ComScore: Lefty Sites Making Huge Traffic Gains

It's Arianna's election; the rest of us are just watching it.

The Huffington Post drew more than 4.5 million unique visitors in September, making it the most-trafficked stand-alone political website or blog, according to figures just released by ComScore. Huffpo's traffic increased by 474 percent versus September 2007.

In comparison, the Drudge Report drew a little over 2 million uniques, up 70 percent year-over-year. Edging Drudge out for the No. 2 slot on the list is Politico.com, which attracted 2.36 million uniques, a 344 percent jump.

Other big gainers included RealClearPolitics.com (1.1 million uniques, up 489 percent), Daily Kos (923,000 uniques, up 381 percent), and TalkingPointsMemo.com (458,000 uniques, up 1,321 percent). Although a majority of the fastest-growing sites lean to the left, conservative Newsbusters.org was up 547 percent with 732,000 uniques.

The full list is here.

Open-ended question that I can't even begin to answer: Is an upsurge in liberal sentiment driving the traffic growth to liberal sites? Or do sites like Huffpo and Daily Kos deserve some of the credit (or blame, depending on your point of view) for the current pro-Democratic trend in politics?

• NBC Tries to Copy Fox Hero Worship
• Marc Andreesen on the Future of Silicon Valley
• The Culturati: What the 'A' List Plans to Do Next Month
• Credit Crunched: A Special Report on Wall Street Chaos