Today is Super Tuesday – states that collectively account for about 33% of the US population vote today in primaries (and one caucus), including the large states of New York, Ohio, and California. Massachusetts also votes today. The election here is a modified open primary (meaning that “Unenrolled” voters, i.e. Independents, can vote in either party’s primary), I headed off to the polls to cast my ballot – this time in the democratic presidential primary (I will resubmit my voter registration card to change my registration back to unenrolled shortly). Not many people at the polls when I voted – and it was a spectacular day, weatherwise, here in eastern Massachusetts (in the 60s Farenheit! whoa!). I cast my ballot uneventfully into the optical scanning machine and headed out. Most the major Democratic candidates were still on the ballot, including those that dropped out early, such as Gephardt. Waiting now to see how the results turn out.
Author Archives: leip
Happy Leap Day
Happy Leip, err Leap Day!
Bellwethers in Wisconsin
There is an article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today titled Racine County voters seem to know how to pick ’em. The author, Tom Kertscher, contacted me and used the Atlas for his research. While Racine County is not a 100% bellwether like those covered on the bellwether page (Racine incorrectly voted for Gerald Ford in 1976), it did vote for the winning national candidate in every other election between 1960 and 2000.
Wisconsin Primary
The Wisconsin Primary turned out to be more competitive than expected. In my opinion, a real problem with the 2004 Democratic Primary schedule has been the crowded nature of the contests. The schedule gives little time for the candidates to campaign in each state and little time for the voters to size-up those seeking the Democratic nomination. In Wisconsin, a single primary contested by multiple candidates resulted in a much closer result. Kerry “wins” the contest with 39.7% of the vote, followed by Edwards at 34.3% and Dean at 18.3%. The county map shown here is color-coded with red for Kerry and green for Edwards – with the various shades showing percenage of the vote in decades (>30%, >40%, etc.) Note that even though Kerry “wins”, he shares the delegates with the top three candidates (those that receive more than 15% in any of the congressional districts and state-wide at large). The current result predicts 30 delegates for Kerry to 24 for Edwards and 13 for Dean. Edwards won in two of the eight congressional districts (the first and fifth) and Kerry wins the remainder.
From a regional point-of-view, Kerry was the strongest in the north-west of the state and his best county was Menominee (62.7% – it is also the home of the Menominee Native American Tribe). Edwards had a better showing in the counties to the north and west of Milwaukee. His best county was Waukesha with 42% of the vote. Dean did not win a single county – likely a decidely disappointing result – and received the greatest percentage of votes in Douglas and Portage Counties (about 25%).
Happy Presidents’ Day
Happy Presidents’ Day everyone!
Of Red and Blue
The New York Times has published an article titled One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State. It is an interesting read with regard to the recent adoption of the terminology of “Red States” and “Blue States” to refer to whether the states were won by the Republicans or Democrats in the 2000 election respectively. I was actually contacted by the author of this article last week with the question of how I chose my color representation for the Republicans and Democrats (However, I wasn’t actually quoted in the article). For readers of the forum or FAQ, the reasons are well known. From my point of view, the colors do not represent candidates or parties, but rather data (in this case, votes for a particular candidate). Looking at the maps from an analytical perspective, the meaning is discerned from the key and one should not get hung up on the selection of colors, for they are only a representation of the data and no other symbolism should be read into the presentation. I’m sure, however, that I will continue to receive copious quantities of email with regard to color selection.
The Great Game of Politics
I was contacted by Dick Stoken last summer with a request for permission to use some of the data presented on uselectionatlas.org in his new book, The Great Game of Politics – Why We Elect Whom We Elect. I gladly granted and received my copy of the book this week. I’ll comment after I finish reading it. If you like, you can get a copy from Barnes & Noble
Atlas on CD
I’ve had the suggestion of a CD (compact disk) version of the Atlas on the store page for some time. Today, it is finally available! The Atlas CD version is the html version of the site with all the national maps from 1789 through 2000, the state county maps from 1960 through 2000, county-level data table from 1960-2000, CD maps for 2000, etc. The CD also includes the Certificate of Ascertainment and Certificate of Vote for each state in 2000 (from the National Archives and Records Administration). Bonus features on the disk include super larger versions of the national county maps (1960 through 2000) in Mercator Projection (2511 x 1350 pixels) and also national county maps in Lambert Conical Projection (1440 x 890 pixels). The CD may be purchased through the Cafe Press store. The cover artwork is courtesy of my good friend, Sean Moyer, over at The Chrome Cow. He is quite an accomplished computer artist.
Site Membership
Check out the new homepage! In addition, I have enabled the new site membership feature. I have been working this last year on creating a very detailed, versatile, database-driven site to provide even more information with greater flexibility. See the members information page for details on exactly what new data and features are available. I am asking for financial help to cover the increasing cost of bandwidth usage (some of the new features significantly increase bandwidth requirements when viewing site pages). The financial help is in the form of membership dues in exchange for access to these features. Alternatively, if you don’t want to pay, there is also the option to become a contributing member – where access is granted in exchange for donating (in some form such as data or code) to the site. Note that I am not removing any of the currently-available features. These will remain freely accessible to everyone. Enjoy!
Iowa Caucus Maps Posted
I have finally compiled and uploaded the county and congressional district results for the 2004 Iowa Caucus. Kerry is purple, Edwards is red, and Dean is green (with shades of each color representing the strength of the popular-vote win (in decades). The results are from the percentage listings at the Des Moines Register (It looks like the CNN data at the county level are wrong). Kerry and Edwards split the counties almost evenly with Kerry winning in three of the five congressional districts. Dean wins two counties – including Jefferson, the home of the University of Management (formerly Maharishi International University). This is the home county of John Hagelin of the Natural Law party, where he received 16% in 2000. There are several ties, noted by the striped shading – including a three-way tie between Dean, Edwards, and Kerry in Fremont County (located in the lower-left corner).