Beyond Red and Blue: 7 Ways to View the Presidential Election Map
Slide show reveals what the country would look like if politics trumped geography
Credits: © 2008 M. E. J. NewmanPURPLE REIGN: Resized by county population, a cooler, bluer tone dominates the map. Obama's margin of victory once again reveals itself. © 2008 M. E. J. Newman
COLOR BY NUMBERS: Breaking the regions down to red and blue alone obscures the degree of preference: A win by one vote looks just the same as a million-vote margin. Newman used shades of purple to show intermediate preferences for the two candidates... © 2008 M. E. J. Newman
AMERICAN OR SWISS? When Newman resized each county to reflect its population, a tangled cobweb emerged. Once again, Obama's share of the country swells, dwarfing McCain's geographic advantage. © 2008 M. E. J. Newman
BREAK IT DOWN: County-level data reveal a more precise picture of geographic political preferences. As before, McCain counties are colored red; Obama counties are blue. In this view, McCain appears to have dominated... © 2008 M. E. J. Newman
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BEND TO FIT: University of Michigan at Ann Arbor physics professor Mark Newman used custom software to resize the states based on population [ top ] and by electoral college representation [ below ]... © 2008 M. E. J. Newman
VOTING BLOCS: The Lower 48 are colored based on state-by-state results from the 2008 presidential election in this standard map: red for the Republican candidate, John McCain, and blue for the Democratic candidate (and eventual victor), Barack Obama... © 2008 M. E. J. Newman
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