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It's been my assessment that the keys to the 2004 Presidential Election devolve upon the decisions of five battleground states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Florida, and Ohio). While much hay has been made in the media discussing these so-called battleground states, most pundits fail to agree upon how many there really are: it ranges from 8 upwards to 20. Some estimates include states like Washington and Louisiana, which in my opinion -- to be borne out on Election Night -- have already been decided for Senator Kerry and President Bush respectively. Nevertheless, both the Kerry and Bush campaigns can agree that Ohio is indeed one of the most important ones. And history bears this out. Ohio has been the source of seven of our 43 U.S. Presidents: William Henry Harrison (lost in 1836, won in 1840), Ulysses Grant (1868, 1872), Rutherford Hayes (1876), James Garfield (1880), Benjamin Harrison (1888), William McKinley (1896, 1900), William Taft (1908), and Warren Harding (1920). Interestingly, four of those seven died in office (Harrison, Garfield, McKinley, and Harding). The other three were one-termers. Yet, with a critical eye on history, it's easy to understand why so many Presidents came from Ohio. And when Ohio isn't producing a President, she's calling the shots. It's common knowledge to any student of the Electoral College that: "no Republican has ever been elected President without winning Ohio". Actually, it should state "no candidate has ever been elected without winning Ohio", because Ohio has usually gone to the victor of the Presidential sweepstakes. But in the past hundred years there have been two exceptions: in 1944 and 1960. In the first instance, Republican Governor Thomas Dewey of New York, in his first run for the presidency, won the state by barely a third of a percentage point! But he lost the election by a landslide to President Franklin Roosevelt. The following year the contest was even closer, though not an exception; Dewey lost Ohio to President Harry Truman by less than a quarter of a percent! The second exception was in the 1960 contest when then Vice President Richard Nixon won by 6 percent over Senator John Kennedy. But Kennedy really didn't need Ohio since his electoral college margin over Nixon was considerable (303 to 219). Although President Bush and Senator Kerry have spent millions of dollars trying to woo the 7 million registered voters of the Buckeye State, there are two rather telling reasons why President Bush will keep Ohio in the 'R' column just as he did in 2000. First, by looking at the percentage trends in just the last 8 presidential elections, one can see that a Democratic candidate's win has never been more than 6 percent (peak: Clinton, 1996), while Republican wins have generated double-digit percentages. Jimmy Carter's 1976 win was by less than a third of one percent and Bill Clinton's first win in Ohio was by less than 2% in 1992. Although, to be fair, President Bush beat Vice President Gore by just under 4% in 2000 -- -not a double-digit win. So this point on percentage trending is tenuous at best. Still, the second reason is quite revealing regarding Ohio's political trending: a Republican Governor and two GOP U.S. Senators. Plus the GOP holds every statewide non-judicial office. So it appears that Ohio starts leaning Republican before the campaign even begins. I mentioned earlier that there are only five states with the deciding electoral votes: two major states, Ohio (20) and Florida (27); and three mid-tier states: Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10) and Missouri (11). On election night, both Ohio and Florida could be called by the major networks at around 8 p.m. EST. The bottom line is that if President Bush loses Ohio, he loses his chance to win re-election. He must have Ohio and Florida, and one of the three mid-tier states to win. On the other hand, in doing the Electoral College math, Senator Kerry can win even without Ohio, thus adding 2004 to Electoral College's exceptions list. Summarily, winning Ohio is crucial; and in the history of electing a President that has always been the case.
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