The Best Red-Blue Map Out There

The first US map colored for partisan leaning I started showing here is the one with just the counties, colored either red or blue:

( 2020 United States presidential election results map by county )

But the main problem with these maps is they do not show the huge population density differences of the counties.

As a former mapmaker , technical illustrator, and computer graphics programmer, I got kinda obsessed with finding the best map that does not have this problem.

Here it is:

( Dot Density Map for the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election )

by Kenneth Field

You notice immediately that the red counties in the Great Plains and Rockies and other sparsely populated places no longer erroneously make America look much redder than it is.

Here are the details about how the map was made:

Experiments with dot density – Part One -by Kenneth Field

Experiments with dot density – Part Two -by Kenneth Field

…I understand these two articles because I have studied engineering and mapmaking. BUT, I am sure they are very confusing to the average Joe.

Here are the basics:

Dense urban patches get 50% of a county’s votes, urban patches 35%, rural patches 15%, and uninhabited patches, such as lakes and nature preserves, 0%.

Here is my version of Field’s map with the state outlines and my proposed nations added:

( 2020 pres election dot map -highest resolution uploadable to blog )

The full-width map here on this blog is reduced in resolution, but when I use the map in posts about certain proposed new nations or about specific states or regions, I will try to use the highest resolution closeups.

Here is an example:

( example closeup )

-And, here is the link you will go to when looking at the map, to get even more information about counties you see:

NBC News Election Results 2020

Click on “State results” near the top, to choose a state, then hover over a county to see exactly what the Trump v Biden numbers were.

—————–

P. S. :

There is one thing I really don’t like about the maps I just introduced…

Cities in the US tend to be blue, but the cities in these maps ALL look a very dark blue-purple that says nothing about how blue over red they actually are. This is because the resolution causes too much overlap of dots. Cities that were maybe 55% Biden look just like ones that were 80% Biden.

I found out though that if I go to the INTERACTIVE version of Field’s map, this problem is not true, if I zoom in to the maximum.

Here is what the Columbus-Dayton area of Ohio looks like on the interactive map zoomed in fully:

And here is what it looks like in all the non-interactive maps:

The upper map is MUCH clearer about how blue Columbus voted. The dense urban patches still become very dark areas, but the patches that are just urban but not dense urban do not black out this way. This is much better but not perfect, as far as portraying cities goes. But, the rural areas, which should be reddish like in the lower map, just look white. So, what shows the rural accurately shows the urban inaccurately and vice versa.

So there are no perfect, or even close to perfect maps.

I am still glad I discovered this about maximum zoom on the interactive map.

Oh, and before I close, I need to mention another great thing about the interactive version of Field’s map. -You can click anywhere on it to get the actual Trump and Biden numbers for the county you clicked on, just like you can do on the NBC News state maps.

New Harmony (disunion) may soon be the only way forward

June 28th, 2022
Mike Monett

Here is where we are:

1. The Supreme Court after Trump added the three extremist judges that completed the ultra right theocratic supermajority, is the monster we all feared it would be. The extremist court is committed to overturning all the progress America has made, at least to before the New Deal, and probably earlier than that. The huge majority of Americans who are not going to tolerate being ruled over by this court are going to shed that tyranny one way or the other.

2. The Republican party is now a fully and openly fascist terrorist cult. Although only about a third of the US population overall fully embrace them, they dominate the Senate because the rural states are solidly Republican. So the Senate now is just an extension of the Supreme Court dictatorship.

3. The US House of Representatives is less infected by Republican extremism than the Senate, but it too is skewed toward the Republicans, because extreme gerrymandering since 2010, which the Supreme Court refused to make illegal, has made the House also unrepresentative of the American population.

4. As for the Executive Branch, The Electoral College, like the Senate, overly favors rural states, and thus Republicans and thus right wing extremism. And, the Republican Party is committed to voter suppression, election nullification, and other un-democratic tactics, which will endanger ALL elections, but especially our Presidential elections.

5. Also, because of the Supreme Court decisions that money is speech, and because the wealthy favor the extremist Republican party, every election campaign is skewed even MORE toward Republicans by campaign spending imbalances.

These extreme disadvantages are only offset by ONE thing, the strength in numbers of Americans alarmed by them and wanting back the prosperous democracy they have destroyed.

But it is obvious that the disadvantages have become so extreme that the 2022 midterm elections are our last hope to ever overcome them.

So, on November 9th, the day after the 2022 midterm election, unless the opposition to the fascist Republican Party, the Democrats, have done well, the governors of America's 15 solidly Democratic states must come together in favor of a breakup of the United States. This will be necessary, because disunion will allow from 114 million to 250 million of America's 331 million citizens to escape the Supreme Court-Republican Party dictatorship that will be rapidly consolidating it's hold after November 8th.

I have named this disunion goal, which the governors will begin working toward, New Harmony.

This website is where I will further develop the New Harmony idea. I will also be asking, every day, for others to comment, criticize, and post content here.

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