Time for another look at the results maps for Guam, Indiana, and North Carolina:

Click to enlarge.

Overall, the results in all three contests were pretty solidly linked to demographics.  Poblano has been busy running the regressions and making predictions, but for those of you who don't get much out of t-values, I've included some maps for several demographics below.  And, the usual nationwide views.  Finally, some evidence that Clinton's support in Appalachia isn't necessarily about race.

Another primary come and gone - and still the race goes on.  Here's the county-by-county map of yesterday's results:

Click to enlarge.

We see pretty good continuity across state borders, and, again, urban and collegiate islands where Obama has greater support.  The patterns we have seen across the country stayed pretty much the same in Pennsylvania - there certainly were some improvements for Obama according to the exit polls, but no changes on the order of highly educated whites suddenly favoring Clinton by 20 points.  This, of course, is why Poblano was able to use various demographic and electoral variables to predict the outcome of the PA primary within a couple points.

Nationwide maps below the fold.

We've arrived at a nice lull in the primary action, so it's time to take stock with another map update.

Click to enlarge.

Join me below the fold for more, including a comparison with maps of religion and race by county.

Survey USA created quite the buzz the other day when they released the results of general election polls for all 50 states.  People have already feasted on the overall results; here, I will focus on the data for gender, age, income, and party.

First, the main results in a more subtle form besides the red/blue released by Survey USA, and a comparison of each candidate's performance.  Red shows McCain leading, and blue shows the Democrat leading.  In the comparison, green shows Clinton outperforming Obama against McCain; purple for Obama.

Click to enlarge.

Over the last few months, we've seen a basketful of Republicans crash and burn, and the grudging coalescence around the formerly-written-off McCain in the Republican primary.  On the Democratic side, of course, we've had the most interesting battle in decades, with Obama overtaking Clinton just recently in the national (and now, somewhat meaningless) polls.

But what does that mean for the General Election?

Short answer: not much in the case of Clinton vs. McCain, although Clinton has lost support in some key groups; but Obama has gained on McCain almost across the board.  Here's comparisons of both Democrats' share of the vote in February Survey USA polls compared to November polls.  Complete explanation and breakdown by demographic below the fold.

Click to enlarge.

For those who have not yet noticed Google Trends, let me introduce a new addiction.  It's like a new poll from every state, every day!  Just think of all the BREAKING diaries that could be written!

In this diary I will take you on a tour through the primary season and show you why, so far, Google Trends does a pretty good job of showing which way the momentum is going.  

As a tease, here's the Google Trends results for Clinton (blue) and Obama (red) over the last two months or so, showing the volume of searches in the United States over that time period.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

Blue shows Clinton winning, green shows Obama winning.  Explanations, and more maps, below the fold.

We have a wealth of data from exit polls over the last few months.  Staring at tables of data isn't the easiest way to get the big picture, though.  So, seeing as this is my blogosphere niche, I've made some maps.  Here, for instance, is a map of Obama's support among those who made up their minds the day of the election:

Click to enlarge.

The other thing about the exit polls is that it's easy for discussion to degenerate into statements like 'Clinton's voters are white women and Latinos.'

But did you know that without the votes of Latina women, Obama would have lost New Mexico by 12 points?  Didn't hear much about that in the media, didja?

Follow me below as we explore the exit poll data in more detail and bury some of the myths that have caught my attention.

As requested, here is a map of the primary and caucus election results by county or congressional district, depending on availability.  The map shows the difference in percent vote.  Green is a blowout victory by Obama, and blue is a blowout victory by Clinton.

Click to enlarge. Apologies to Alaska and Hawaii.

On the flip: a really strange looking cartogram and the top counties for Clinton and Obama.

Below are maps with the color intensity scaled to the percent vote for Clinton and Obama as listed on the New York Times website.  Because the binary win/lose maps don't show the whole picture....

Click to enlarge.

This diary is a response to reader's requests, including approval ratings from Bush’s first term, cartograms, and showing urban areas.  

First, the state approval map and lower 48 county cartogram for Fall 2007.  A cartogram is a map where the size of each geographic unit, in this case each county, is based on something other than land area, in this case population.  It’s especially useful in politics because land doesn't vote, people do.  For a great introduction to cartograms, see BentLiberal’s diary here.  

Click to enlarge.

On the left, sagebrush has a bigger visual impact than New York City; on the right, urban areas get their fair share.

More maps back to 2001 below the fold.

Based on recent generic ballot polls and the current distribution of Republican incumbent and open seats, Democrats would pick up about 25 more House seats in the 2008 election if it were held today.  Republicans might pick up a couple to offset that.

And that’s before we account for future Republican retirements and the massive fundraising advantage Dems have this year.

Of course, the generic ballot numbers will probably change over the next year, one way or the other.  Here’s how the number of House seats Democrats would win varies as the Democrats’ generic ballot advantage changes so you can keep track at home (based on retirements known as of November).  

Click to enlarge.

The colored bands show the maximum and minimum calculations, but the actual numbers are most likely to be close to the solid lines.  Currently the average Democratic generic ballot advantage is about 12; the max I’ve seen this year is 18, the min is 7.

Below, the explanation and the fine print.

We know money and several other factors have major effects on House races.  But after we account for these major factors, how much advantage does incumbency give a candidate?  A gerrymandered district?  Getting caught in a scandal?

Yesterday I showed some regressions for Republican performance in House races for the years 2002, 2004, and 2006 that take account of incumbent party, fundraising ratio, and district partisan makeup.

Using these, we can tell how well we expect a Republican to do given certain conditions.  However, the regressions are not perfect - the data don’t fall along the lines plotted.  There’s plenty of room for other factors to be involved.  We can use the differences between what we expect and what actually happened – the residuals – to tease out the effects of additional conditions.  Below, a pack of factors, from the most important – money, party, district – to the less important ones – incumbency, gerrymandering, longevity – to the more interesting ones – scandal and failure.

Thanks to Open Secrets, fundraising data is readily available for all House candidates.  This diary sorts through all the House races from the last three cycles to show the effects of money, incumbency, political climate, and party on the elections.  

While money was clearly the most important factor, the big surprise was that once money was accounted for, running against an incumbent was only a little more difficult that running for an open seat, on average.

The effect of relative fundraising strength (the D/R Fundraising Ratio, Democratic $$ raised divided by Republican $$ raised) for all 2006 races is below:

Click to enlarge.

On the far left, when the Democrat raises very little money compared to the Republican (D/R Fundraising Ratio < 0.1), the Republican always wins.  On the far right (D/R Fundraising Ratio > 10), the opposite case.  Much much more below...

The changes in voting behavior in recent years have a distinct geographic flavor.  In 1988, George H. W. Bush won with 53% of the vote; 16 years later, his son got 51% nationwide, pretty close to the same.  We should be able to figure out something from the comparison, as both Democrats in the race were ‘Massachusetts liberals’ and both Republicans were Bushes, although the son has a very different persona than the father.  If George H. W. Bush had run against Dukakis again in 2004, that would give us the most information about changes in voting behavior, but let’s take a look at what we do have:

Click to enlarge.

Below, more on trends in voting and population growth in recent years.

(From the diaries -- kos)

I’ll start by showing the Permanent Republican Majority in its current form in the House – the distribution of seats according to the percent of the vote Bush had in 2000 in each district.  I’ve added a smooth curve through the data:

Click to enlarge.

Here’s the distribution of Democratic House seats:

Click to enlarge.

The Blue Wave of the Democrats is clearly eroding that red cliff.  And there’s a good 60 or so Republicans – some in oh-so-carefully gerrymandered districts - teetering right on the edge....  it looks like a couple dozen have fallen in.  

Below, the evolution of the House from 1993 to today, and a bit about redistricting.  

Cross posted at Open Left and Swing State Project.

As we all watched in amazement last year, the Blue Wave in 2006 was so strong Republicans almost lost House districts in Wyoming and Idaho – two of the most conservative districts in the country (only 10-20 districts gave Bush a higher percentage of the vote in 2000 or 2004).  Not one Democratic seat was lost.

It couldn’t get better than that, could it?

Could it?

As the latest Democracy Corps memo puts it, "If Americans have ever been angrier with the state of the country, we have not witnessed it..."  And that anger is directed mostly at Republicans.  

Now, the numbers - first up, the Master Indicator - the Generic Ballot question.  The graph show the net Democratic advantage:

Click to enlarge.

Join me on the flip for a fourteen ways to look at the 2008 House races – and, in some cases, the mood of the country in general.  

(From the diaries -- kos)

We have at long last a poll from Utah clocking in at 47%!  With the poll of Idaho in August, this means every single state has had a poll with approval of Bush under 50% at some point.

America the Beautiful, indeed!

Click to enlarge.  B&W version here.

Cross-posted at Open Left.