Shrinking battlefield puts squeeze on Kerry

The list of battleground states is steadily shrinking, and that spells more trouble for John Kerry than for President Bush. Even though some Republicans think Kerry had his best week since his July convention by hammering Bush on health care policy last week, many states where Kerry was ahead early in the summer have moved into the Bush column.

Moreover, only about 12 states are still considered genuinely competitive by election experts, compared with 20 in early summer - and it's believed Kerry must capture roughly 60% of the electoral votes from those states to become President.

Many experts are convinced the race is so tight that the winner on Nov. 2 will be the candidate who takes two of the three megastates of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And despite recent Bush momentum, all three remain tossups.

"It looks uphill for Kerry," said Charlie Cook of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "Bush obviously has the upper hand here, but this cake isn't baked yet."

Indeed, pollster John Zogby argued that Kerry still can win because only 20% of an estimated 6 million truly uncommitted voters believe Bush deserves to be reelected.

"Kerry is in the driver's seat," Zogby said. "Undecideds seem to have made up their minds [negatively] about Bush but aren't sold on Kerry.

"If Kerry can give both his base and issue-oriented swing voters something to believe in, he can win. If he can't, Bush wins by default."

Kerry and Bush campaign strategists agree that Kerry has lost ground in the last month. Nationally, the political pros believe Bush has a solid but still-modest five-point lead, not the double-digit margins he sported immediately after the New York convention.

In addition, several usually-GOP states once thought to be within Kerry's reach - Missouri, Virginia, Arkansas and Louisiana - appear to be reverting to Bush, who also seems poised to snatch Wisconsin from the Democratic column.

On the other hand, 2000 Bush states Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire and West Virginia are all still up for grabs.


(9/19/2004)
- By Thomas M. DeFrank, The New York Daily News

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