I love the maps. Whenever I hear, "You liberals don't get it" or hear how America is divided, this map will remind me that things were closer than they like to think. The "Red" States had blue voters and vice-versa. Thanks for the visual.

Posted by: Illuminatus | Nov 5, 2004 2:09:20 PM

This is definitely an interesting map. What would be really interesting to see would be this same concept on a per-county basis.
Or you could show the same information using the same style as the Washington Post's margin of victory by county map but use percents instead of number of votes.
Does anyone know of anything like that out there?

Posted by: Illinoisan | Nov 5, 2004 2:33:48 PM

A more instructive picture is the county by county vote. You can google it and see. Large red blocks in blue states. You can see Kerry won in blue states largely because of big urban areas in those states. Bush won more votes in blue states this year than in 2k. Part of the reason why his popular vote tally was so high.

Posted by: Dru | Nov 7, 2004 6:58:52 PM

Loved your map. It has been so tough being a blue gal in a red state. It's good to see my state is actually purple! This may be my first step in overcoming my depression.

Posted by: Carol | Nov 8, 2004 1:23:28 AM

Interesting... it do think it would mean more if we condcuted a poll that included those voters who did not bother to vote because they determined that their vote would not change the electoral college delegates in their state.

In other words: down with the electoral college!

Posted by: Stuart | Nov 8, 2004 10:53:26 AM

Great Map. I think I'm going to try to tackle the county by county purple map. It's going to be a lot of work, but fun the same.

And to Stuart, if it weren't for the electoral college, I'd argue that the number of voters would actually go down. How often do you think a candidate would go to New Mexico, or to Iowa, to campaign when he'd (she'd) be better served up in New York City or Los Angeles, where there are so many more voters? You'd never see a candidate in smaller states, especially in smaller "close" states (like Iowa and New Mexico) because the difference in votes there could be made up much more easily in larger cities. In the end, the interests of the smaller states would never be met. Because those states would no longer make a difference, their voters would stay home...i.e. less over all voters. Now you could argue that in places like New York City and Los Angeles, voters would turn out in numbers large enough to offset those who are staying home in the smaller states. We'd have to wait and see. At any rate, at most it would be a wash and the same number of people would turn out as do now. Only they would just be from different places.

Colorado nearly marginalized itself with their proposition to divide their 9 electoral votes to the candidates based on the percentage they received. Had it passed, the state would forever go 5-4 for one candidate over the other. A campaign stop to Colorado would have become less useful for a candidate than a stop in Delaware would have been. Because Colorado matters, with its 9 electoral votes, candidates will continue to care about the state, and continue to go there. By the way, I'm from Delaware, and actually my vote there carries more weight than someone's vote from California. Though California has roughly 53 times the number of people than does Delaware, California only has roughly 18 times the number of electoral votes as does Delaware. So my vote actually has more weight, as does every vote proportionally from a smaller state compared to a larger, than does one from California!

J

Posted by: John | Nov 13, 2004 9:24:55 PM

I am from Colorado and I oppose the Electoral College. All the political attention we recieved was not useful. Each visit by the candidates cost our cities roughly $20,000 to $100,000 in security costs that we cannot afford since we are in a budget crunch. Also we could find no sanctuary from the relentless barage of negative attack ads in our mail, newspapers, television, radio and churchs. An accurate reflection of our state is more important that attention.

Posted by: Nita | Nov 15, 2004 3:20:03 PM