Stateline.org columnist Lou Jacobson posted this article outlining his speculations for Election 2008 based on state partisanship trends. He generously considers 19 states to be swing states. However, as FairVote’s Shrinking Battleground report shows, there are far fewer states determining election outcomes than Jacobson reports.

Jacobson splits his battleground states into five categories: likely to vote democrat/republican, leaning towards democrat/republican, or tossup. While I admire Jacobson’s approach to speculating the 2008 partisan breakup, I’m convinced the reality is much worse than his data suggests.

For example, Maine is listed as “lean democrat” even though it has increased in Democratic partisanship since 2000, reaching 55.7% Democrat in 2004. I would classify this state as safe Democrat for 2008. Candidates will likely view Maine similarly and will ignore it as they campaign in the small handful of battleground states.

Maybe Jacobson is being careful not to speculate too early about which way states will go, but his current data gives the impression that nearly half of the states actually influence the elections. This analysis gives these states a false hope of having electoral power and potentially getting a scrap of campaign attention.

We should be mindful of America’s Shrinking Battleground. Anything else sets us up for disappointment.

Other posts by Laura Kirshner

• Shift of fewer than 400,000 votes could have swung the election in McCain’s favor - November 5th, 2008
• 1 in 14 chance that the Electoral College winner will lose the National Popular Vote - September 8th, 2008
• Bi-partisan Panel Signs Joint Resolution for 2012 Primary Reform - August 21st, 2008
• Pushing back the Primaries: Don Means leads the National Caucus for 2012 Reform - August 1st, 2008
• Straight From the Horse’s Mouth: “Only winning the swing states matters” - July 8th, 2008
• The potential for women in the Senate - June 5th, 2008
• Ickes: System is "out of kilter" - August 27th, 2007
• Fix The Primaries in Miami Herald's Opinion Pages - August 15th, 2007
• California still left out of the campaign spotlight - July 30th, 2007
• The Shrinking Battleground: It's Smaller Than You Think - July 23rd, 2007