Pollster.com

What strikes me most is just how big the differences are from state to state between how the different Democrats do against Thompson. I had kind of assumed that outside the much-visited first-primary states with their own dynamic, the national picture would be relatively consistent.

The one stable thing in all the results, though, is how Edwards outdoes both Hillary and Obama against Thompson. Only in New York does Hillary do better, while Obama outdoes Edwards only in California (and interestingly gets all his top results on the West Coast).

But I had some trouble, with this long list, mapping the differences out in my mind. So I turned the data into a graph. I don't think you can post images in the Comments section here, but I've uploaded it here (you may have to click on the graph to see it full-size, if it initially resizes to fit your screen).

It maps the margin of victory (or defeat) that the poll has the respective Democrats at, vis-a-vis Thompson. Below the thick black line means Thompson wins, obviously. State names (abbreviations) and data are at the bottom.

That graph made it a lot easier, for me, to compare the state-to-state results of this poll. But this graph still focuses on how all three of them do better than Thompson. Whereas I was also specifically interested in how the three Democrats stacked up against each other, in terms of their respective "results" against Thompson.

So I created another graph. In the graph linked in above, there is a thin grey line that represents how the three Dems do on average against Thompson. This graph shows how much better or worse than that common average lead the three candidates do, state by state. (Again, you may have to click the graph again for full size.)

I also found it useful to filter out Obama, and compare only Hillary and Edwards - so here is the same graph but with just the two of them, and their scores set off against the average of just the two of them.

The latter one offers a clear narrative. Edwards does not, as one might expect, have an advantage over Hillary that increases the "redder" the states are. But instead, his advantage over Hillary opens up as soon as you leave the bluest states (New York, California) behind - and remains roughly stable at 5-10% all the way until the Dems' collective "defeat" in Alabama closes the bracket.

There's just three or four exceptions: Edwards' advantage over Hillary opens up beyond 10% in Kansas, Virginia, to some extent Missouri -- and Iowa.

I had all kinds of thoughts about what these graphs appeared to show, but I posted them here on the able2know forum. But I'd love to hear any of your takes.