"State of the States" Revealed This Month

We're thrilled today to begin our "State of the States" series, based on Gallup Daily tracking data collected throughout 2009.

Here's how it works. We survey every day of the year, asking 1,000 Americans our very best questions on politics, business, and well-being. At the end of the year, when we have more than 350,000 interviews, we aggregate the results for an in-depth look at the results at the state level. Since we now have two years' worth of data, we can also look at the change across states from 2008 to 2009.

We're kicking off the series with Jeffrey M. Jones' analysis of political party affiliation by state. Jones reveals which states are red and blue this time around and classifies 12 states as "competitive." He also finds "a reduction of the Democratic advantage in 39 states and the District of Columbia" from 2008 to 2009.

In addition to Jones' must-read story, we have the simple data for you in our new "State of the States" interactive, which we'll be populating throughout the month of February as we release new stories. The interactive allows you to map, sort, and export complete state data across measures.

Later this week, we'll fill out the politics tab with our reports on ideology and Obama job approval by state.

The week of Feb. 8, we'll focus on our business measures, reporting economic confidence, job creation, and satisfaction with standard of living by state.

The week of Feb. 15, we'll cap things off with our reports on well-being by state, revealing which states are doing best in terms of physical health, basic access to services, work environments, and more.

When it's all said and done, leaders and citizens alike will have a complete read on the dynamics of their state -- pinpointing areas of both strength and weakness, as well as momentum gained or lost from 2008 to 2009.

To make sure to get every "State of the States" story as soon as it is published, sign up for "All Gallup Headlines" via e-mail alerts or RSS feeds. In the meantime, bookmark our interactive for an always up-to-date look at the state of your state.