Counties by Ideology - CA, CO, ME, MO, NV, OR, WA

[Хahar 🤔]

None of the states you requested have very many referenda results on the Atlas. I think Virginia has the most, but even that is only three or four. Not nearly enough.

You should be happy that your state isn't blighted with referenda.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Minnesota hardly ever has referenda, but I'll try it later.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Just a little request : could you switch the colors between "liberal" and "comuniarian" in your next maps ? It would make more sense to have liberal in red.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I just noticed Colorado. So what makes Pueblo conservative? And what makes Douglas County of all places communitarian?

[RI]

I just noticed Colorado. So what makes Pueblo conservative? And what makes Douglas County of all places communitarian?

One thing I've noticed in doing this is that a lot of suburban counties, while I had them typecast in my mind as libertarian, are turning up communitarian. This is probably because they see direct value in government services that someone in a more rural area might not, while at the same time not being more traditional minded. I'm sure someone has a better explanation. As for Douglas County, it voted for increasing spending and increasing taxes (although not increased minimum wage?), so I think the service explanation seems to fit.

Pueblo County is fairly hispanic, and votes like it on social issues, and it was almost evenly split economically, but it narrowly went towards the conservative side. Definitely a communitarian-leaning area.

[nclib]

Some of it may differ based on what measures are being used. On the anti-gay marriage referenda, there is considerably more support for 'No' in the suburbs than in equally Republican (or even less Republican) rural areas. Though since gay marriage is a left of center position, simply having some social liberals makes it seem more relatively pro-gay (i.e. 50 liberals and 50 conservatives will vote more pro-gay than 100 moderates). I would be interested in evaluating that pattern for other social referenda.

Great maps, everyone. Are you using the shades as overall liberalism, etc., or compared to the state average?

[RI]

Are you using the shades as overall liberalism, etc., or compared to the state average?

It's all overall. I didn't think going off of a statewide average was very useful in this case.

I wish I had more data to work with, but I'm mostly limited to what we have on the Atlas and a few easily accessible SoS sites.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Just a little request : could you switch the colors between "liberal" and "comuniarian" in your next maps ? It would make more sense to have liberal in red.

go me, having red for communitarian as opposed to liberalism makes intuitive sense. red is used internationally to denote left-wing politics esp economic, but it is also used in the US to denote cultural conservatism/traditionalism and populism.

[RI]

Just a little request : could you switch the colors between "liberal" and "comuniarian" in your next maps ? It would make more sense to have liberal in red.

go me, having red for communitarian as opposed to liberalism makes intuitive sense. red is used internationally to denote left-wing politics esp economic, but it is also used in the US to denote cultural conservatism/traditionalism and populism.

This, plus I felt that green worked best for liberalism because of green's association with environmentalism and Green Parties that are obviously on the quite liberal end of the spectrum. I've always felt red was more fitting of socialistic/communal ideologies that aren't really associated with social liberalism.

[homelycooking]

Here's Maine. Very small sample size, so take it with a grain of salt. As I suspected, very few libertarian counties, but a few communitarian ones.



As for the other states mentioned, very few of them have any usable amount of referenda results to draw from, so I don't think I'll be able to get any significant results from them.

What statistics were used to make this Maine map? I should like to make a town map for the state.

[RI]

Here's Maine. Very small sample size, so take it with a grain of salt. As I suspected, very few libertarian counties, but a few communitarian ones.



As for the other states mentioned, very few of them have any usable amount of referenda results to draw from, so I don't think I'll be able to get any significant results from them.

What statistics were used to make this Maine map? I should like to make a town map for the state.

It’s a rather long and somewhat tortuous process, but if you want to make a town maps, here is what I’ve been doing:

1.   Find the results of a number of referenda/initiatives. The Maine SoS site has plenty. I chose as many of the non-landslide (as in at least one county voted contrary to the state total) votes as I saw from the past decade.

2.   Make one spreadsheet with all of the races that focused on social issues and another for ones that focused on economic issues. Copy the vote totals for each race onto their respective sheets. Mark yes and no as either liberal or conservative for later in accordance to which option represented which position.

3.   On each spreadsheet, add up the total liberal votes and add up the total conservative votes. Divide by the total to get the social issues and economic issues map. The quadrant map is simply based upon those two maps; places that voted conservative economically and liberal socially were marked as libertarian for example.

4.   For the quadrant strength map, I first found something similar to a political matrix score by subtracting the conservative percentage from the liberal percentage of each dimension and dividing that total by five. That should give you a ‘score’. To figure the strength, you use a variation of the distance formula to figure out how far that point is from 0,0. I did this by squaring both scores, adding them together, dividing by two, and taking the square root of that number. Multiply the number you get by ten and add thirty to get the shade you color it on the map (I added thirty just to make the colors more distinguishable).

Hopefully you can figure out how to do that with a program other than paint (which I've been using).

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Good work, although admittedly I cringe at the use of terminology based on the political matrix.

Wonder what trend maps would look like for many of these counties.

[Eraserhead]

This is kind of fun to look at. I'd like to see somebody try to do something with New York.