Blue States And Red States (And Others)

(The cartoon above was found at Roto-Rouda.)

The folks at the Gallup Poll just put out an interesting survey that purports to show the states that are Democratic or Republican. They gathered their data by interviewing 177,670 adults in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia) between January 1st and June 30th of this year. The large number of interviews gave the poll a margin of error of only 1 point. But to be on the safe side, they put a state in a party's "solid" column only if the party had a 10 point advantage in that state. A 5 to 9 point advantage is listed as "leaning" to the party, and states where the point advantage was less that 5 was put down as "competitive". I added the electoral votes just to make it more interesting. Here's what they found:

THERE ARE 14 SOLID DEMOCRATIC STATES (with D.C.) -- California, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia.

THE SOLID DEMOCRATIC STATES HAVE 189 ELECTORAL VOTES.

THERE ARE 3 STATES LEANING DEMOCRATIC -- Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Washington.

THE LEANING DEMOCRATIC STATES HAVE 39 ELECTORAL VOTES.

TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES FOR THE 17 DEMOCRATIC STATES IS 228.

THERE ARE 9 SOLID REPUBLICAN STATES -- Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, Alabama, and South Carolina.

THE SOLID REPUBLICAN STATES HAVE 48 ELECTORAL VOTES.

THERE ARE 9 LEANING REPUBLICAN STATES -- Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Indiana, and Tennessee.

THE 9 LEANING REPUBLICAN STATES HAVE 99 ELECTORAL VOTES.

TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES FOR THE 18 REPUBLICAN STATES IS 147.

THERE ARE 16 COMPETITIVE STATES -- Nevada, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

THE ELECTORAL VOTES FOR THE 16 COMPETITIVE STATES IS 163.

I posted this just because I considered it interesting and fun. Please don't take it as a guarantee of how any state will vote in the November election. That will only be determined by the number of each party's members that show up at the polls, and by which way the Independents of that state decide to vote -- and we won't truly know any of that until election night.

I like polls, and if you've read this blog for long you probably know that. But a poll is little more than an educated guess, and should never be used as a guide on how to vote (or whether to vote).