UUorld

We recently learned that there is an error when launching UUorld on some versions of Windows XP. The error is “Database Connection Error. Exiting.”

If you are receiving this error, we are working to get it fixed as quickly as possible. If you want, send us an email and we’ll keep you in the loop.

Note: We gathered this data from major media outlets as they posted it, and it is not necessarily reflective of the most current tabulation. For the most recent and official data we suggest Dave Leip’s Election Atlas. Any of his data can easily be imported into our software.

http://www.uselectionatlas.com

Also, please note that what follows is a somewhat detailed handling of patterns in election data. For a more general overview you may want to scroll down to the next couple of posts. If you are going to skip down the page, you may want to quickly look at the last four images of this post anyway because Obama’s victory in Indiana, shown there, is a real standout among the many images that follow.

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A prominent aspect of US election geography is that most urban areas favor Democrats and most rural areas favor Republicans. This past November 4th, while more overall counties voted Republican, Obama won because most of the most populated counties voted for him. We can see this pattern in the two images below. Flat counties in dark red are McCain victories, while all counties rising from the map are Obama victories, and the tallest and most blue are the places where Obama won the greatest percentage of the vote. With the purely color-coded map it is obvious how many more counties preferred McCain — all of the dark red ones. In the second image, it is much easier to see which areas favored Obama, and to what extent.

Arguably, a more interesting detail of the recent election is how, or rather where, Obama won that Kerry didn’t. We can begin to see where Obama gained votes by looking at voting trends from 2004 to 2008 in contrast with voting trends from 2000 to 2004. The images below use color to show the rate of change in the percentage of the vote going to the Democrat candidate. During each time period, blue counties have an increasing percentage of the vote leaning to Democrats, and in red counties the Democrat percentage is decreasing (which is to say red indicates an increase in Republican preference).

The image below shows that from 2000 to 2004 much of the Plains states, the South, and Utah, and Texas tended more Republican. In this case, blue counties are those that voted in a greater percentage for Kerry than they did for Gore.

Most of the next image down is blue, showing that most counties favored Obama against McCain to a greater extent than they had favored Kerry against Bush. The red counties preferred McCain more than they preferred Bush relative to their respective rivals. A band of counties stands out running from the Appalachians into Arkansas, also part of the panhandle of Florida, and western Louisiana. In addition we can see McCain’s home-state advantage — Arizona leaned slightly Republican this election in contrast with neighboring states.

We can extend the analysis further by looking more closely at a few regions and by adding another variable to the analysis. In the following images, colors will follow the same pattern as in the last two images, with red indicating an increase in the percentage vote for Republicans and blue as an increase in the percentage vote for Democrats. In addition height will show whether or not a county voted more than %50 for the running Democrat. All flat counties were Republican victories and all counties above the map were Democrat victories.

Specifically, in both of the next two images, color indicates the direction of change from 2004 to 2008, but in the first image, the counties above the map are counties Kerry won, and in the second image the counties above the map are counties Obama won. These settings mean that anywhere above the map in the first image and flat on the second image is a county that Obama lost. Obama’s relative losses are always red. By contrast, anywhere in blue, and above the map in the second image, but flat in the first image, is a county Obama added to the Democrat coalition.

Maybe you can see that Obama lost counties in parts of Florida and West Virginia and Kentucky and gained in North Carolina, Indiana, and other parts of Florida.  Don’t strain your eyes too much though, as we’ll take a closer look right away; first the nationwide images…

Looking more closely at the West we can see that Obama did broadly better than Kerry (shown by blue) whether or not the county was in aggregate a Democrat victory, and as noted earlier, McCain did slightly better than Bush in Arizona.

Moving east and focusing on the areas of Texas and West Louisiana where the Democrat share of the vote declined (in red), we can see that very few of these counties were won by Kerry because these areas are flat. By contrast some counties in Arkansas were won by Kerry (shown as elevation) but appear in red, which suggests Obama may have lost some of these counties that Kerry had won.

Looking from the west at Arkansas and into the Appalachians, we can see through a comparison of the next two images that some red counties switched from a majority favoring Kerry to a majority favoring McCain. In the first image we have counties above the map if Kerry won these counties. In the second image the counties above the map are counties Obama won. As a result, we know that Obama lost some counties that Kerry had won in this red band, but at the same time much of this band was Republican leaning to begin with and only became more so.

Looking from the south, we can see that Obama also lost a few counties that Kerry had won in Florida. In the second image, Jefferson Davis County stands out as an example of where Obama retained a majority of the vote despite winning a lesser share than Kerry. We can also see in this region that Obama increased the percentage vote won in places that already voted heavily Democrat.

We’ll now turn to examine a few states where Obama won new counties and earned these state’s electoral votes as a result. For example, this was the case in Florida. Obama lost counties in the panhandle but made up ground by winning other counties Kerry had not, a few of them being panhandle counties neighboring those he lost. The colors in the first image show the trend in voting from 2000 to 2004. In the second and third images, color indicates the trend direction from 2004 to 2008, and height shows, where Kerry won, and then where Obama won. Given the high population in Miami-Dade County (in the far south east and poping off the map in the final image), we can be sure it was important for Obama’s victory in the state, though the general blue trend of most counties is also notable.

A quick look at trends in Ohio shows us that Kerry and Obama gained ground in rather different counties, split along an east-west divide. The first image is the trend for 2000 to 2004. The second image is the trend from 2004 to 2008.

In North Carolina, we can see the trends 2000 to 2004 and then 2004 to 2008, just as above, except in North Carolina Obama’s gains were more consistent, improving the Democrat margin in most counties, matched by Kerry’s fairly consistent losses shown in the first image.

These widespread gains tipped the balance to gain the state for Obama. Below, colors remain as in the most recent image, showing where Obama gained ground, and height shows first where Kerry earned a majority, then where Obama was able to nudge above %50 of the vote. You may have to look closely to count them because mainly the differences are small, but every county that nudges off the map in the second image is a place that helped secure North Carolina for Obama.

Last, but possibly most striking, we’ll look at Indiana. These four images follow the same pattern as the last four. First, the trend 2000 to 2004. Second, the trend 2004 to 2008. Third we use height to show those counties won by Kerry. Fourth we use height to show those counties won by Obama.

We have collected and processed election results by county for the 2008 US Presidential elections. KML files depicting the elections are available here:

• Percent votes Democrat, by county. (KMZ)
• Percent votes Republican, by county (KMZ)

These files can be downloaded directly into Google Earth or other geo-browsers.

Democratic Counties

Republican Counties

If you run Windows and have the Google Earth plugin installed in your browser, you can also view the or KML files in EarthAtlas.

Please note that we currently do not have results by county for Alaska. This data was collected as it was posted by major media outlets. Some county-level data in the Northeast is approximated from preliminary town-level reporting. Also, we are aware of about ten towns and cities across the country that are not properly represented in these KML files.

For full election coverage and data sets, we recommend Dave Leip’s US Election Atlas. He provides very high quality election data packages and any data purchased from the Atlas can be loaded into UUorld.

We were very excited to get our hands on the new election data. The first thing we wanted to see was a video showing how voting patterns have changed from the 2000 Bush vs. Gore election through the 2004 Bush vs. Kerry election and to the 2008 Obama vs. McCain election. We were expecting a dramatic shift:

County Height = % Democratic Votes
Bluer Color = higher % Democratic Votes
Redder Color = higher % Republican Votes
Whiter Color = even

County Height = % Republican Votes
Bluer Color = higher % Democratic Votes
Redder Color = higher % Republican Votes
Whiter Color = even

There really has only been a slightly perceptible shift in voting patterns over the last 8 years and 3 elections. I had to speed up the clock dramatically just to make the change visible.

The next two images are colored by rate of change from one party to another.

Blue = Movement from Republican to Democrat
Red = Movement from Democrat to Republican
White = No change
Height = % Republican votes

Rate of change between the 2000 Bush vs. Gore Election and the 2004 Bush vs. Kerry Election:

Rate of Change between the 2004 Bush vs. Kerry Election and the 2008 Obama vs. McCain Election:

Now we see a more dramatic shift. Barring a swathe of Southern and Appalachian counties which became more Republican, most of the counties either stayed the same or became more Democratic.

Our engine allows us to export KML files, several of which can be loaded simultaneously into Google Earth. In the following example, I created and imported two region lists: one for the counties won by Bush, and one for counties won by Kerry, in the 2004 presidential election. I loaded data on poverty rates, with the variables scaled as percentiles, and removed all but the top half of counties, leaving only those counties over the 50th percentile.

I made two new color spectra: one running from bright red to pale red, and the other from bright blue to pale blue. Finally, I used the blue colors for Kerry voters and red colors for Bush voters, such that counties in brighter colors and with taller extrusions represent the poorest counties that voted for the given candidate; those that are paler and shorter are less poor counties (although still poorer than average).

I exported the two studies as KML files. Here are the results…

First, the images in UUorld before export to KML:

Next, both KML files loaded into Google Earth…

Obviously in either mapping engine it is easy to zoom in on different regions for a closer look. In this case, using Google Earth, it is striking how the most poor counties in the US seem to vote Republican or Democrat in clusters. For example, around Jacksonville, Florida and in southwestern Kentucky some of the poorest counties in the nation favored Bush, while just west of Jacksonville and in central to eastern Kentucky Kerry was favored. See below.

And for reference, here is the western half of the country…

This last image is shot from the Northeast and I am compelled to wonder if it somehow captures the perspective of New Englanders when they think of poverty across the rest of the country.

We will be making similar images of the results from the recent election just as soon as we process the data. Also, for more images showing an experimental analysis on poverty and politics in the 2000 and 2004 elections, take a look here:

Elections and Poverty: Visual Analysis.

In the following images we can see that the centers of cities are older, shown as greener; and the suburbs are newer, shown in red. This makes sense, but it is one more case where a picture can help anchor what is already known. In addition, while we may know by intuition that suburbs have newer homes than the centers of cities, we may not know which suburbs are the newest unless we consult a map. Below we will see a number of patterns based on average housing unit ages by zip code.

San Francisco, and the Bay Area:

Washington D.C. Metro Area:

Chicago Metro Area:

In the next two images, we can compare two “twin cities” and hazard a guess about which of the two dyads are more fluidly connected. In the first image, it appears that Dallas and Fort Worth have two separate cores; whereas Minneapolis and St. Paul appear as a single oblong city.

Dallas and Fort Worth:

Minneapolis and St. Paul:

Looking at New York City below, we can see, as we would expect, that most of the city, and even the surrounding metro area, is rather old in comparison with only a few outlying patches, mainly on Long Island, that have seen more recent development…

Looking more closely at Manhattan, we can see that on average the Upper West Side has older houses, darker green, than the Upper East Side…

How old is your neighborhood?

We’ve been preparing for a visual analysis of this year’s election results by practicing with 2000 and 2004 election data. Our objective was to see how demographic and economic trends compare with or amplify presidential voting patterns.

Click here to go directly to sample images.

The work has been exploratory more than anything, and though the images have been impressive, we have held back from drawing conclusions from this first assessment. We enjoyed exploring the data and building new tools for rescaling and connecting statistics, and now we are opening up the effort to other observers.

As a window into the work, we are posting a bundle of images that show poverty rate crossed with percentage of votes for Bush, Kerry, and Gore in a given county. A description of the methods can be found at the bottom of the sample images page.

We also have more than 60 other crossed variables available on our Data Portal. Look for the set tag “UUorld Election Package I.”

We have recently partnered with Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.

http://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/uuorld.php

Anyone who buys data there can export those statistics for easy import into the UUorld mapping engine. In addition, we are offering a rebate of $20 on the commercial version of our software for anyone who buys data from the Election Atlas. Just send us a valid record of purchase from the Atlas, buy the commercial version from our site, and we’ll refund $20 from the software purchase.

The main Election Atlas page: http://uselectionatlas.org/