below] shows what the U.S. looks like when counties are resized to match their populations. Red counties voted for John McCain, blue counties for Barack Obama. The top image shows a standard state-level map of the results." data-pin-do="buttonBookmark">
BENDING THE BORDERS: This "cartogram" [below] shows what the U.S. looks like when counties are resized to match their populations. Red counties voted for John McCain, blue counties for Barack Obama. The top image shows a standard state-level map of the results.
Image: © 2008 M. E. J. Newman
Electoral maps are all the rage in presidential election coverage, with NBC going so far as to turn the Rockefeller Center ice rink in New York City into a map of the U.S. on Election Day. As the network called states for the two candidates, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, staffers manually colored those states blue or red, respectively.
Mark Newman, a professor of physics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, took the simplistic concept of red and blue states and exploded it, reimagining the country as defined by its politics and not by its borders. His "cartograms" take state- and county-level election returns as well as data about population and electoral college representation and churn out a vision of the U.S. that is novel, yet still recognizable.
Slide Show: Beyond Red and Blue States
See what we're tweeting about
71 Comments
Add CommentRed state, Blue state - are we in grade school?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRidiculous. Paint the whole country PURPLE.
I'm with you, candide. Paint the whole country purple. It's a good color, the color of royalty, dignity, ambition, idealism, wisdom, psychic ability, power, progress, independence, protection, pride, and honor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd hardly say 8.2 million votes was a "Landslide". The first lies of the Obama presidency are already being published.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe last graphic bring new meaning to the term "heartland".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBigness: All things are relative, and seeing as president-elect Obama came out with such a vast number of electoral votes as compared to the overwhelming majority of races past, his win most definitely was a Landslide. Naturally, the popular vote was closer, but to pretend that this election was anything but a Landslide (and that statements of such are lies) is a little unwitting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat colour is Ralph Nadar? Honestly, Obama is better than you've had for a while but the candidates you see in the US are hardly more various than what they see in Russia or China... Big dollars is simply incompatible with representative democracy...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, people, including the mass media, which always claims to be unbiased, are claiming a landslide for Obama, yet at the same time I kept seeing that on California's Proposition 8, which won by only 1% less than Obama did, thus denying Gay Marriage, they keep refering to it with words like "it barely squeaked by with a win".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo for all those libs out there, if their guy or issue wins by a certain amount it's massive but if their guy or issue loses by about the same amount then it's extremely close!
Bush claimed a mandate with a far smaller margin of victory. If you want to make accusations of lying, you need to know your recent history. In relative terms, this was a big win.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBigness,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs it up to 8.2 million votes? That's 1.2 million more than Bush Sr.'s crushing of Dukakis. That is a landslide compared to practically every election in history. And to think that more Republicans voted in this election than any other... I'm sorry you lost, it's a terrible feeling, but you sort of deserved it. Wouldn't you say? Thank God the Reagan experiment is finally over.
Koro has it right. Roger, when making an analogy, it is important to consider whether and to what extent the comparisons are valid and illustrate something useful about the subjects. The Prop 8 vote and the presidential election vote have one thing in common: they were votes. But there are so many other differences that the the comparison is not useful in determining what constitutes a "landslide". The standard by which you judge what is a "landslide" or a "marginal victory" in presidential politics, by reason of history and the population characteristic of the nation as a whole, is very different than how one should judge those terms in relation to a statewide referendum on a single issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was just pointing out that Prop 8 won by about the same percentage difference as Obama was elected. Pure and simple. If they were so close then either both were landslide victories or they were both squeakers. It shows incredible bias for libs to claim that things they support that win are landslides when something they support loses by the same margin and claim that it was very close.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm just looking at the pure numbers- they don't lie, they can't be twisted by partisan double talk- though that doesn't stop people from trying. Prop 8 won and it wasn't close. Plain and simple. People can disagree with it, but they can't say that it barely passed! And the irony is that in ultra-liberal California, it is likely that it won because Obama energized the minority communities and within the black and Hispanic populations, they may be very liberal on many issues, but when it comes to Gay marriage they tend to be very conservative. So what helped Obama win also doomed Gay marriage there.
To what lengths will you go? Do you have any idea how ridiculous this looks to a Republican? For goodness sake, you are bending over backwards and squinting your eyes to make a point that is not there! The popular vote was 52/46. Exactly as it appears on the non distorted maps.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrankly, Bush/Paulson handed this election to any Democrat running. The fact that it was within 6 points shows how weak your candidate was. Admit it, you really weren't sure who was going to win. Let's be honest, Hillary would have had a landslide!
What is with you people? Did I say anywhere that I thought Obama's win was small? I was just pointing out the double standard of the left in saying someone they support, will be praised for having won a landslide, while something else that they lost by the same margin was extremely close.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's not the total votes one needs to look but more or less the votes compared to the population.... voter turnout was the same percentage. It is also percentage of victory.... it is a far larger percentage at 6 million votes out of 100 million vs 8 million more of 200 million votes.. as an example.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you'll find that Obama's victory was above the norm for Presidential elections following Bush Sr. but not on the level of Nixon,Reagan or Bush Sr. which were classic landslides... hard to compare 130 electoral votes to Dukakis pathetic 17 was it?
In any case no sour grapes.. Obama has four years to prove that his vision of the USA is better than that of his opponents.... let's pray he moves to center and doesn't stay far too the left... that isn't what the country voted for.
It's more about black, brown and white than blue and red.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe United States is about as divided as it was at the time of the Civil War and just about in the same places.
It can be said with confidence that at least 60-65% of the white vote in the South went for the white guy.
Hispanics voted for the brown guy by about 60-65% and blacks voted about 98% for the brown guy.
I voted for the brown guy too and I'm white but I think we should not pretend that Barack Obama is the choice of the white majority.
Not looking at painful truths is only helpful in the short run.
I think its considered a landslide when the president can prevent a "Phillybuster" and controls both houses (not always an advantage, as ruling party is then totally responsible for everything). American contests only involve two parties in the final vote, unlike European contests that involve many parties and to be president of the USA appears to require huge funding. I'm not so sure this is a good example of a democracy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it is considered a landslide: when the president can prevent a "Phillybuster" and controls both houses (not always an advantage as the ruling party is then responsible for everything. The American system has only two candidates in the final vote (unlike European democracy which often has many parties). It now requires huge funding to run for president. I'm not at all sure that this is a good example of democracy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee: http://odtmaps.com/detail.asp_Q_product_id_E_pres-map-2008 -- This version of the 2008 Presidential Election Map allows you to see exactly how and why Barack Obama’s victory was so stunning. This map shows how dramatically the political landscape has been changed especially when mapped out on a USA population map. ODT’s new election map shows how many people live in each state. Each of the map’s grid squares represents 250,000 people. On the map is the exact population of the larger states (for ease of comparison, and to eliminate the need to count individual blocks) along with each state’s electoral votes. The bigger the state on the map, the greater the electoral clout.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee: http://odtmaps.com/detail.asp_Q_product_id_E_pres-map-2008 -- This new 2008 Presidential Election Map allows you to see exactly how and why Barack Obama’s victory was so stunning. The map shows how dramatically the political landscape has been changed especially when mapped out on a USA population map. ODT’s new election map shows how many people live in each state. Each of the map’s grid squares represents 250,000 people. On the map is the exact population of the larger states (for ease of comparison, and to eliminate the need to count individual blocks) along with each state’s electoral votes. The bigger the state on the map, the greater the electoral clout.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi see
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHA! I love the clearly bitter republican idiot who here who claims the cartogram above is a "distorted map" as if it is somehow democratically biased. Obviously his brain is functioning correctly, or else he'd actually understand that the map is simply showing the election results by county adjust for population size. When you do that, it's clear that "blue" makes up a whole lot more than "red".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough it was indeed a "landslide" election among certain voting blocks, especially among suburban voters and the "great moderate middle", the reason the popular vote even came so close was because white voters in the deep south and rural Appalachian counties voted almost 90% for John McCain versus just 70-80% for Bush (a southern, evangelical no less). CLEARLY there is still an enormous amount of racism and intolerance in these largely uneducated and ignorant parts of the country which is unfortunate. I wouldn't be surprised if half of these voters believed Obama was a muslim or was going to enslave them or something more ridiculous..
popular
HA! I love the clearly bitter republican idiot who here who claims the cartogram above is a "distorted map" as if it is somehow democratically biased. Obviously his brain is functioning correctly, or else he'd actually understand that the map is simply showing the election results by county adjust for population size. When you do that, it's clear that "blue" makes up a whole lot more than "red".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough it was indeed a "landslide" election among certain voting blocks, especially among suburban voters and the "great moderate middle", the reason the popular vote even came so close was because white voters in the deep south and rural Appalachian counties voted almost 90% for John McCain versus just 70-80% for Bush (a southern, evangelical no less). CLEARLY there is still an enormous amount of racism and intolerance in these largely uneducated and ignorant parts of the country which is unfortunate. I wouldn't be surprised if half of these voters believed Obama was a muslim or was going to enslave them or something more ridiculous..
To the idiot "bigness":
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe lies of the Obama presidency?? You have a very diseased mind, my friend. 8.2 million was larger than Bush's 3 million in 2004 and - 500,000 in 2000 and Bush still claimed a mandate. In both cases Obama clearly beat Bush in electoral count, which is all that matters. The electoral defeat was decisive. To call this spin - when you clearly know that a Republican victor would have claimed the same thing under similar circumstances and then you would not be calling it spin and would brag about the victory - shows us all how partisan and really dishonest your mind is.
This is fascinating and first rate cartography that significantly clarifies important questions about the elections. Reality is not for the faint hearted --
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is fascinating and first rate cartography that significantly clarifies important questions about the election. US realtities are not for the the faint hearted --
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPS: ODT's map is very good as well and is probably easier to read for many applications. See http://odtmaps.com/detail.asp_Q_product_id_E_pres-map-2008
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOops, I thought this was the Scientific American site. Excuse me, I'll just tiptoe out while you continue your mud fest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe overall result was 52.6% to 46%. The morphed maps do not seem to reflect this virtual 50-50 split, which they should since they are supposedly being scaled to population. Just another liberal attempt to make it appear that O got a landslide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRight on Roger!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRight on Roger!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this53% to 47% of the popular vote is a landslide? Hardly. A two to one margin is a landslide, say 66% to 33%. The real story is how little the Democrats gained considering the circumstances. McCain had the momentum in September until the financial markets tanked and the Republicans including McCain took the blame.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisloosely-coupled states:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Although it was indeed a "landslide" election among certain voting blocks, especially among suburban voters and the "great moderate middle", the reason the popular vote even came so close was because white voters in the deep south and rural Appalachian counties voted almost 90% for John McCain versus just 70-80% for Bush (a southern, evangelical no less). CLEARLY there is still an enormous amount of racism and intolerance in these largely uneducated and ignorant parts of the country which is unfortunate. I wouldn't be surprised if half of these voters believed Obama was a muslim or was going to enslave them or something more ridiculous.."
I laughed out loud because I heard a report that the black vote was almost 100% Obama. Now exactly who is racist? Or are only folks with a different opinion than you racist and ignorant?
another numbers game. Divide a map with U.S. borders into the number of congressional representatives, each of equal size, and color them red or blue. That will give you an accurate distribution of voter preferences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs 53% to 46% of the popular vote a "landslide"? I would be inclined to say no. But if someone disagreed with me, neither one of us would be lying; we would both be offering our opinions where there is no social consensus on the exact meaning the word. And if somebody called one of us a liar, he would just be trying to pick a fight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs 364 to 163 electoral votes a "landslide"? As it is better than two-to-one, I'd be tempted to say yes. Again, though, YMMV.
As a foreigner (New Zealand), with great affection for the ideal of the United States, and profound sadness over the last few years, I watched this election from afar. Yes, as the bloggers above say, Obama won in a landslide, using "landslide" as it has been used in elections since I can remember (Kennedy). But what I find amazing is that McCain won as much as he did. To me, voting for Obama was a vote for hope, for rationality, for pragmatism, for inclusiveness, while a vote for McCain was a fear vote, a vote against somebody who "Palled around with terrorists", who "Wasn't a real American", and who "Couldn't be trusted". A vote in favour of smears over substance. So why was the vote so close? Every American I know personally has more sense. It should have been a true landslide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBigness...I don't know about the lies you are talking about, but even if you are right , nothing...absolutely nothing can compare to all the truths and irresponsabilities that the worst economy crisis has started to unveil...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, all of us in the red state are either brain dead or having our brains eaten by republican zombies and false christians.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt was close enough to a landslide to make the Repulican lackeys whine and complain with frustration to this day....don't EVER turn you backs on them!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, I've lived all my life in Michigan and I can confirm the (4th of 6) map's accuracy: Those counties in red are readily identifiable by merely traveling and interacting with the "indigenous populations" there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith the the exceptions of the cities (like Grand Rapids) which have dense populations, the west side of the Lower Peninsula has sparse population.
Likewise, the N.E. Lower Peninsula has the city of Alpena - and little else.
All of the counties forming the "Red" corridor have comparatively few people. The red blob in the NE Lower Peninsula is obviously due to the higher population in the area (and county) of Alpena.
I also see evidence of disturbing balkanization from these maps. This has always existed and it has been a problem for instance in the "web" shown representing southern states. We dismiss too readily I think that talk of secession in red states (even in Alaska). Such sentiments (and they are that) can intensify and result in situations like we've seen in Serbia (et al).
Anyway - I'm happy that it's a University of Michigan scientist who brought us this insightful way of looking at our politics and, uh, "demographic." I live right next to campus and, just hours ago, ran into a member of the U of M physics department. He might be the author!
Hello robertb!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI want to thank you for your independent assessment from afar. Your view is exactly mine: too many people here (some personal friends) have been taken in by propaganda rather than resisting it. As a native born American, I had always (falsely) believed that Americans were virtually immune to Nazi-style subversion of independent thought.
In case you're interested: this trend was started (and universally credited with) by a man named Lee Åtwater. He was the one who got Republican Ronald Reagan elected and who got Reagan out of serious trouble for secretly forming treaties with Iran and certain rebels in Central America.
It is therefore legitimate to say that, of the two parties, the Republicans are the party which consistently followed the low road of Goebbels-style manipulation of the public mind. It was Atwater's friend, Karl Rove, who got G.W. Bush elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2004 - against "all reason."
Thus, we can blame these propagandists for giving us a Republican regime which lasted 8 years and brought the U.S. to the brink of disaster.
hello scekpticalofsciam,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have no desire to start a debate, pro or con, regarding Mc Cain / Obama nor do I take a position on the two parties other than this:
In my career as a purchasing executive I learned a fundamental and valuable skill: sales resistance. Eventually, I observed that the average consumer is not at all educated in this way (and have proven it by helping people buy things in ways they found amazing). That led me to observe that both political parties use all the tools of salesmanship (and more) to
get their candidates elected.
This in turn is one factor which led me to leave the Republican Party and become an independent. (One of the other factors was a refresher course in critical thinking.) Since then, I've been evaluating candidates as much by the sales methods used by their campaign managers as by their actual qualifications. Odd? No - because candidate qualifications are only helpful if you "betting" that a given individual can handle the job of president (or senator, or representative).
Overall, I consider the danger of "consumer ignorance" to be the greatest. So another factor I've consistently heeded is: which party uses the "lowest tactics" to "sell" their candidate.
Point being: rather than defending an ideology (which the parties both largely ignore, other than to use them as "selling points") one better serves himself and the country by (1) avoiding straight ticket voting and (2) by supporting and voting for the candidates who seem most able and who least uses sales propaganda.
Oh, and nitpicking to "support" any party (and its ideology) is a waste of time. In this case: just looking at the maps and then proceeding on to argue about landslide vs no landslide (1) isn't very skeptical and (2) isn't even on topic.
Don't be offended: most of the posts regarding this article fail to stick to the topic, which should be about the accuracy of the "new map" or perhaps what it tells us about our demographics - and what that means for our future.
Bottom line 46 million people disagree with the results of the election. Most would agree dispite red/blue cartoons that's a lot of people and very close to half the voting population of the country. If the U.S. slips over the finacial cliff that's staring us in the face it will be a hundred years before another black president gets elected.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI heard "La Bama" talk the talk but he better be able to walk the walk. The time for tap dancing or dog and pony shows are over. He's got our attention. He's front and center. The entire world is watching. Keep your fingers crossed that he's not an empty suit and dumps us and the rest of the world into to a new dark age...... Wars fought over dwindling resources, and the resulting massive starvation will be on a level we have never seen before. Very few people would want or could handle what he's facing. Let's hope God is on his side!
Informative map, but please put in the states, counties and shading to reflect vote margins, increase size for wall mounting and tell me how to get a copy. Make separate maps for economic and social issues (like prop.8), because US is clearly for economic but not much social change at this time. Probably an inverse correlation between the two needs. Nice win for Obama and a step foreward in civil rights social change, but vote patterns indicate he won on mainly on pragmatic issues in spite of being black. The differing vote patterns for economic and social issues suggest Democrats should not emphasize empathy for social change (e.g., amnesty for illegals, gay marriage, affirmative action, etc.-the meaning of "liberal" that forms the basis of conservative rejection of Democrats) above public need for pragmatic solutions to economic problems like jobs, wages, food, health care, homes, reasonable credit and killing and maiming our young in unecessary war if they want to maintain their popular margin of support. Republicans lost this time because they clearly worked against the pragmatic public needs. Incredibly, Bush is still doing it in his final 60-day executive orders for more corporate give-aways like no-string bank (but not auto-worker) support and Columbia free trade that works against US manufacture and citizen jobs. Either he doesn't understand basic kitchen-table economics or doesn't give a damn about US workers and a national economy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo doubt: Obama won by mandate electoral and popular margins relative to past elections. "Mandate margin" is a better term, especially for Californians, given the damage implications of "landslide".
My apologies for shifting the focus of the discussion, but I thought I might make one or two comments on the maps themselves. These are excellent graphical depictions of voting decsions by geography and I commend the team that created them. I ask all interested to assist in suggestions on how this assembly and presentation of data can be out to good use. Clearly relating to the expenditure of advertising dollars for an election, but where/how else? Can it be integrated and made available via Google maps? What useful correlations could be extracted for productive non-partisan ends?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 2001 a recent Chinese immigrant explained the red/blue map to me this way: The states along the coasts, where the big cities are, voted for Gore, because those people are educated and have culture. The states in the middle of the country voted for Bush because that is where the peasants and uneducated farmers live. That about sums up the rationale of the American press, the editorial staff of Scientific American and the effete snobs who think food comes from grocery stores, clothes from The Gap, and shelter from HUD.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm so glad the end of the bush era. They have made real republicans ashamed (myself included). The true ones have left because we see the distorted party that we once agreed with. The only ones left are uneducated christian extremists and rednecks. It's sad but I think that this will force the higher ups to reform to the older core beliefs that make the republican party great.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisP.S. those core beliefs have nothing to do with christianity. You will see the republicans distancing themselves from these ignorant bigots.
It really scared me when I saw Oprah Winfrey's map that revealed the concentration if internet sex predators.The first thing that I noticed that it is almost a perfect overlay of the red state/blue state map.Liberalism has a lot to be proud of.Check it out
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20080911_tows_predators
Obama carried California 61-37, a 24 point win. He won the national vote by 53-46, a 7 point victory. How does this compare with the 1 point loss of Proposition 8 in one state? Why not focus on the mixed reaction of voters to liberal and conservative propositions in other states or the Democrats bigger wins in congressional and state elections? By any measure 2008 may not have been a historic landslide but it was a big and significant partisan win.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObama carried California by a 24 point margin 61-37. He won the national vote by 7 points 53-46. Democratic congressional and statewide candidates won by an even larger average margin. The vote for propositions in other states was mixed with many liberal initiatives winning? How does the slim loss of Proposition 8 rate in comparison with these other results? Obama's victory may not have been a historic landslide but it is by any objective measure a large and significant partisan win.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about third party voters? I know they make up a small portion and are loosely organized, yet there is never any recognition. As far as I know, 3% is the average votes for a third party(ies), yet the votes aren't even considered in any presentations or "maps"! Assuming the majority of voters are ignorant of many political processes in the US, why do we continue to limit their knowledge to 2 parties. It seems a bit bias.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about third party voters? I know they make up a small portion and are loosely organized, yet there is never any recognition. As far as I know, 3% is the average votes for a third party(ies), yet the votes aren't even considered in any presentations or "maps"! Assuming the majority of voters are ignorant of many political processes in the US, why do we continue to limit their knowledge to 2 parties. It seems a bit bias.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat the hell happened to third party representation? It is not even recognized on any maps, and 3% of the population votes that way. Assuming the majority of the American voting public are ignorant of the ways the system works (electoral college!) and do not know all that much about who their voting for, it is a shame that there is no recognition. Granted, the "third party" is loosely organized and consists of not just one "party", I feel there should be some aknowledgement so the general public is at least aware of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting however I'd like to see this whole thing redone based on ethnicity. Show the counties in terms of predominantly white, predominantly black, and predominantly Hispanic and then somehow display what way their votes went. Predominantly white but voted MacCain, predominantly white and voted Obama, black but voted McCain, black but voted Obama, etc. Now that might be very instructive...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow is that ever a bigoted and naive way to view this country. And you made no attempt to argue his assessment? Big city residents are more educated than those in middle America? Wow...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo all the grim-faced, teeth-gnashing Republican losers -- you lost -- get over it! One big reason for your losing is that this election was not fixed -- simply because too many "eyes of the world" were on the voting booths. But the biggest reason is that eight years of Republican rule has just about made America go bust. The infrastructure is decaying from coast to coast, the schools are failing, scientific research has been shredded, and the rich are getting richer at the expense of just about everybody. Such a huge pile of dirt could not be swept under the rug this time round.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think much of Mark Newman's cartonograph of how the the counties voted in the Presidential Election. It doesn't relate to how the counties in Washington State voted. He should check out: http://vote.wa.gov/elections/wei/VoterTurnout.aspx and click upon the Federal tab for how the counties voted in Washington.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm getting a perverse kick out of seeing ultraconservative republicans reel in horror, unable to contain their fear. Buncha fearful little nancies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou guys had the last 8 years, and what did you do with it? Yeah, nice work. So, as always, the pendulum swings in the other direction for a short while. And, like always, the new admin will try many new things, some of which will work, many of which wont. And the few of you who never outgrew gossiping over the popularity contest in high school, will continue to get your undies in a wad over every little thing that's said or done as if it's the most important thing in your empty, unfulfilled lives, and continue to pin the blame for your failings on your leaders.
Arguing politics is like arguing philosophy, without the philosophy.
All of these pithy, petty and bitter comments have nothing to do with the map.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe limitation of political subdivisions is nicely transcended by the analysis. Since there is no immediately obvious relationship between the physical size of a state and it's worth in the political realm, re-sizing it by it's electoral votes is a very good start. That immediately suggests the more detailed analysis available from county level population and voting numbers. The question the analysis answers is this one: how widely dispersed was the support for one candidate versus the other? The last of the maps shows this quite clearly. The land and the people that live on it slid from red to blue across much of its breadth. That's as good a definition as any of "landslide".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm a geographical purist.. distorting the map to represent population just looks wrong to me. I prefer using population proportionate sized geometric figures like circles or squares superimposed on a geographically accurate map.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn whether or not Obama won a landslide, he did not. A landslide margin is over 10 percentage points and 400 electoral votes; Obama won by 6.7 points and 365 electoral votes. He won a good solid comfortable victory but it was not a landslide. The only recent Democratic president to win a landslide was Lyndon Johnson in 1964 over Barry Goldwater.
I like that this exposes the Mythology of "the heartland" by representing geography in proportion to population, and not by the misleading size of states. People might believe by looking at a traditional electoral map that very large low populated states hold more "sway" than the smaller highly dense area by the Delaware/Newjersey-ish area. And so they might dismiss those areas as insignificant compared "The Real America" that is represented in how the large red state geographical patch looked when Bush won.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no Red State/Blue Sate. You might go to a red southern state, but that only means there's a slight percentage less democrats than republicans. I hate when people try to arbitrarily classify Americans, and especially when they would try to divide us and turn us against each other. You can argue arbitrary semantics about "Landslides," but if any of you republicans believed that Bush had a "Mandate" from his narrow win in 2000, then you cannot argue that Obama doesn't have an even greater mandate to be President now. It sounds like some of you are dismissing just how historical and impactful the turnaround election of Obama was so you can demean it as something less than everyone knows it is.
Dude its a landslide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDukakis received 111 electoral votes in 1988. I don't know why you're saying that he received 17.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't believe that Obama's victory was a landslide, but I'm glad that the American voters are finally starting to use their brains.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvidently you have no political insight to the future such as the professor does. It innovative and truly interesting. But if can not get past the colors..... we all need help!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt truly is an innovative look at the political distribution that is beyond grade school. Of course if you can not move past the color scheme then I am truly concerned .........
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell according to taikonaut, the last republican president to have a landslide is reagan, as his incumbent term, his first he only had a 9.6% margin. What I don't think people are understanding about this election is that this country is severly divided, compared to 1984, or around that time. It was much easier to produce a landslide victory. But this election, Obama won with a 7.2% margin of popular vote when white voters that made up 78% of the vote. I'm not being racist or anything but that is quite an accomplishment. Then I read people saying well all the blacks voted for Obama. I can agree, I'm sure many of them didn't know what Obama's positions were on policies, but have you heard any of the white McCain voters, wow. Many of them didn't like Obama because they thought he was a Muslim. I guess it just levels the playing field.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI forgot to write something, he won by around 9.5 million votes, which is the largest vote margin for any non-incumbent president, imagine what his re-election margin will look like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow is 10 million voter difefrence not a landslide. A large portion of countries are lucky to even have that many peopel to vote in the election period. Losing by almost 10 million votes is not a close election at all. I think the GOp is still trying to bend the truth. They need to stop rading 1984 and deal with reality. Wait, do they even endorse reading books? God may not want them to. lol. Just like God didnt want them to at least research iraq and Afghanistan before they invaded. Prop 8 had nothign to do wtih the Presidential, two seprate votes, plus one was a state vote. See Republicans, some peopel actually vote the issues not vote based on a pamphlet that is passed out at so called called churches and telling them if they want to go to heaven they have to vote based on this pamphlet
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow is a 10 million vote deficit not a landslide? Many countries are luckly to even have 10 million voters to vote. But i guess the Republcians can spin anything and devalue anything that doesnt have them the centre of attention. I guess passing our leaflets are so called churches and threatening hell didnt work this time around. 10 million now a landslide...hahahahahahahahahahaha. But i bet 2000 and 2004 were landslides right? I guess unless Obama won every state its not a landslide. Reagan beat Carter by 7 million votes ( 9 Percent) in 1980 and only lost a lot of states by a small margin but historians see it as a landslide not only electorally but in the popular vote. 86 million votes were cast so dont try to play the 7 million votes was a landslide in that day but not today. As well a third party received over 5 million votes (6.6% of the vote) that year so that had a factor as well (this isnt counting the additional 1.2 million votes for other parties (1.7%)). This year all third parties combined barely made it over 2 million (1.5 %). It is just funny how some will continue to undermine President Obama's achievements. These are probably the same 25 percent that loved bush till the very end and couldnt wait to see sarah Palin undermine the professionalism and intelligence of women
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe use of 'Lies' is more appropriate to the Redneck Republicans. The Tea Party leaders are so out of touch with reality, that one can only believe that they are delusional instead of lying. As I recall VP Gore won the majority vote, but the Conservative Supreme Court gave the election to Bush. Not much of a landslide in that election.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this