STATE OF PLAY:

Election Scorecard: Where the election stands today. (Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin, Oct. 17, 2007, Slate)

Welcome to Slate's all-you-can-eat polling feature, Election Scorecard. Compiled from data crunched by our partners at Pollster.com, the scorecard delivers the numbers you need to know about every presidential primary and caucus. No more trying to make sense of 10 different polls from 10 different news organizations. Pollster.com analyzes all the surveys from the primary states and boils them down into a single number for easy consumption. Graphs track how the numbers for the top four candidates in each state have changed over time, showing which candidates are surging and which are lagging. State-by-state breakdowns allow for easy comparisons of candidate performance in the states that matter most and show how many delegates are at stake for each party. It performs the same number-crunching on nationwide polls as well.

You can see the contours of the scenario that may well play out here. The showings of Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee in IA suggest the enduring strength of Christian conservatives in the unique caucuses. A state where the Reverend Pat Robertson managed to do well is ripe for upsetting the front-runners. That would throw NH into turmoil and with Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani splitting the North Eastern neighbor constituency -- MA politicians always win NH -- you could get another shocking win for Senator McCain. That would make SC a two person race: Fred Thompson, who's leading, vs. John McCain, who learned from his mistakes there last time.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 17, 2007 7:35 AM