3/17/2024 0 Comments Nytime election mapOn the map, these states are bright blue and bright red. When I look at Wyoming or Alabama, I see states in which everybody will vote for Trump. When I look at New York or California on an electoral college map, I see states in which everybody will vote for Clinton. That last map really made me think about stereotypes about red states and blue states. That last map shows what I’m arguing for: A map that doesn’t just show the states colored in by the winner, but that shows ALL votes–even the ones that didn’t lead to the win of a candidate in that state. In fact, I wanted to understand it so well that I build myself an explainer. But then I’d scroll down to the popular vote and would be confronted with a really, REALLY close forecast. I would look at the “chance of winning” bar or the cartograms and saw at least three quarter of the space colored in blue. But I didn’t really understand what I saw there. I was hugely invested, sure: I got the NYT Election Forecast newsletter and, like most of you, was on FiveThirtyEight multiple times a day. Until a month ago, I didn’t understand the US election system. I have four compelling reasons for doing so! Let me start the first one with an embarrassing confession. Today I want to argue in favor of mapping the popular vote. ![]() Instead of asking “HOW do we want to display the electoral votes?”, we should first ask “WHAT do we want to map, and WHY?” The electoral college votes and the chance of winning got lots of love in this election. They mostly discuss the different ways to display the electoral votes: Cartogram? Physical map? 3D?īut I think we should go one step up. So many blog posts have been written about the challenges that come with displaying election results on a map of a country with extreme different population density, by the Financial Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The National Geographic. These people did an amazing, innovative job, and seeing their work made me very happy. They barely slept, and it was all worth it. Please note that most of the displayed data are FiveThirtyEight forecasts from three weeks before the election, NOT the final election results.īefore I start, I want to give a big shout-out to all graphics reporter, visual journalists, data vis designer, news developer and however the call themselves, who have worked on election graphics and maps in the last weeks and months. ![]() I updated this blog post with a rough transcript of a talk I gave at the GeoNYC Meetup at the 14th of November, 2016.
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