By now we're familiar with the path that would result in a 269-269 electoral vote tie. Kerry takes the Gore states plus New Hampshire and Nevada.
Our Constitution provides mechanisms for the naming of a President and Vice-President in the case where no one achieves a majority of the electoral vote. The President is chosen by the House, the Vice President by the Senate. And here's where an amazing twist could occur.
Taking the scenario of the 269-269 tie. Let's say that the Dems have a net pickup of enough Senate seats to have a majority, let's take 51D-48R-1I for simplicty's sake. Let's just say for sake of argument, and here it gets very strange, that the Dems squeeze out a narrow majority in the House, say 218D-216R-1I. (Although as we go on, that specific number isn't going to matter much.)
The voting in the two chambers for the two positions is different. The Senate, in voting for a Vice-President, makes its decision by straight majority vote. Assuming party line voting, John Edwards would be named Vice-President. Then we come to the House to decide the Presidency. But even though the Democrats hold the majority in the House, that's not going to make any difference at all. As the House casts votes by state, it is how many state delegations a party controls that will matter. Right now, that split is 30R-19D-1I. Given that many of the R state delegations are small red states with extremely safe seats, there is little to no chance that the Democrats could control a majority of state delegations. Thus, again assuming party-line voting, Bush is named President.
A Bush-Edwards administration? Take the poll.