A Detailed Look at the US Electorate

Brian T. Lynch, MSW

This is a glimpse of a true, high resolution view of the makeup of the American electorate from 2012. It is probably still valid today. What it tells me is just how bankrupt is the Democratic Party strategy of targeting only swing states. The quick and lazy way of targeting swing states to win elections, rather than building the party up from the roots, can only work for just so many election cycles.  Each cycle leaves more and more of the party faithful feeling abandoned and marginalized by their party. If the Democratic Party want to keep winning elections, especially state and local elections, it needs to treat each and every state Democrat as an important constituent of the party. What follows after the map is my original post. - (11/13/15)

THE REAL POLITICAL MAP OF AMERICA: DNEWS NUGGET

Analysis by Tracy Staedter 
Wed Nov 14, 2012 12:11 PM ET 

http://news.discovery.com/human/the-real-political-map-of-america-dnews-nugget-121114.html

The Real Political Map of America:

If you've seen any of the recent political maps showing which states voted for Romney and which states voted for Obama, you might be thinking, as I did, that there sure seems to be a great division in our country. That's because most of the maps we see show which party won the electoral votes. Other maps go a bit deeper and show which party won each county in a state. That helps provide a higher resolution.

But this latest map, created by Mark Newman of the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan looks at the popular vote. It mixes blue and red based on percentages of the popular vote. This visualization reveals that our country is not as divided as we might think. Not everyone in the south voted Republican and not everyone on the coasts voted Democrat. There are some surprisingly large splotches of blue in Texas and a fair amount of red in the East Coast. This map paints a more realistic picture of the country. via Gizmodo