(no subject)

[eirias]

Awesome electoral map, courtesy of eldan and trygve. It puts the so-called "culture war" in perspective.

(D'you see that blue county in south central Wisconsin? That's me.)

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

I think that means we need some gerrymandering on our side...

but even so, he won the popular vote. Possibly even mostly fairly.

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

and that bluish splotch right under lake erie is cuyahoga county!

[marphod.livejournal.com]

You need to be the party in power in order to gerrymander your way to the top.

Besides, the EC is decided by total-votes in a state, not per-region of the state (except Maine). So that wouldn;t help on the presidential level. For the House, it would help.

[leora.livejournal.com]

We can't change state boundaries?

see also

[eldan.livejournal.com]

Margins by county (http://www.speakeasy.org/~milnor/where.jpg). Personally I think the percentage margin is more informative than the absolute count (because this version makes any large-population county look like a landslide by default), but I thought this one was also worth a look.

[kirin]

Heh, this is the second time I've seen that link referenced on my friends page, coming from completely different circles. It's a great map, I love it. Particularly, it's made me aware that my location (Chapel Hill, a bastioin of liberalism in North Carolina) is not nearly as unusual as I thought... I was surprised by the bluish streak that runs near the middle of almost all the deep south states.

[supercarrot.livejournal.com]

hahaha. look how blue philly is. :-D
by just looking at the redness of PA, you'd think the state would have gone to bush.... but i guess it helps that philly's got so many people.

[cos]

gerrymandering is done by state legislatures, and the Democrats made significant gains in state legislatures in this election. Today, Democrats control both houses in 16 states, and Republicans in 21 states. After the new legislators elected this week are seated next year, Democrats will control both houses in 19 states, and the Republicans in 20.

What we really need, though, is non-partisan redistricting. An advisory ballot question for that passed with good margins all over Massachusetts in this election. Citizens' groups in other states have been working on similar efforts but I don't know the details.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I suspect it *is* as unusual as you think -- I suspect your region votes Democrat because in a lot of ways it's culturally and educationally aligned with the Northeast and the West coast, whereas a lot of the blue deep south states are blue because they have historically voted Democrat (either dating back to reconstruction, or because of union strength).