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November 03, 2004

Kerry Win Even Less Likely Now

Bush has increased his lead to more than 144 thousand in Ohio. Even hyper-partisan Kevin Drum sees little chance for Kerry:

Last I heard, the Ohio secretary of state estimated that they would end up with about 175,000 provisional ballots. At best for Kerry — making some fairly heroic assumptions about the bulk of the provisionals being the result of Republican challenges and so forth — they might split in his favor 65%-35%. That would break down to 113,000 for Kerry vs. 61,000 for Bush, a difference of 52,000 votes.

In other words, Kerry needs to be within about 50,000 votes in order for the provisional ballots to have any chance of tipping Ohio in his direction. Right now, he's behind by 140,000 with 99% of the precincts reporting, so getting within 50,000 seems like a rather forlorn hope.

Now, these numbers might be wrong. Maybe there are more provisional ballots. Maybe they'll break even more sharply in Kerry's favor. Maybe once the regular count is finished he'll be closer than 140,000. But that's a lot maybes, and it's pretty unlikely they're all going to happen.

It is especially unlikely when one realizes that assuming that provisional ballots breaking for Kerry by 65% is beyon unlikely. If there are 175k provisional ballots, Kerry needs to win 158k (or 90%) of them to win. Unlikely is is too weak a word. Impossible is closer to reality.

Update: The spread keeps growing. It is up to 147k now. Here are the counties that have not completed counting:

Hamilton: 95% complete, 53% for Bush, almost 400k votes cast
Knox: 98% complete, 66% for Bush, 25k votes cast
Lucas: 95% complete, 60% for Kerry, 180k total votes cast

Given this, the more counting done means Bush is only going to pick up more votes.

Posted by bubba138 at November 3, 2004 12:53 AM