Reply #17: That scenario is virtually impossible... [View All]

[regnaD kciN]

Since there are only 539 electoral votes, and two candidates with any chance of winning a state, one of the two will get 270 or above.

The only way your scenario could take place is if there is a third-party candidate with enough strength to get more votes than both the Democratic and Republican candidates in a given state (or several). The last time that happened was in 1968 with George Wallace. In other words, to pull that off, you need an extremist candidate whose message (in Wallace's case, racial segregation) is not shared by either of the two major-party candidates and resonantes in a certain specific area of the country (in Wallace's case, the Deep South). In fact, a 2004-era George Wallace would be unlikely to succeed -- what happened in 1968 depended in large part on a specific historical convergence: while the Democrats had lost their previously-solid grip on that region by supporting the Civil Rights Act, the pre-"Southern strategy" Republican Party was still viewed by Southerners as "the party of Lincoln." With a newfound hatred of both major parties, conservative white southerners had nowhere to go but Wallace.

In any event, none of the current third-party candidates has enough of a regional appeal to be able to grab a single state, so either Bush or Kerry is certain to wind up with 270 electoral votes or more.