Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The 2008 US electoral map

I know the election is over and it sort of feels like it was a long time ago, but these images were too cool not to post.

This is what the US map looks like based on which state went to Obama (blue) and McCain (red):


Looks like the majority of the country voted Republican while it was the Democratic candidate who won the election, but that's only because of the unevenness between population distribution and size of each individual state.

If we were to resize each state based on their population, this is what the US would look like:


Blue is by far the dominant color here, which is a reflection of what really went on in the election.

However, the US presidential election is not won by whoever gathers the majority of popular votes, but by whoever gathers 270 votes in the electoral college, which are distributed based on a state's population and are therefore fluid.

Taking that into account, the following map shows what the US would look like if we resized each state based on its electoral votes:


Very small variations that do not change the overall look of a vastly blue map.

Finally, electoral votes are assigned as a whole to the winner of the popular vote in (almost) each state, but the distribution of the votes in the state varies greatly between areas.

The next map shows how each county voted, and it would appear that the Republicans were the dominant party and the Democrats a constant minority:


A sea of read with a few splashes of blue here and there. How sad.

However, if we again resized each county based on its population, this is what the US would look like:


As you can see, the tables are turned and the US is now a sea of blue with a few splashes of red here and there.

A much more pleasing image to look, if you ask me.

You can find more here.

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