

Purple map, 2012 edition - mindstab
http://kryogenix.org/days/2012/11/07/purple-map-2012-edition

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startupfounder
It would be great to get even more granular and get to the county level to
show how even the "divided" counties are purple as well. My guess is that you
might get some counties that are 100% Red or 100% Blue.

These colors are great, but almost ultraviolet to my eyes. I can only look at
the map for 5 seconds. Also, the color doesn't really tell me how far from
50/50 the states are.

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pronoiac
For anyone who wants to do this, the data's available:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/nov/07/us-2012-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/nov/07/us-2012-election-
county-results-download)

~~~
pserwylo
I stumbled upon the same dataset, so did the following map:

<http://i.imgur.com/8YjOg.png>

Here is some notes:

<https://gist.github.com/4034954>

Edit:

If anything, I'd say that the counties themselves are more divided than I
thought. The one which surprises me the most is the deep south of texas, which
is quite blue.

Also, I do not claim that I did this flawlessly, there is a chance I stuffed
up and it is not showing the right data, but I don't really have the time to
play with it for too long :)

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jlarocco
South Texas results aren't too surprising. There's a _huge_ Hispanic
population down there.

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pserwylo
Ah, of course. Thanks for pointing that out.

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thingie
I wonder how many people didn't bother to show up at the election rooms
because their vote wouldn't mean anything. Being pro-Romney in a strong "blue"
state or pro-Obama in the "red" one.

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jmmcd
Well yeah, but being pro-Romney in a strong red state, or pro-Obama in a
strong blue state, your vote still doesn't mean anything. The question is
whether the "don't bother voting he's going to win anyway" effect is stronger
than the "don't bother voting he's going to lose anyway" one.

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michaelfeathers
Nice, but I wonder how objective `halfway between red and blue' is when people
evaluate color. Halfway might appear to be 2/3 to some people.

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twelvechairs
All it needs is a key showing what shade is 50/50. Unfortunately one isn't
provided...

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stuartlangridge
Good call. Map updated to include a key!

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r00fus
The key isn't that helpful. Suggestion: a color slider showing continuity
between two (asymptotic) extremes.

Better yet would be quantizing it into 10 or 20% buckets so people could
better guage a given state more easily.

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mattmaroon
This map is kind of silly. How much of a victory does a candidate need to get
red or blue to appear? Utah was 72% for one candidate. If all the map shows us
is that nobody got 100%, or that 72% red and 28% blue is a shade of purple,
then, well, duh.

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bryanlarsen
This map makes the point that the United States is not the divided nation that
pundits claim. Most states were fairly close to a 50/50 split vote wise (aka
purple). Even in Utah the vote was only 3:1 Romney:Obama; they are not as
different from blue states as people think.

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pdonis
The fact that most states are close to 50-50 means the nation as a whole is
_more_ divided, not less: there are lots of people in _every_ state on both
sides.

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sp332
If people in the poorer states like Alabama voted the same way as people in
richer states like Maryland, that means they have more in common. If people
from a small state with low income inequality like New Hampshire are evenly
split, that means whatever divides the candidates is not economic, geographic,
or cultural reasons.

~~~
bduerst
That's not how data works.

All this purple map shows is that the division between republican and
democratic voters is prevalent in the majority of the states.

It says nothing about the demographics of the voters.

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sp332
We already know the demographics of people in the various states though. If
people above a certain "richness" level liked one candidate over the other,
then the majority in Maryland would have voted one way and Alabama the other.
(Or both the same way, if the necessary level were very high or very low.) The
fact that about 50% of Alabama voted each way _and_ about 50% of Maryland
voted each way means income level does not strongly change the way people
voted.

This isn't about Democrats vs Republicans, because about 40% of Americans
don't identify with either party.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states#Current_party_strength)
Party affiliation isn't nearly enough to explain how close this election was.

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matwood
_This isn't about Democrats vs Republicans, because about 40% of Americans
don't identify with either party._

Exactly. I've heard some studies that point to a majority of young voters
(18-24?) self describe themselves as fiscally conservative and socially
liberal. IMHO, neither of the 2 parties fit that bill right now so many people
vote along with their particular social issue. A gay friend mentioned to me
how hard voting was because she is fiscally conservative, but no way could she
vote GOP (not that they are the picture of fiscal responsibility either at
this point).

Another friend of mine described his feeling about the election as, "I hated
to see Obama win, but I'm equally afraid of the crazy republican right wing. I
want a party that is fiscally conservative that also believes in evolution."

It seems that with the vote always being near 50/50 that one of the parties
could figure out that sweet spot and satisfy more than 50% of the populace.
That would mean taking chances and really challenging the status quo, so it
will likely never happen. After last night though, the GOP is at a crossroads
and now is probably the best time if there ever was one to really make some
changes. Very unlikely though.

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adestefan
I always preferred the cartogram as shown at <http://www-
personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/>

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mindstab
This seems to be showing completely different information so I'm not sure it's
much of a comparison

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adestefan
I ment showing this data on that map. The vast land mass and small population
in the west makes visuals on a normal map of the US meaningless.

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Blocks8
50 Shades of Purple. Thank you for freedom of choice.

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stuartlangridge
ha! I wish I'd thought of that tagline for the map. I might steal that at some
future date, if you don't mind :)

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correctifier
The map is really interesting, but its hard to read with those two colours.
I'd like to see it with just white-blue or white-red.

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debacle
Our voting demographics have historically been geographic by coincidence of
education, industry, or creed.

In 2012, with almost no information barriers, the demographics are really more
based on economics and education, with race, sex, and sexual preference also
taking a strong role.

The reality is that there are plenty of idiots to go around. Anyone who pays
attention to their own local politics knows that.

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exolxe
Really interesting in the concept, specific color choices aside, it's a great
point that general portrayal really bifurcates states along partisan
boundaries when they're really pretty close proportionally... Honestly the
whole bipartisan system is a joke, the illusion of choice.

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bduerst
Now they should use saturation to indicate which percentage of the voting
population actually turned out to the polls.

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pla3rhat3r
This probably REALLY cool. #colorblind

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Osmium
What a horrific colour scheme. You want colours that contrast well; a red-
green gradient would be much better. A "neutral" state would then be an easy
to discern shade of brown.

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trhtrsh
Translation, for people with a common form of color blindness:

"a brown-brown gradient would be much better. A "neutral" state would then be
an easy to discern shade of brown."

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Osmium
Hah, good point. Should've known better. Still, it's not hard to find
something better than shades of fuchsia. Blue to orange with white in the
middle perhaps?

