Why we love It

Who won the election and was it by a landslide or a thin margin? We love that this map lets you zoom into regions within each state to investigate variation hidden within final totals and see voting patterns along with close calls. A map like this would be valuable to politicians looking for battleground areas, or anyone who wants to see how people vote from city to city.

Why it works

This map gives an in-depth look at the 2008 US presidential election. We’ve all seen a “red state, blue state” map, but what sets this one apart is that it shows areas where the vote was close, highlighted in white. These “on the bubble” areas are where a campaign manager might want to invest more energy. 

Important steps

Make it understandable

Use ArcMap to create this map. By querying the data, you can create separate layers to show who won each precinct.

Base symbol size on votes

The size of the symbol is based on the number of votes, using graduated symbols.

Scale for best usage

Once the map is working well at the target scale (in this case, 1:576,000), you can add more map layers to make the map the best it can be at each scale.

Show off your map

Create a map service (cached tiles) and make it public.

Requirements

Data and software

Add voting district boundaries and numerical data to show how far locations are from a middle value (ex. 50% of the popular vote). Make a similar map using numeric data naturally falling on either side of an important breakpoint. Software used: ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Online.

Analysis

We had to decide what could be considered a close vote at the precinct level. Campaign organisers often pay close attention to any precinct where their party won or lost by 5% or less. The 5% figure was used to visually call out the “on the bubble” precincts.

Time

It should take you one day for setup and one day for caching.

Tips and tricks

Add double meaning symbols

By adding a white line around red and blue circles to show places that are close to a 50% voter turnout, we can show a second and important piece of information. Symbols that say two things are called “bivariate.”

Resources

More details about this app

More details about this map

Stanford Election Atlas maps votes, polling place by polling place

Stanford Election Atlas

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Map Author

Jim Herries

Applied geographer, map curator for Living Atlas of the World and Urban Observatory. I work with talented people to make better maps by eliminating the noise and increasing the signal.

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