Make your own U.S. regions and divisions

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's only indirectly related to this thread, but still. I ran a PCA on State presidential election margins from 1976 to 2012, and followed with a hierarchic clustering which yielded 7 categories. Here's what it looks like.

Basically, States in the same categories tended to display a similar electoral evolution... It's interesting to see that, on these criteria, Pennsylvania seems to have more in common with the Midwest than with the Northeast. Or the way in which most of the South stands out.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Seeing you post here reminded me, I wanted to make a region map with your alternate states. Here's what I came up with:

Interesting!

Here's my take (with a bit more regions):