*I pulled this map from USAToday. Currently the graphic is theirs but I have it saved to go onto my website. I for some reason can’t seem to ftp my website right now though. Someone remind me to fix this later.*
The latest vote, county by county of the 2004 Presidential Election.
Square miles of counties won:
Bush: 3.28 million
Kerry: 741,000
Population (as of 2003) of counties won:
Bush: 150.9 million
Kerry: 103.6 million
Counties won by less than 5 percentage points:
Bush: 162
Kerry: 131
Square miles of counties won:
Bush: 2,432,603
Gore: 577,029
Population (as of 1999) of counties won:
Bush: 148 million
Gore: 133 million
Counties won by less than 5 percentage points:
Bush: 229
Gore: 175
The thing that fascinates me is that by looking at this, President Bush swept through the nation by storm. The reality is that President Bush swept through rural American by storm. It seems that in the hustle and bustle big cities, the democratic party pulls forward every time. It just fascinates me that looking at this you’d think to yourself that President Bush is the overwhelming winner. Hard to believe the margin was so small?
I wonder what this will mean next election? Will the democratic candidate (please not Hillary) look to this map for where to start? We know there will be battleground states candidates will always hit. Ohio, New Mexico, Pennsy. But what does this map tell us? Especially when you compare it to the 2000 map.
Lady Ozma's Journey 
lyssrose said:
How fascinating!
See that heart-shaped blue county, smack in the middle of (red) Texas? That’s me! *grin*
I’m not surprised we’re blue, since Austin is chock full of verrrrry liberal people, but what does surprise me is the fact that the majority of the border counties are also blue. I guess I was under the impression that everything but Austin is pretty much as conservative as it gets.
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eirias said:
I followed you here from ‘s journal. He’s a friend of mine from college. 🙂
Regarding this map, the thing I find most telling – and most depressing – is that the map changed so little between 2000 and 2004. The major issues changed completely, with a shift in emphasis from domestic to foreign policy, and yet on the county level we haven’t changed parties at all. I think the pundits are right – elections in this country are not about issues; they’re about character, a sort of “station identification,” as my favorite liberal hawk says.
What I’d love to see is a set of maps like this for each election for which data are available. I find myself fascinated by political trends and I want to know when it was that “we” lost the South, and whether they were “ours” to begin with. It’d be interesting, too, to trace the ideological history of the parties – but then it would be difficult to put that in a neat graphical form. Maybe something like the Nolan chart, if there were a way to make point assignments less heuristic and more quantitative?
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clueliss said:
see that lonly blue square in Kansas
You know can pinpoint where I live – lol. That’s right. The blue Kansas square is Douglas County. I live right on the edge of the blue next to the red county on the right (Johnson – aka highest property taxes in the country) which is next to a blue missouri county (Jackson County Missouri – aka KC MO). And if you look reaaaaaaaly clue I think there is a dark smudge above Johnson County Kansas on the 2000 map that is prolly blue because that is Wyandotte County (aka KC KS) – it’s an inky dinky county and you can’t really see it on this map. The gray blob on this year’s map is Sedgewick County – aka Wichita.
I saw the map yesterday and wished a – it were bigger and b – you could click on the states and see the state county by county by itself.
and yes – I’d like to see trendline maps like this for say the last 50 years to see how parts of the country have changed during various times and with varous issues.
In Kansas I find the fact that Kerry didn’t win Wyandotte County/KCK very telling. This is a mostly urban area with a much heavier population of minorities than elsewhere in the state. In fact it is close in make up to Jackson County Missouri. Speaking of Missouri – look how much of Missouri the dems lost compared to 2000! They lost big hunks of KC MO metro area on the Missouri side. They lost Columbia MO (that blob mid state on the 2000 map) which is where the University of Missouri is at. They lost large areas of St. Louis.
The western states are virtually the same. But look at Oklahoma – they lost ALL of OK. Including Tulsa and OKC and any of the OU/OSU parts of the state. Why – Moral issues. You can see shifts in Michigan. Why – again moral issues and union people aren’t necessarily voting with their union anymore. I worked with union peeps at Folgers in 2000. Even then some of the peeps I knew were dedicated Bushies! Why – FAITH!
I more telling map to compare to – or actually set of maps – would be Bush Sr in 88, Clinton in 92 and 96. Why? To see the Republcian, Democrat for 8 years, back to Republican shifts.
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: How fascinating!
See that blue right in the middle of Ohio, that’s where I moved from. HEHE
Could be that the border counties are getting influenced by the city? Could be… 🙂
It’s definately interesting isn’t it?
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Lady Ozma said:
Well greetings!
Hmm… I’ll check you out in a bit… first though, let me say thank you for visiting. 🙂
Now here’s my brutal unabashed opinion of your comment… 🙂 The map didn’t change and that is because our nation is basically, well, stupid. It isn’t the issues. Heck it isn’t even character. It all comes down to party. I’m sorry but the “republican” areas will vote republican and the “democratic” areas will vote democratic. Why? Because that’s what they do. I think it would literally take someone going into one party that is just plain insane. Say… Mickey Mouse? I mean look at Virginia. They ALWAYS vote republican. They even voted for Dole. Dole?!! You HAVE to be kidding me, right? I was in Virginia at the time and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in southwest Arizona I was gonna vote for Dole. But still, the state voted for him. Heck I don’t know anyone here who did vote for him!
Why is this you say? I’ll tell you why. You have four people in this nation. Here they are:
The die hard republican. The republican candidate could be anyone on earth and they would vote for him come hell or high water.
The die hard democrat. The democrat candidate could be anyone on earth and they would vote for him come hell or high water.
Issues voter. This is the person who spends months pouring over everything they can get their hands on from the candidates and debates long and hard. They finally make a decision and cast their ballot.
The “huh” voter. This is the person who hasn’t a clue what’s going on in the world and likely gets their candidate by flipping a coin or whoever looks good. Heck half these people don’t vote.
The unfortunate thing is that the third voter… the one who looks at everything and tries to make the best guess is sorely outnumbered by voters one, two, and four. Sad to say.
So the question each election is how many voters will the parties pull out that year. Plain and simple. This year? Both parties did excellent. Just the republican party pulled more.
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: see that lonly blue square in Kansas
I hear ya, I’d also like to see more maps like this. That’s why I was happy to see 2000’s and posted it as well. Interesting to say the least. I’d especially like to see the Clinton years.
I find it interesting also how big a chunks were lost to the liberals. They are going to have to contemplate what this means before the next election. Was it the choice in candidate? Do people really want more conservative leadership? Just what is the reason and what can they do to improve their chances.
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loadhan said:
Re: Well greetings!
Heh, I linked to your post in a friend’s journal – I hope you don’t mind. Another friend had asked “I wish I could see a county by county map” and your post was the easiest I could find since I’d just read your post. 🙂
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: Well greetings!
Haha… I noticed. I was like “Who’s journal?” Then I felt bad thinking someone had friended me that I didn’t know about and so I went investigating and was like “I’ve never heard of this person..” finally saw your comment with the link. I was like “Aaaahhhh” Made sense. 🙂
I don’t mind. I was confused for a few minutes, but I don’t mind. 🙂 I stumbled across the map myself and was so excited about it… HEHE
I do like the one they posted where it shows the division of the nation. Very intriguing. Of course the county by county was interesting. I mean look how much of Ohio was Bush-Land yet that state was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO close. Just another reason why Ohio is such a standard of the nation. One candidate wins almost the whole state but it was so close because of just a few places with a really high population.
Fascinating isn’t it all?
I’d love to see one for both of Clinton’s elections.
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