Electoral College Math Could Cover a Blackboard

CLEVELAND —  Many different combinations of states could lift President Bush or Sen. John F. Kerry to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

But the one scenario some insiders on both sides consider the most likely features six states, split into groups of three.

These strategists and operatives agree that either candidate will be very tough to beat if he can win two of the three largest battlegrounds -- Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio -- and two of the three Upper Midwest states still in play -- Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

In 2000, Bush carried two of these states: Ohio and Florida. Democrat Al Gore won the other four. Today, all six appear within reach for either Bush or Kerry.

Fittingly for an election that has defied many expectations, the electoral math is complicated, with both sides looking at any number of combinations that get their candidate to 270 electoral votes. And political analysts talked about possible election day surprises in such states as Democrat-leaning Hawaii or GOP-tilting Colorado.

But figuring prominently in the calculations by both sides are the three major battleground states and the three Upper Midwest states.

If either candidate sweeps Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, with a combined 68 electoral votes, he is virtually certain to win, absent a big surprise elsewhere, such as Michigan moving to Bush. If no one takes all three, the three Upper Midwest states, with a combined 27 electoral votes, could decide the race -- with Wisconsin the most hotly contested among them.

Here is a voter’s guide to some of results the experts will be studying to glean the trends in these six states:

Florida

(27 electoral votes)

Jim Kane, executive director of the nonpartisan Florida Poll, said Kerry’s performance in the Democratic bastion of South Florida should provide a clear indication of his statewide prospects. Four years ago, in the wake of the furor over the federal government’s decision to return young Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba, Gore carried Miami-Dade County by about 70,000 fewer votes than President Clinton had in his 1996 reelection victory.

Kane predicted that for Kerry to carry Florida, he “needs to exceed the Gore margins in South Florida,” which also includes Broward and Palm counties.

To prevent that, Bush aides hope he matches the 46% share of the vote he got in Miami-Dade.

The other key is the state’s concentration of swing voters in the heavily suburban counties along the Interstate 4 corridor from Orlando to Tampa.

In 2000, Orange County (Orlando) tilted from virtually dead-even in the 1996 election to a slight Democratic majority. But Hillsborough County (Tampa) gave Bush about an 11,000-vote majority after narrowly backing Clinton four years earlier.

“If Hillsborough switches back to Kerry,” said Kane, “that’s a significant change.”

Republicans also want to drive up Bush’s lead among conservative voters in the Florida Panhandle, exceeding the 32,074-vote margin Bush amassed in Escambia County.

“If we came out again with [that] margin in a [vote] where there is 10% more turnout, that would be bad for us,” said one senior Bush campaign aide.

Pennsylvania

(21 electoral votes)

For both sides, the math starts in Philadelphia and its suburbs.

In 2000, Gore came out of Philadelphia County with a nearly 350,000-vote advantage; this time, Democrats are hoping to push that to 400,000, said G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Millersville University.

Just as important are the surrounding suburban counties, which tilted from reliably Republican during the 1970s and 1980s toward the Democrats under Clinton. In 2000, Gore carried Bucks, Montgomery and Delaware counties by a combined 9 percentage points.

If Kerry matches or exceeds that, “Bush probably can’t make up the votes” in the rest of the state, Madonna said.

If Bush can stay within range of Kerry in the Philadelphia area, his two keys for winning the state are holding down the Democratic advantage in Pittsburgh and surrounding blue-collar communities and expanding his margins in the state’s center, which is largely rural.

Ohio

(20 electoral votes)

In an election focused so heavily on voter mobilization, John C. Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron, and Eric Rademacher, co-director of the Ohio Poll at the University of Cincinnati, plan to focus on how big an advantage each candidate can generate in his Ohio strongholds.

For Republicans, that’s Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati and its suburbs. In 2000, Bush carried the county by nearly 43,000 votes.

The Democratic bulwark is Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland and its suburbs. In 2000, Cuyahoga gave Gore a margin of just over 166,000 votes -- but that was down from Clinton’s 178,000-vote advantage four years earlier.

Green said he would also be looking at two swing areas. Stark County, centered on Canton, tilted from a slight Clinton edge in 1996 to a narrow Bush advantage in 2000; it’s traditionally seen as a bellwether. So is Montgomery County, which includes Dayton. Gore carried it in 2000, but only by about 4,800 votes -- just one-fourth Clinton’s margin four years earlier.

Iowa

(7 electoral votes)

Michael Mahaffey, the former state GOP chairman, said the most important figure in the Iowa vote should be the margin Kerry could build up in Polk County around Des Moines, the state’s most populous. In 1996, Clinton won the county by nearly 23,000 votes; in 2000, Bush held Gore to less than half that margin.

“If that’s close, it should be good for the Republicans,” he said.

Another key indicator, Mahaffey said, will be Jasper County, just east of Des Moines. After Clinton narrowly carried the county in both the 1992 and 1996 elections, it gave Bush a 30-vote victory in 2000.

Since then, it’s suffered job losses. “It might be a good test of how economic issues are factoring in,” Mahaffey said.

In 2000, Gore fell short of matching Clinton’s 1996 margins in most of the Democratic strongholds in Eastern Iowa -- counties such as Linn (Cedar Rapids) and Johnson (Iowa City), as well as the Mississippi River counties of Dubuque and Scott (Davenport).

Jeff Link, a veteran Democratic operative running a major get-out-the-vote effort in the state, said he would be comparing turnout in those eastern Iowa counties against the figures in the GOP-leaning western part of the state -- especially Sioux County, which provided Bush with his largest margin in the state in 2000.

Republicans were disappointed in the GOP turnout in Sioux four years ago; that was why Bush was campaigning there Monday.

Wisconsin

(10 electoral votes)

Attorney Michael Witten- wyler, a former campaign manager for Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), said Democrats were facing a clear challenge in the state this year. “If the same people that voted in 2000 vote this time around, Bush wins,” he said. “Democrats have got to bring out new people to win.”

Gore carried the state by barely more than 5,000 votes in 2000. To put it in Kerry’s column this year, Democrats are focusing on expanding turnout in two places.

One is Dane County, with its concentration of government workers and students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It gave Gore a 67,000-vote advantage in 2000 -- up from Clinton’s margin in 2000; Kerry might need even more.

He’ll also need big numbers in Milwaukee County, which Gore carried by about 89,000 votes in 2000.

Bush has shown growing strength in the largely blue- collar suburbs south of Milwaukee, in communities such as Kenosha and Racine.

Both sides are spotlighting Green Bay (Brown County) and surrounding areas in the Fox Valley. Kerry didn’t help his cause when he referred to the home of the Green Bay Packers football team as “Lambert Field.” (It’s Lambeau Field.)

Minnesota

(10 electoral votes)

Bush’s advisors see three steps to victory in this state that once was solidly Democratic. One is holding down the traditional Democratic margin in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, where Gore won a combined 54.5% of the vote in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.

Next, as in most states across the Midwest, the GOP must maximize its rural vote.

Perhaps most important for Bush is continuing to expand the GOP margins in the “exurban” outer ring suburbs north, south and southwest of the Twin Cities. In 1996, Clinton carried six of those seven exurban counties; in 2000, Bush won all seven. In 2002, Republican Norm Coleman won all seven by even larger margins en route to a Senate victory two years ago.

Bush is likely to face a deeper deficit in the Twin Cities than Coleman, who had served as mayor of St. Paul. That means he would need to run even better in rural and exurban counties, campaign strategists believe.

The two camps and political analysts also will be watching other states tonight for early clues to who is going to win.

For instance, if Kerry fails to capture New Hampshire, which narrowly backed Bush four years ago, that would be an early sign of trouble. If Kerry loses New Jersey or Michigan, which Gore carried comfortably in 2000, his presidential hopes would be considerably diminished.

Bush could be in for a long night if Arkansas or West Virginia unexpectedly shifted to Kerry. Later in the evening, upsets for Kerry in Colorado or Nevada could be a serious blow to the president’s reelection prospects. And each man is battling fiercely for New Mexico.

Times staff writer Richard Rainey contributed to this report.