The Pew Internet & American Life Project is releasing yet another of its ongoing reports tracking Americans' use of the Internet, and according to Personal Democracy Forum (who were leaked an advance copy of the study) the report contains some really important news about the number of Internet users who utilized blogs to contribute to political discussion in 2006:
More than 60 million people (31% of all Americans online) say they were online during the 2006 campaign to get information about candidates and/or exchange views via email.
...and...
By far the most interesting discovery from their survey: 23% of campaign internet users has either posted their own political commentary to the web via a blog, site or newsgroup (8%); forwarded or posted someone else's commentary (13%); created political audio or video (1%); forwarded someone else's audio or video (8%). "That translates into about 14 million people who were using the 'read-write Web' to contribute to political discussion and activity," the study's authors Lee Rainie and John Horrigan write.
The advanced copy can be read in full on this link.
Update:
and here is the link to the final report by Pew: Election 2006 Online