With new polls suggesting the presidential race is tightening and with all eyes on key battleground states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, I thought I’d add to the conversation with an update of our electoral map. First, here is the New York Times’ electoral map showing which states are considered to be in play. Dark Blue is “solid Obama”, shaded blue “leaning Obama”, yellow “tossup”, shaded red “leaning McCain” and dark red “solid McCain”.

Let’s compare polling data in that map with online visitor data to the Barack Obama and John McCain websites. In this map, we are showing representation index for the two candidate sites to indicate likelyhood of internet users in each state to visit that webiste (over 100 means more likely, below 100 means less likely).

In the “tossup” states of Nevada, Missouri and Florida, Obama is leading McCain. In Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina McCain is ahead. Florida is the closest – with Internet users in Florida 2.89% more likely to visit Obama’s website than McCain’s.
As we have said many times, a visit does not equal a vote and voters are not just interacting with the candidates via their respective websites but also on Facebook, YouTube and others. However, insight into who is visiting the websites of the candidates helps to identify varying strengths and weaknesses as well as the best media to reach potential voters.