As has been par for the course this election cycle, with the most striking and relevant criticisms of the candidates coming from the likes of The View, David Letterman, and the SNL writers, the most scientific poll by a longshot is being conducted at your local 7-11.

That’s right, the neighborhood bastion of democracy. A place where all people from all walks of life inevitably see the three day old corn dogs slowly rotating their way to a dried-out death in one of the 7,500 national locations at least once throughout the course of a week.

Many of those people buy a cup of coffee (I’m going on the record, 7-11 has effing fantastic coffee). For the past few elections, 7-11 has stumbled on the genius idea of having a cup for the Democratic candidate, and one for the Republican candidate available at all of their coffee bars.

Gallup polls and the like have been criticized for small sample sizes, excluding people who only use cell phones, and general unreliability due to phenomenons such as the Bradley Effect.

The coffee cup methodology, on the other hand, removes all of those barriers (assuming someone too timid to tell a poller they don’t like Obama would be less concerned with a store clerk’s opinion). The cups called the 2004 election within less than 1 point, and actually called 2000 for Bush by about 2.5 points.

So who’s up now? It’s Obama by 18 points nationally (59-41), with Obama taking Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Indiana and Virginia all by margins far wider than in anything you’ll see on RCP or FiveThirtyEight (most are in the 20 point neighborhood).  Interestingly, the Democrat is only enjoying a six point lead in New York.

Beaned: the final dagger for McCain in the coffee war? Obama takes Arizona by six points.  Ouch.

Tags: 7-11 election poll, election, mccain cups, obama cups