Election result maps - the real story

What is this odd-looking splotchy blob? Do you recognize it? It's a far cry from the ones you've seen on TV and in the newspapers, but this is a map of the United States, showing how we voted last week. In fact, its odd appearance makes it much more accurate than anything you've seen before.

This map has a few interesting features that allow it to better represent the political views of the United States, circa 2004. First of all, it is what my brother might call "super deformed." Like that style of Japanese animation, the map you see above is morphed into an odd, deformed shape. Specifically, it shows counties in the US in according to the size of their populations, rather than their geography. Hence, the highly populous counties on the coasts, in Florida, and in the Great Lakes area are shown much larger than they are on a normal map. Barnes County, North Dakota, meanwhile, vanishes away into practically nothing. Because large metropolitan areas tend to vote Democratic, the undeformed map (whether by county or state) tends to give the impression that a vast majority of Americans favor the Republican Party. In fact, what those maps tell us is (1) the distorted political reality of the Electoral College, and (2) that people who voted for Bush tend to live in really large, spread-out states. The deformed map, or cartogram, shows how "blue" America really is.

This particular cartogram also features shades of purple. Like a regular electoral map, areas in blue and red were solidly won by the candidates. The shades of purple show narrower victories in those counties, with the bluer shades being narrow Kerry wins, and the redder shades being narrow Bush wins. When the close races are figured in, you can see how truly America is divided right down the middle.

Conservatives will take great pleasure from showing the red-and-blue US map, because of how big their red hunks are. But those maps don't tell the real story.

You can see more of these cartograms and read about their creation here.

Tip of the hat to Mary Hess for the link.

ADDENDUM (11/8/04, 1:01 am): In further reflection, I've decided that the tension between the traditional electoral map and the deformed version highlights a parallel tension within our nation: As the standard map shows, more places in this country supported George Bush, by a long shot. However, the deformed map clearly shows that almost as many people in the United States cast their vote for Kerry as for Bush. So it's true - "Bush country" is vast, covering huge swaths of our nation. You could drive for hundreds of miles without passing through a Democratic stronghold. But the odds are pretty good you could also drive for hundreds of miles without passing through much of anything. As vast as "Bush country" is, there just aren't that many people to fill it up. About as many people live in the tiny little geographic pockets of resistance known as "Kerry turf" as live in all the sprawling acres of Bushdom.

So while it's fair to say Bush holds a majority in most places in this nation, that's not at all to say he has even close to what you might think of as broad popular support in the hearts of the people. A critical distinction to make.