SurveyUSA has conducted polling across the country with interviews of 600 registered voters in each of the 50 states, or 30,000 total interviews, pitting both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama against John McCain. The resulting electoral college maps look like this (click on them to enlarge):
Hillary Clinton v. John McCain
Barack Obama v. John McCain
Crunching the numbers on an electoral vote counter, I come up with 280 electoral votes for Obama and 276 electoral votes for Clinton in matchups against McCain -- so not a terribly large difference. The maps don't look entirely similar. Obama fairs much better in the West than Clinton, while Clinton performs better in traditionally Democratic states in the North (though not, interestingly enough, in the Rust Belt state of Michigan). Both Obama and Clinton put new states on the map for the Democrats that weren't there in the last two elections. In the case of Obama, states like Colorado, Virginia, Nevada and even apparently North Dakota (though I'll believe that one when I see it); in the case of Clinton, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Florida.
Of course this is very early in the cycle, and these numbers are highly speculative. A potential Democratic nominee is not a Democratic nominee, and polling eight months out from an election day isn't traditionally the greatest predictor of future results. That said, this polling does pass the smell test in terms of the types of states that each candidate has strength in, and what's more it does underscore the great likelihood that either Clinton or Obama would have a good shot at winning the presidency were they nominated.
Anyway, we should know more later today when SUSA actually posts the specific numbers from each state. But for now, what are your thoughts?
Update [2008-3-6 14:55:45 by Jonathan Singer]: The full data is now available at SurveyUSA's website. Note that the polling has Obama picking up a couple of congressional districts, and thus a couple of extra electoral votes, in Nebraska (thus I have changed the totals above).
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