Electoral Maps at 7 Newspaper Sites Rate the Bush-Kerry Race

By: Joe Strupp While most newspapers, and some readers, obsess over the latest polls on the presidential race, many students of politics know that the electoral college is all that matters in the end. Several newspaper Web sites offer maps and guides that forecast each state based on expert opinion and local polling.

So what's the consensus less than two weeks from election day?

Among seven major newspaper sites, four have Bush leading, and three give an advantage to Kerry. In each case, however, neither candidate is close to having the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, and the sites vary widely in their number of swing states.

Averaging the seven sites, Bush has 198 electoral votes while Kerry can claim 191.

Some of the maps are interactive, so if you don't like the results, you can change them yourself.

The Los Angeles Times has the most electoral votes up for grabs: 220. With what's left, it gives Kerry a lead of 170 to 148. It's one of the few sites that calls New Jersey, Louisiana, and Virginia very much in play.

The Philadephia Inquirer also leaves a lot of electoral votes unaccounted for, showing Kerry with a lead at 168-166.

The other newspapers are more eager to decide. The New York Times, for example, only leaves 104 electoral votes on the table. It gives Kerry 221 votes leaning or strongly in his camp, while Bush has 213.

But the rest of the sites all give the edge to Bush. At USA Today it's Bush by 216-213; at The Washington Post it's 208-170 for the president; and at The Boston Globe he wins 213-179. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale also gives Bush a 222-217 "bulge" (pardon the expression).

The maps all put a number of states solidly in one camp or the other. And they all agree on a handful of states considered swingers: New Mexico, Iowa, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Hampshire. After that, it gets interesting.

States such as Arkansas and Arizona, which had seemed solidly for Bush, now show up as undecided on some maps. The Boston Globe has Connecticut only leaning to Kerry, not solidly for him.

All but one site calls Pennsylvania up for grabs; The New York Times gives it to Kerry. That paper also gives Oregon and Maine, widely seen as toss-ups, to Kerry.

On these maps, Missouri and West Virginia sometimes lean to Bush, while Kerry seems to have Washington and, maybe, Minnesota and Michigan.