Michael J. Dubin’s new book Party Affiliations in the State Legislatures 1796-2006 has just been published. To order, see www.mcfarlandpub.com (click the link for newly published books). The book is $45.

Never before has any reference work existed that tells the partisan line-up of each state legislative body, through history. The book will be especially valuable to show the extent to which parties other than the two major parties have elected state legislators.

Dubin is also the author of other very valuable reference books, especially United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997, the only book ever published that lists the vote for all candidates for Congress in U.S. history.

On July 26, a Diageo-Hotline Poll was released. 801 voters were sampled July 19-22. The Republican results: Giuliani 20%, F. Thompson 19%, McCain 17%, Romney 8%, Brownback 4%, Paul 2%, Huckabee 1%, Tancredo 1%, T. Thompson 1%, Hunter under 1%, other and undecided 27%.

Democratic results: Clinton 39%, Obama 30%, Edwards 11%, Kucinich 3%, Richardson 2%, Biden 2%, other and undecided 13%.

On July 26, the North Carolina House passed SB 353 on second reading by a vote of 62-47. It provides that each U.S. House district will choose its own presidential elector. The bill will probably pass on 3rd reading by the same margin, very soon. If this bill had been in effect in North Carolina in 2000, Al Gore would have more votes in the electoral college than George Bush would have won. This is because Gore carried three U.S. House districts in North Carolina (the 1st, 4th and 12th districts), so Gore would have had 3 electoral votes from North Carolina and Bush would have had 3 fewer electoral votes from that state. The national total would then have been Gore 269, Bush 268, one abstention from the District of Columbia. It is likely the D.C. elector who abstained in 2000 would have voted for Gore, since she was a Democrat.