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7.5: Electoral Cartography

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    Political geography gets a great deal of national attention every four years when Americans chose a President. Since 2000, news media outlets on TV and the internet have frequently used the so-called red-states-blue states map to predict or explain Electoral College votes that determine the outcome of the presidential election.

    U.S. electoral map of 2012 presidential election: states in blue for Obama and red for Romney, with numbers representing electoral votes.
    Figure 7-26: The Red-Blue Electoral College map displaying the outcome of the 2012 Presidential Election. Blue state votes went to Obama. Source: Wikimedia

    Geographers have been frustrated by this famous map for several reasons. First, the colors are reversed. Until recently, it was nearly universally accepted that the color red was reserved for revolutionary, radical or even progressive or left-leaning political parties. Communists always use red in their flags and symbols. That’s why they are called Reds and those who sympathized with communists, socialists or even left-leaning Democrats have been occasionally called pinkos. Conservative movements, on the other hand, have historically chosen the color blue in contradistinction. How the colors got flipped is unclear.

    Secondly, the map does a poor job of showing the relative influence of each state in the outcome of the election. States like Montana and Wyoming, because of their very small population, have little impact on the outcome of the Presidential election because they have so few Electoral College votes (three each). Maryland alone has more than double the number of votes as Montana and Wyoming, but it is barely visible on the map. One means to overcome the distortion caused by the mismatch between areal size and voting power is a cartogram, a special type of map that attempts to minimize this effect by altering the size of states based on their number of electoral votes.

    Cartogram—2012_Electoral_Vote.png
    Figure 7-27: Cartogram of electoral votes by state using a bivariate color scheme for the 2012 US presidential election. Note how the size

    Another serious flaw in the states-only map is that it fails to show the significant intrastate variation in voting and fails to show the massive contribution of urban areas to the outcome of major elections. Most of the land area of the United States is rural but sparsely populated. Over 75% of Americans live in cities, but cities are hardly noticeable in the standard red-states-blue-states maps. The inability of state-level choropleth maps to communicate these realities invites viewers to commit the ecological fallacy.

    The last major problem is that this map is widely misinterpreted because it strongly suggests that the United States is polarized politically on a state-by-state basis, when in fact most states are divided between Republicans and Democrats. Cartographers have suggested that a “purple states vs. violet states” map is more appropriate for mapping the popular vote. For the winner-take-all Electoral College votes, the red-vs-blue map remains most accurate.

    2012 Presidential Election Maps Source: Mark Newman, University of Michigan
    Map of the contiguous United States with states colored either red or blue, showing a division of regions.Standard electoral map by state using a two-color palette Map of the USA with counties in red and blue, indicating political divisions. Most areas are red with clusters of blue.Election results by county demonstrates intra state variance using a two-color palette Map of the United States showing election results by county, with areas in red and blue indicating different political preferences.County level electoral results graduated color showing percent voter response
    01_cartograph.jpg.avifCartogram of states weighted by electoral votes using a two-color palette A distorted map of the United States shows red and blue regions, representing election results, with red areas concentrated in rural spaces and blue in urban.Cartogram results by county - intrastate variance and voter numbers by party Abstract map of the U.S. with red and blue areas depicting voting patterns from an election. The distorted shape highlights population density over geographic area.County level cartogram using bicolor ramp displaying percent party vote and turnout
    Additional Election Maps
    A U.S. map showing population density with color gradients. High-density areas are dark blue and purple, while low-density areas are light pink. Notable concentrations in the Northeast and along the coasts.This map uses a graduated two-color ramp that darkens with voter numbers. Lighter areas on the map have less population. Source: Salterwatch, Chris Howard Map of the United States showing election results from 2012. Counties are shaded in various shades of purple, red, and blue, indicating political leanings.This is a dot density map. Each dot on the map represents 100 votes for either presidential candidate. Areas in white have fewer voters. Source: IDV Solutions Map of the United States showing various counties in red and blue, with specific regions labeled with numbers or text indicating potential data points or statistics.This is a 3D map of the 2008 presidential election with counties as raised columns by population. Note the outsized effect of L.A. and Cook Counties. Source: Washington Post
    Red YouTube logo with a white play button inside a white rectangle.YouTube Video from National Public Radio, showing animated versions of electoral votes and campaign spending. Source: NPR Icon of a document with a red GIF label at the top left corner, indicating an animated image file. The document has a dog-eared appearance on the bottom right.Animated .gif file from Princeton University showing county level election returns from 1960 -2012, including third party votes in green. Source: Robert Vanderbei Icon of an MP4 file with a folded corner.Animated dot density map displaying presidential election returns from 1840 to 2008, including third party candidates. Source: Voting America, Univ. of Richmond

    This page titled 7.5: Electoral Cartography was last modified on Mon, 31 Mar 2025 05:03:55 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Steven M. Graves via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.