Poll: Hawaii bluest state, Utah reddest

PRINCETON, N.J., Aug. 11 (UPI) -- Hawaii and the District of Columbia were most Democratic so far this year while Utah was the most Republican, a Gallup poll survey indicated.

Nationwide, Democrats held a slight advantage in the first half of 2011 in the Gallup tracking data released Wednesday, with 44 percent of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats or leaning Democratic and 40 percent identifying themselves as Republicans or leaning Republican.

The District of Columbia was the top Democratic bastion, followed by Hawaii, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Illinois and Delaware, the Princeton, N.J., polling agency said.

The top 10 Republican states were Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Alabama, Montana and South Carolina.

The most balanced states politically in the first half of 2011 were Virginia, Mississippi, Colorado, Missouri, Arizona, Arkansas and Georgia – all either at the 50-percent mark or within 2 percentage points favoring one party over the other, Gallup said.

Results are based on nationwide telephone interviews with 177,600 adults conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking Jan. 2-June 30, 2011. The margin of error for the total sample is 1 percentage point.