TVSquad

Welcome back to our weekly American Idol polls round-up. Each week we look at various online polls that were conducted from the end of last week's results up to the performance show Tuesday. And then a few that were conducted after the performance show, but before the results were revealed.

This way we can analyze how the week's performances affected a contestant's overall popularity, and how well the internet can predict eliminations. We'll also see how each contestant fared week to week in each poll, moving up or down. And we can see how amazingly wrong some of these polls can be. After all, most of them continue to have Syesha at the bottom and the closest Michael Johns came to the bottom of any poll was fifth place out of eight.

WEEK-TO-WEEK POLLS (PRE-PERFORMANCE)
After a dramatic rise in last week's rankings, Michael stayed at his new higher levels. So what happened? Did everyone assume he was safe? Even in the after-performance rankings, Michael kept a higher ranking. As for these pre-performance polls, as you can see there is virtually no change at all. After removing Ramiele from the rankings, everyone else just kind of fell into their new rankings with virtually no movement at all.

Guide to the polls:
Position - [change from last week] Contestant (Percentage of votes)

AOL
1 - [=] David Archuleta (23.5%)
2 - [-1] David Cook (23.5%)
3 - [=] Jason Castro (14.9%)
4 - [=] Michael Johns (11.1%)
5 - [=] Brooke White (8.3%)
6 - [+1] Carly Smithson (6.8%)
7 - [+1] Kristy Lee Cook (6.0%)
8 - [+1] Syesha Mercado (5.9%)

TV Guide
1 - [=] David Cook (39.8%)
2 - [=] David Archuleta (24.0%)
3 - [=] Michael Johns (13.1%)
4 - [+1] Carly Smithson (7.0%)
5 - [-1] Brooke White (7.0%)
6 - [=] Jason Castro (6.9%)
7 - [=] Kristy Lee Cook (1.1%)
8 - [+1] Syesha Mercado (1.1%)

VoteFair.org
1 - [=] David Archuleta (32.3%)
2 - [+2] Jason Castro (31.0%)
3 - [=] Michael Johns (13.4%)
4 - [-2] David Cook (13.3%)
5 - [+1] Brooke White (3.9%)
6 - [+1] Carly Smithson (3.2%)
7 - [+1] Kristy Lee Cook (1.9%)
8 - [+1] Syesha Mercado (1.0%)
This poll showed a precipitous drop for David Cook and a rise for Jason Castro. With only three contenders remaining in the competition who are men, it looks like the Davids and Jason all remain incredibly popular. And if polls can be believed (which we've learned they kind of can't), it's still looking like a Davids finale.

AFTER-PERFORMANCE POLLS

AOL
1 - [+2] Jason Castro (22.0%)
2 - [=] David Archuleta (22.0%)
3 - [-1] David Cook (18.2%)
4 - [=] Michael Johns (9.7%)
5 - [+2] Kristy Lee Cook (9.7%)
6 - [=] Brooke White (7.8%)
7 - [+1] Carly Smithson (6.1%)
8 - [+1] Syesha Mercado (4.6%)
Look what happened after this past week's stellar performance. Right there in the top spot is somebody not named David. Did Jason just make this a three-way race or has he been too inconsistent? And notice how Carly and Syesha are at the bottom of all these polls.

TV Squad
1 - [+7] Jason Castro (40.3%)
2 - [=] David Archuleta (20.5%)
3 - [+3] Kristy Lee Cook (11.6%)
4 - [-3] Michael Johns (8.3%)
5 - [+4] Syesha Mercado (5.5%)
6 - [-3] David Cook (5.2%)
7 - [=] Brooke White (5.0%)
8 - [-4] Carly Smithson (3.6%)

Dial Idol
1 - [=] David Archuleta (10.2%)
2 - [+6] Jason Castro (8.6%)
3 - [+4] Kristy Lee Cook (8.2%)
4 - [+1] Brooke White (6.6%)
5 - [-3] Michael Johns (6.4%)
6 - [-3] David Cook (6.4%)
7 - [-3] Syesha Mercado (5.2%)
8 - [-2] Carly Smithson (5.0%)
Even DialIdol didn't have Michael at the bottom, though he was still within their margin of error for going home. But then, so was virtually everyone save the top three vote getters. In both this poll and TVS above it, Jason again rose tremendously, but Carly took quite a tumble. If she doesn't do something dramatic this upcoming week, there's a very decent chance Carly will be the next one to go. Syesha will probably rank at the bottom of most polls, and then Carly will be cut. It's just how these things seem to go.