Tuesday, November 09, 2004

there's the red and blue map and then there's the red and blue map

Many have by now seen the famous USA TODAY map that shows red counties for Bush and blue counties for Kerry.

This map, courtesy of The Geomblog adjusts the size of each county based on population and gives a truer picture of the populace's presidential preference (thanks to Conrad Gempf for the heads up) .



And while I seem to be in the minority as an emerging blogger who voted for Bush (is it just Rudy and me?), but I think it's important that those who voted for the Republican candidate avoid an unwarranted triumphalism. This map serves that belief.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I voted for Bush. And I'm a blogger.

-Steve K.

http://www.knightopia.com/journal/

DJ Chuang said...

actually, the county-by-county or county-proportioned-by-population maps don't really matter, b/c the electoral college system is based on popular vote by state, winner take all; have you found a map that visualizes number of electroal votes per state, and color based on each state's winner?

Stephen said...

Hi Steve,

Ah, but are you really emerging?

[ducking]

:)

Stephen said...

DJ,

Would that just be a map that shows the states in red and blue then?

And I agree with you regarding the electoral votes. My point, though, was that the County-coded map gives the false impression that the vast majority of Americans voted for Bush.

levi fuson said...

actaully DJ that is not entirely true. States like maine split their Electoral votes between counties so you can actaully win part of the electoral votes by winning strong their on a county wide basis.

l.