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, which turns out to be not very much except in a few select cases anymore. Well, Syesha managed to take all those last place poll positions right into the Top 3 while Jason's miscues and forgotten lyrics made his fans forget to call in for him. It's been building toward a David-David finale, but if we believe that Jason has never placed number one in the votes, then that means Syesha has proven herself capable of beating the Davids head-to-head. Will the inevitable play out or will a David go home? We'll see next week.

WEEK-TO-WEEK POLLS (PRE-PERFORMANCE)

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

AOL
1 - [=] Jason Castro (32.7%) <--
2 - [=] David Archuleta (32.7%)
3 - [=] David Cook (28.8%)
4 - [+1] Syesha Mercado (5.8%)
Well, Jason stayed in that top slot right up until the performances began. Unfortunately, it's hard to maintain a top spot when you forget the lyrics. And despite what we may think, the judges comments do influence voters and I think Randy and Simon would have jumped on stage and torn Jason limb from limb if they thought they could get away with it after his first song alone. He was probably afraid for his life when he came out for the second one and screwed it all up.

Need more American Idol? Get an inside look at Season 7's contestants and think back to these scathing (and hilarious) Simon Cowell quotes. Also: Don't forget to choose your favorite Idol!

TV Guide
1 - [=] David Cook (62.4%)
2 - [=] David Archuleta (22.8%)
3 - [=] Jason Castro (9.9%) <--
4 - [+1] Syesha Mercado (4.8%)
See how everything stays pretty much the same from the prior week, with only little Syesha creeping up one slot at a time to the new last position. But she's still hanging in there. If she ultimately finds a way to win the whole thing how hilarious would her continuous streak of last place poll positions be?

VoteFair.org
1 - [=] David Archuleta (40.4%)
2 - [=] Jason Castro (30.1%) <--
3 - [=] David Cook (26.3%)
4 - [+1] Syesha Mercado (3.2%)
These people have no concept or care about reality. They vote the same way every week no matter what happens. I think there's a bug in the voting system where it counts their votes for the same person every week by IP address or something so no matter what they do their vote goes for Joe Bubba even if they didn't mean for it to. Either that, or the vote counters are in Florida (too easy?).


AFTER-PERFORMANCE POLLS

AOL
1 - [-1] David Archuleta (32.5%)
2 - [-1] David Cook (32.5%)
3 - [=] Jason Castro (23.2%) <--
4 - [+1] Syesha (11.8%)
Well, it's been awhile since David Archuleta has held the top spot on this poll, but after a solid showing this week he barely eked past David Cook to claim it back. Further support for a strong David-David finale, but again if anyone can break it up it's the queen of the sneak attack.

TV Squad
1 - [=] David Cook (42.4%)
2 - [+1] David Archuleta (38.2%)
3 - [-1] Syesha Mercado (11.6%)
4 - [=] Jason Castro (7.8%) <--
Yet again, the fine folks right here at TV Squad pretty much nailed it right on the head, truly seeing the writing on the wall for Jason Castro, and giving Syesha at least some props for her performances. Again, though, TVS readers predict that David-David finale.

Dial Idol
1 - [+1] David Cook (23.2)
2 - [+1] David Archuleta (19.9)
3 - [-2] Syesha Mercado (18.72)
4 - [=] Jason Castro (10.94) <--
Well, she fell from her predicted first place poll position last week, but based on these numbers she's still only barely behind Archuleta. Depending on where Jason's votes fall, we could see an upset in the making if David A. goes home and we get Syesha and the Cook in the finale. Personally, I think that would make for a fantastically entertaining finale, but at this point I can deal with any of the three.