Southwest Virginia, 2008

[minionofmidas]

Another question about Virginia in 2008: If Virginia didn't have all of those separate town/cities within counties what would the county map look like? (in other words what would the map look like if the counties absorbed all of those pesky little towns/cities).

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=7308.0

Not for 2008, alas.

[minionofmidas]

The atlas has McCain winning by substantial margins in 2008 in every county in southwest Virginia

The margin in Dickenson County was hardly substantial. [/nitpick] And in the city of Norton, not only was it just one vote, there was a swing in Obama's favor. Small as it is, it's probably more urbane than the rest of SW Virginia coal country. Not to exaggerate this, of course - Obama's was still the second-worst Democratic result in the town post-72.

[minionofmidas]

Another question about Virginia in 2008: If Virginia didn't have all of those separate town/cities within counties what would the county map look like? (in other words what would the map look like if the counties absorbed all of those pesky little towns/cities).

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=7308.0

Not for 2008, alas.

Apart from removing all the annoying little dots and squishes, the following changes to the Atlas map would occur:

Dinwiddie County from R50 to D70 (Petersburg has more people)
Norfolk County from D50 D60 (Chesapeake is the geographically largest part of it and is here treated as the base color)
Albemarle County from D50 to D60
Henrico County from D50 to D60
Spotsylvania County from R50 to D50
Southampton County from R50 to D50
Pittsylvania County from R60 to R50
Campbell County from R60 to R50
Rockingham County from R60 to R50
York County from R50 to R60 (no typo - Poquoson is that Republican, and it wasn't far off in the first place)

This is using all the corrections from the previous thread.