Remapping SUSA

Nick Beaudrot redoes the Survey USA state-by-state polling maps to offer up some shading proportional to the level of support the candidates are drawing. It makes for a somewhat more nuanced picture of the landscape though, as before, I caution you that if you aggregate 100 separate polls, some of them are going to be those outliers (Obama-McCain tied in Texas?) they warned you about when they described the margin of error: Nick also proffers the following Senate analysis: "in the states with the ten most competitive Senate races, Obama does better than Clinton in eight of them; only Kentucky and Louisiana are better for Clinton." I don't know how well this polling will hold up, but I think this is a crucial question. The issue is not so much coattails as it is anti-coattails. If this starts to shape up as a good year for Democrats, "let's not give Obama/Clinton a blank check" will be a persuasive argument to some voters in states where Obama or Clinton is unpopular. You want to minimize the number of states like that.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/03/remapping-susa/45546/