Presidential election 2008

Barack Obama is spending this Wednesday in pursuit of Western votes: He had a "community gathering" this morning in Denver. A recent poll gave Obama a slight lead in Colorado, […]

Note that one of the Florida primary maps has been corrected. Maybe it’s better not to make so many maps so quickly on a "morning after"!

Today’s New York Times has a cool map showing where the Republican presidential candidates have campaigned leading up to today’s Florida primary. (Go here and look for the pop-up graphic […]

Following the model of yesterday’s map of California, below is a map of how New York counties have voted in the Democratic primaries of 1980, 1984, and 1992. One big […]

In today’s Boston Globe, Peter Canellos has a good column pointing out the similarities between Mitt Romney and George Herbert Walker Bush, "both sons of prominent politicians whose careers stalled […]

The prospect of the New England Patriots capping a historic undefeated season with a victory in the Super Bowl this Sunday in Arizona already has officials discussing plans for a […]

Averaging the six most recent national polls, RealClearPolitics has Hillary Clinton at 43 percent, Barack Obama at 33 percent, and John Edwards at 14 percent. According to polls in individual […]

Monday, January 28, 2008 There will be lots of maps in this space before and after Super Tuesday, now that we know there will be highly competitive primaries in both […]

The map below groups California’s 58 counties by voting patterns in the last three competitive presidential primaries on the Democratic side: 1980, when Ted Kennedy beat Jimmy Carter (45 percent […]

Next week’s Republican primary in Florida could be a key turning point in the campaign, as it’s the last chance for candidates to gain momentum before the primaries on Feb. […]

As a follow-up to this post, here is how McCain was able to put together a narrow plurality in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary. As in 2000, McCain did best […]

Friday, January 18, 2008 Was AP reporter Glen Johnson being persistent or obnoxious in repeatedly interrupting Mitt Romney at a press conference? Dan Kennedy has the video. Kennedy comes down […]

Friday, January 18, 2008 More on the question of whether journalists are upstaging the candidates they cover: Matthew Ygelsias makes his case against Tim Russert:Viewers watch a candidate getting grilled […]

Last year, I noted that Rudy Giuliani was the only Republican presidential candidate with significant support in almost every state for which polls were available, giving him a substantial advantage […]

When a demographic group gets bigger, it usually becomes more powerful politically, but there is one major exception in the United States: voters who don’t identify with either major party. […]

I’ll be adding more maps interpreting the Michigan primary over the next day or two, but here’s a simple one to start with, showing which candidate got the most votes […]

How did John McCain go from an eight-point victory in the 2000 GOP presidential primary to a nine-point loss this year? The short answer is low turnout. The number of […]

Because she was the only major candidate on the ballot in Michigan, Hillary Clinton’s main rival was the number 50. Getting less than half of the vote would have been […]

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 The Boston Phoenix’s David Bernstein gives John McCain better odds to survive the Republican-voters-only primaries than I do, but his breakdown of the GOP primary electorate […]

John McCain can go a long way toward nailing down the Republican presidential nomination by winning Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, the state in which he suffered his most serious […]

Monday, January 14, 2008 For those interested in our 10-region political map, I have added statistics, in a downloadable Word file, on how each region voted in the 2000 Democratic […]

Thanks to Walking the Berkshires, I’ve discovered the Connecticut Local Politics site, which has some great maps of past elections in the Nutmeg State — as well as the cartograph […]

After winning the New Hampshire primary for the second time, next week John McCain will try to repeat his 2000 win in Michigan. The map below gives some idea of […]

A few days ago I wondered whether Hillary Clinton could replicate the geographical pattern that gave Al Gore a narrow margin over Bill Bradley in the New Hampshire primary eight […]