost. In terms of voting patterns, it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are really in the position usually enjoyed by an incumbent. In other words, barring another electoral college anomaly, Bush can only win re-election if there is a net shift of more than 500,000 votes from the Democratic column to the Republican column. I do not see how this can happen.

I have a great deal of difficulty conjuring up the image of any voter who voted for Gore in 2000 who will vote for Bush this year. Such rare birds may exist, but I have a hard time believing that there are many of them. On the other hand, I can think of lots of reasons why voters who chose Bush in 2000 will vote for Kerry this year. Most importantly, working-class voters who chose Bush because of distaste over the Clinton scandals may well decide to vote Democratic this time around because of economic concerns. I again emphasize that it is Bush, not Kerry, who needs a net shift in voters in order to win, and I certainly don't see many voters shifting from the Democrats to the Republicans because of economic issues. There are also the Nader voters, and it seems highly likely that there will be a big shift in this group away from Nader to the Democratic ticket -- there certainly won't be any shift in this group in favor of Bush.

Nor do I see changes in turnout as yielding a result favorable to Bush -- quite the contrary. There may well be a significant increase in voter turnout among minority voters, particularly African-Americans, who have been hit hard by job losses and who are angry over perceived racial exclusions of voters in Florida in 2000. If so, this will undoubtedly favor Kerry. Polling also indicates that Kerry does well with younger voters, who also have concerns about the job market and who tend to be more opposed to the Iraq war than the general public. It is therefore unlikely that Bush will score any net gains among first-time voters. In all, the likelihood is that voters who turn out to vote this year but who did not vote in 2000 will favor Kerry, not Bush.

There has been a suggestion that Republican strategists believe that they can increase the turnout among Bush's core voters, namely, religious and other social conservatives. I am skeptical of this. Right-wing ideologues (NRA-types, anti-abortion voters, etc.) tend to be highly motivated voters who always have a high turnout rate. I find it very unlikely that social conservatives will be any more motivated to vote in this election than they were in 2000, when they were motivated by a zeal to rescue America from eight years of government by their version of the anti-Christ, Bill Clinton. In any event, these groups tend to be concentrated in states that Bush carried in 2000, so I do not see any realistic chance that an increase in turnout among social conservatives will do anything to throw the election to Bush.

In short, my advice to Democrats is simple: Calm Down! Let's stop second-guessing Kerry and rally behind our truly excellent candidate, the candidate who will finally put an end to the Bush national nightmare.