Recently on our show, we've talked about the advantages and the limitations of modern polling, because we hear about poll numbers all the time, and there's a tendency for journalists to take that data, slice it, dice it, and then draw conclusions to help explain what's coming around the corner.

Of course, in the real world, political opinions are squishier, more idiosyncratic, more personal than any data set can ever tell you.

That's why CNN's John King, who's covered presidential elections for four decades, decided to get out of Washington, D.C. and to talk to voters directly.

And for the past year, he's been interviewing and re-interviewing people

across the country, learning the messy, contradictory, revealing truths that don't fit in the cross-tabs

of a poll. With that in mind, I'm thrilled to turn over today's episode and the next two Monday

shows of the assignment to my colleague, John King, and his series, all over the map.

If you've watched CNN on election nights these past few years,

you've probably seen me standing in front of a huge touchscreen map of the United States,

zooming in on states and counties and voting districts,

all lit up in shades of red and blue.

We at CNN call it the magic wall.

Let's go over to John King, who has agreed to take a stroll over to the magic wall to tell us.

John King joins us. He's back at the magic wall. I want to go to John King. He's with me over here at the

Magic Wall. I understand we have some breaking news. I've spent lots of late nights breaking down

election results for you.

I've been at it almost four decades.

Here at the war campaign tonight, initially elation in the crowd here when we first

called Florida and said the vice president was going to win that state.

Barack Obama said he would stretch the map.

He would turn red states blue and look, he kept that promise.

He said he would camp. At the moment, six states that President Obama carried four years ago have flipped.

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