Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Best Election Map of 2008

2008 was a real boon for political maps, like the ones I talked about here. Some of those suddenly vogueish cartograms were particularly bitchin, like these from dreaminonempty:



This one just shows the outcome of the 2008 election: the redder the county, the stronger it went for McCain; the bluer the county, the stronger it went for Obama. And of course, it's a cartogram, so every county's size is shown here in proportion to its population, rather than its land area. (That's why the map looks so pinched in the interior west, where populations are very small, and swollen on the coasts, where lots of people live.) Here's another:



This one shows the change from 2004 to 2008: the greener the county, the more it moved toward the Democrats; the purpler the county, the more it moved toward the Republicans. You can clearly see here how nearly the whole country went more Democratic, except for a thin skein of counties corresponding, roughly, to the Upland South. And here's one that takes a longer view:



Even though the Democrat did much better in 2008 than in 1988, there's actually a pretty big chunk of the country where the Republicans have grown much stronger over the past 20 years - there's a lot of deep purple in rural areas of Appalachia, the South, and the Great Plains. But what the cartogram makes clear is just how small, in population terms, those areas are. And while Republicans are doing better in those rural areas, Democrats are doing much better in urban counties throughout the country - even in the big cities of conservative southern states, like Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston.

So that's a lot of information you can get out of these cartograms that you don't get out of those stodgy old blue-red maps. Still, the geographic distortion on these is really severe - it's to the point that you can't really tell which places are being represented ny which blobs of color. But so check this out, from Axis Maps. It's the best map I've seen of the 2008 election (click on it for a bigger image).



What they've done is very clever: they've used a regular spatial representation of the US, but indicated population density by simply shading more densely populated areas brighter. They use population density, rather than size, so as not to overstate the importance of very large counties, like San Bernardino in California, or whatever county Las Vegas is in. But the effect is still that areas are shaded brighter in proportion to their relative voting strength. It gives a good sense not just of the relative strength of Obama and McCain, but of where their strengths are based.

And one final variation:



This shows the same info as the map above, but rather than a simple red/blue color dighotomy, it uses intermediate shades to indicate strength of victory. I would say that this would be ideal - it shows strength of victory and population size without geographic distortion - except that I have trouble reading the shades of purple. It's just hard for me to tell intuitively how the shades relate to each other (I'm clearly no tetrachromat). Regardless, kudos to Axis Maps for putting these together.

Digg!

17 comments:

Penis Enlargement Pills said...

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I think I will leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
http://www.factspenisenlargement.com

Viagra said...

in my personal and respectfully opinion, both are the typical politician, and the true is, if Bush send a country to war, for MCcaine side, Bush stat thing and McCaine ended.

muebles madrid online said...

Thanks for the post, really effective info.

www.navarra-3d.com said...

Thank you for this article, quite effective data.

felicity said...

Fascinating article- I must say. I'm glad to have found this blog. thanks very much for the share...
home treatments for hemorrhoids
oriflame network
Naturally Plus_PP
Naturally Plus_CK

muebles lleida said...

It can't succeed in fact, that's what I believe.

album foto said...

I think people fear idea management and innovation because there's a significant number of ideas that simply won't plan out.......Nice statement.....keep posting

asuransi pendidikan said...

this day I've been searching for information on various issues, this I found very good and I would like to congratulate you for your work.

design interior jakarta said...

I think that this post is one of the best that i have read in my life, congrats you did a great job,.

perusahaan security said...

the difference between the content spammers and most corporate innovators is that the smaller

jual wine said...

I'm writing to you because I just came across a business that I think has great potential. It lets you save money on almost everything. Make money from almost everything,

coklat valentine said...

If growth is important to a firm, and if growth is dependent on offering existing products and services to new customers

belajar internet marketing said...

innovation is very natural and happens in the "real world" as new plants and animals colonize new ecological niches.

kuliner bandung said...

I wonder how you got so good. This is really a fascinating blog, lots of stuff that I can get into. One thing I just want to say is that your Blog is so perfect

konsultan perusahaan said...

We generally think most specifically about the risk associated with a new product introduction

how to stay erect said...

I would be aware that as somebody who really doesn’t comment to blogs a lot (in actual fact, this may be my first put up), I don’t think the time period “lurker” is very flattering to a non-posting reader.

Anonymous said...

good
Jual Obat Ambeien Manjur
Obat Ambeien yang Manjur
Obat Ambeien Manjur
Jual Obat Alami Ambeien yang Manjur
Obat Ambeien Wasir Manjur
Obat Ambeien yang Manjur
Obat Wasir yang Manjur
Pengobatan Ambeien Wasir yang Manjur
Obat Ambeien Hemoroid Alami yang Manjur
Obat Ambeien yang Manjur
Pengobatan Ambeien Hemoroid yang Manjur
Obat Ambeien Hemoroid yang sangat Manjur
Resep Obat untuk Menghilangkan Kutil di Alat Kelamin
Obat untuk Menghilang Kutil di Alat Kelamin
Resep Obat untuk Kutil di Alat Kelamin
Resep Obat untuk Menghilangkan sakit Kutil di Alat Kelamin
Obat untuk Kutil di Alat Kelamin tanpa Operasi
Obat untuk Menghilang Kutil di Alat Kelamin
Obat untuk Menghilangkan Kutil di Alat Kelamin tanpa Operasi
Pengobatan untuk Menghilang Kutil di Alat Kelamin tanpa Operasi
Obat untuk Menghilang Kutil Alat Kelamin tanpa ke Dokter
Pengobatan untuk Menghilang Kutil di Alat Kelamin tanpa ke Dokter
Obat untuk Menghilang Kutil di Alat Kelamin
Obat untuk Menghilangkan Kutil di Alat Kelamin tanpa ke Dokter
Mengobati Benjolan Kutil Kemaluan Pria
Mengobati Kutil di Kemaluan Pria
Mengobati Benjolan Kutil di Kemaluan
Mengobati Benjolan Kutil di Kelamin Pria
Mengobati Kutil Kondiloma Kemaluan Pria
Mengobati Kutil Kondiloma di Kemaluan
Mengobati Kutil Kondiloma di Kelamin Pria
Mengobati penyakit Kutil Kondiloma di Kemaluan Pria
Mengobati Kumpulan Kutil di Kemaluan
Mengobati Kutil di Kemaluan Pria
Mengobati Kumpulan Kutil
Mengobati Kumpulan Kutil yang ada di Kemaluan Pria