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Kerry camp 'bullish'
03/11/2004 05:45 - (SA)
Boston - John Kerry's presidential campaign said late on Tuesday it was "bullish" about the senator's prospects, as the nerve jangling election rested on several closely fought battleground states.
Kerry strategist Joe Lockhart spoke soon after President George W Bush unusually invited reporters into the White House residence, where he was watching results roll in, to predict he would win the election.
Republicans had based their optimism on what they said was a better than expected showing for Bush in key states Ohio and Florida, but Lockhart said his side's figures indicated an opposite story.
In Ohio, Lockhart said "we are very bullish based on the turnout in the state, we had very positive turnout within the Democratic precincts in African-American communities."
He said Democrat precincts were performing at 115% of expectations while Republican areas had produced figures of only 94% of what Kerry's team had predicted.
"What you have to keep in mind is there's a series of Democratic counties that we only have very limited reporting in now," Lockhart said.
The Democrat's spokesperson claimed it was a similar story in the southeastern state of Florida, amid rising hopes among Bush's team that the president was performing better than expected in the state which decided the 2000 election.
"We feel very strongly about both of these states, states that will come into our column once the voters are counted," Lockhart said.
He predicted that the key to what he said would be a Democratic victory in the state would be the heavily Democratic counties of Broward and Palm Beach County in the southern half of the state, where he said Kerry had a huge lead with most voters left to be counted.
Lockhart also predicted that Kerry would snatch the tiny state of New Hampshire from Bush, and would post big wins in critical midwestern states Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.
- AFP
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