Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Electoral Maps and National Change

The New York Times has put together a great interactive electoral map. I made a couple of screen shots here so that you can really see Obama's impact.

The size of the circle corresponds to the amount that each county's leading candidate is ahead. You can click on the image to enlarge the map.

So here is the map in 2000.


Here is 2004.


Notice that the bubble for both groups appear bigger. So more people are turning out, an more of them are living in rural areas.

In 2008, the bubbles get bigger and much more Blue.


Another good electoral map source is from Mark Newman, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan. He has some interesting stuff to look at!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Notice in 2004, that big red bubble inside the Southern California bubble? That's Orange County, which went 60% - 39% for Bush back in 2004. Notice how that bubble is much, much smaller in 2008? McCain still won Orange County, but just 51% - 47%. That's a huge surprise, to me.

Dr. Strangelove said...

I am still trying to verify this, but local public radio said turnout in Los Angeles county topped 80% and was the highest since 1908. Does anyone have turnout figures for the nation as a whole?

Anonymous said...

This story about Proposition R passing (yay!) estimates voter turnout at 82%. Unreal.

Anonymous said...

It helps that many of the old "wedge" issues are no longer effective. The Values issues didn't polarize as much. That might account for part of the shift in Orange county!

Anti-abortion issues failed all over the country. That ought to send a message to the Pro-life camp.

The cells from one aborted fetus have provided vaccinations for over a billion people. How can you call that anything but pro-life!