Map of 2004 US presidential election results [The 'depressed-dems' map]

GISuser.com ^ | 11-08-2004 | Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman

[johnny7]

On election night on national telecasts, all the American public kept seeing on maps of the vote was a "sea of red". Most of us geographers and GIS folks knew otherwise, and found ourselves hoping for some more accurate cartographic renderings of the true vote. Here is a great article that looks into various methods to accurately report them.

[johnny7]

These people are definitely losing their grip on reality. No matter how much they play with the Photoshop filters it won't change the election results!

[angelanddevil2]

I am reading now things like this. I wonder if there is something Bush can do to stop media manipulation.

[Ciexyz]

That link is "too busy to use right now".

[P8riot]

[Doctor Freeze]

Doesn't matter how you cut it, the end is still the same... the Republican party is on the move and the Democratic party is looking for a soul.

[proudpapa]

How many states had every county go for Bush?

Oklahoma, Utah, Nebraska, any others???

How many states had every county, but one go for Bush?

Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas???

[proudpapa]

How many states had every county go for Bush?

Oklahoma, Utah, Nebraska, any others???

How many states had every county, but one go for Bush?

Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas???

[proudpapa]

Kerry took all of Mass., Vermont, and RI.! LOL

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Kerry lost a county in the NE corner of Vermont - still rock-ribbed Republicans up that way.

[proudpapa]

Oh, thanks for the correction. I couldn't see it.

[Brian328i]

BWAHH GOING CRAZY!!!

That map is gunna make me flip, FLATHEAD COUNTY VOTED BUSH 67-30 but is showing BLUE. GRRR

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Some worthwhile comparisons.

Bush 2004 map.

Clinton 1996 map.

Bush 1988 map.

Reagan 1980 map.

Carter 1976 map.

Note how much the Republicans mopped up the middle of the country (Texas and Lousiana north to Minnesota and Wisconsin) between 1988 and 2004, and also the Appalachia region of KY, WV, and PA the exact same middle and Appalachia that was a primary source of strength for Clinton. Note the enormous change down south that didn't really come until after 1980 and that Cltinon did fairly credibly at restoring.

And the price for doing this was only giving up parts of New England, and the suburbs of Philly, Detroit, and Illinois.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Oh, thanks for the correction. I couldn't see it.

Vermont by Township in 2000:

Blue for Bush, Red for Gore.

I haven't seen a map like this for 2004 yet, but its probably pretty similar.

[alwaysconservative]

I was confused until I saw that the blue and red colors were switched on these graphics. Whew!

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Its interesting to see how states breakdown even further from the county to township level.

Look here at Maine in 2000 (Blue for Bush, Red for Gore) by County:

And by town (a lot more for Bush!):

You can see similar things in other Gore states, like Michigan by County:

And by town (again a lot more for Bush!):

And Illinois by County:

And by town (once again a lot more for Bush!):

[Sicon]

Yeah, maybe it's one of the ski country counties? They are none too happy with the Vermont state government, which taxes ski resort towns at a much higher rate than other parts of the state to fund education (basically, its another liberal/socialist income redistribution scheme). Killington was actually looking to secede and become part of New Hampshire ('Killington Residents Vote to Secede from Vermont': CNN), though it will never get past the Vermont state legislature.

[gisuser]

This is neither a "Depressed Dems" map or in any way politically motivated. It is simply a cartographic issue and the purpose of the article was to address abysmal cartographic techniques within the media. Why represent the vote pictorally using landmass as the weighting factor when we vote based upon population - one person one vote, - not 10 acres 10 votes, right? That's all this article is trying to do - present the actual data in more visually meaningful and useful terms.

[Dan from Michigan]

I notice Dave Leip got Michigan's counties right. I've seen two widely posted political maps that got my state wrong. One had Oakland(Bush instead of Kerry(, Manistee, and Alpena(Both Kerry instead of Bush) counties wrong. The other has Oakland and Alpena wrong. Manistee and Alpena were Gore counties that Kerry lost won. My county is that blue patch surrounded by red in 96. LBJ was the last to win it.

Re post 13:

What's most interesting there is North Michigan. NE MI and the UP have been democrat strongholds for years and are starting to change. Even when Gerry Ford(Homer and U-M Grad) and Reagan were the nominee, the UP only partially broke tradition. Dukakis even won the UP.

RE post 16:
I assume Michigan's townships were 2000(Holly Twp in Oakland was dem then and GOP 2004). That SE cooridoor from Southfield to Hazel Park(including Ferndale) and also Pontiac is almost solely to blame there. Bush did better in Warren and Sterling Heights than 2000, and that was most of the difference in Macomb.