US County Map: Race/Party Correlation

[homelycooking]

You're welcome.

For the optimum aesthetic experience, I suggest opening each map in a new tab/window so as to be able to toggle back and forth between the two.

[homelycooking]

Well, if we consider the color scale and superimpose a curve on it which roughly connects all points of equal Obama percentage and non-white percentage like so:



we see that, assuming a 100% minority vote for Obama, all of the colors above the curve would not be possible on the map. But we know that they are possible because the total minority vote for Obama is much less than 100%, especially among certain Hispanics and "other races". In places like West Texas, moreover, the Census data shows large populations of non-whites, but few of them are registered or turn out to vote. If you know which of the two factors are in play in a given area, you can probably make a poor approximation of the White percentage for Obama. But in places like the Deep South, you can generally make the assumption that the non-white vote is for Obama and the white vote is for Romney. Obviously you can't do that in the cities, but that's why the color there is more purple than pink.

So there are limitations to this color scheme, but not all that many. All things considered, it generates a pretty accurate and revealing picture of racial politics in America.