Friday Horse Race

UPDATED UPDATE: Maps should be fixed now.
UPDATE: We don't got maps. Something was wrong with my MSN photo album, so I moved to Yahoo. I'm only now learning that it doesn't work... sorry.

We got maps! Not that there's much difference. One change I've made is that if the second-most recent Rasmussen or SurveyUSA poll is more recent than the last poll by any other polling organization, it now counts as the "variant" poll. In the Averaged Polls, strong states are defined as any state in which a candidate leads a 4-poll average (or the average of all polls available) by more than 5 percentage points. In the Tradesports, a strong state is defined as any state in which the odds for a candidate are 60% or greater. In both maps, any state that is uncolored reflects an exact tie between the candidates. Blue always reflects "Strong Democrat", Green reflects "Weak Democrat", Yellow reflects "Weak Republican" and Red reflects "Strong Republican."

I'm currently contemplating adding American Research Group as a fifth axis of comparison... (four axes are "Rasmussen", "Survey USA", "other", "most recent" - with most recent tending to double the strength of the most recent poll)

As of 8am this morning, the TradeSports and Averaged Poll maps (data for averaging available here:

Odds

Bush: Strong - 222; Weak - 56; Total - 278
Kerry: Strong - 210; Weak - 45; Total - 255

Polls

Bush: Strong - 203; Weak - 61; Total - 264
Kerry: Strong - 178; Weak - 47; Total - 225
Tied (+Delaware): 49