Not quite as red as it appears
By Brad on Nov 13, 2008 in America, Politics, Worth Considering | comments(0)
The following map has become quite popular amongst right-wing bloggers, seemingly to demonstrate that the country is more “red” (or right-leaning) than the last election’s results would indicated.
It looks pretty impressive, doesn’t it? But it really doesn’t tell the whole story. The above map is a winner-take-all representation for each county, which is okay except it’s not a very accurate gauge of the “temperature” of the nation. Here’s how the map would look based on actual voting percentages.
Not quite so stark anymore is it. No longer are there large areas of red with only blue fringes. But wait, there’s more. Mark Newman, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan, explains. Continued
