Here’s yet another entertaining website (and another hat tip to Jess). It is maintained by an outfit calling itself SurveyUSA, and is an interactive map of the current mood of the nation, taken state by state, regarding possible 2008 Presidential election pairings. Here’s what they’ve done:
SurveyUSA regularly conducts separate but concurrent statewide public opinion polls in each of the 50 states. Results from these 50 State Tracking Polls are released on SurveyUSA’s website.
Each time SurveyUSA conducts 50 separate but concurrent statewide public opinion polls, at least 30,000 Americans are interviewed, typically over 3 consecutive days, sometimes 4. At least 600 adults age 18+ are interviewed from each state. SurveyUSA asks if the respondent is registered to vote. Approximately 80%, or 500 of the 600 adults in each state, tell SurveyUSA they are registered to vote.
In June 2006, SurveyUSA began adding to its concurrent statewide opinion polls a series of questions that began:
“If there were an election for President of the United States today, and the only two candidates on the ballot were [Republican candidate] and [Democrat candidate], who would you vote for?”
SurveyUSA systematically worked through the most obvious candidates for president. We polled as many probable pairings each month as we were able.
As of 11/13/06, we have completed 60 probable Head-to-Head Pairings. These are the Head-to-Head Pairings that SurveyUSA makes available. For each pairing, there are 51 possible outcomes: one for each of the 50 states and 1 for the District of Columbia. 60 possible pairings x 51 geographies for each pairing equals more than 3,000 separate poll outcomes. More than 200,000 interviews have been completed.
If nothing else, it’s an amusing little diversion. Have a look here.