The Washington Post assesses Democrat Doug Jones’s chances against Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate election next month by mapping three factors: the extent to which Moore underperformed Mitt Romney in 2012 (Moore ran for chief justice of Alabama in 2012 at the same time Romney ran for president), the racial makeup of Alabama’s precincts and the 2016 precinct-level election results.
Tag: USA
Guns and Voters
We’ve seen a lot of maps correlating election results with other demographic or geographic data, but SurveyMonkey’s exit polling on the correlation between politics and gun ownership seems particularly stark, particularly in the context of recent events. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, nothing predicted who you’d vote for more than whether you had a gun in the house. If only gun-owners voted, Trump would have swept 49 states; if only non-gun-owners voted, Clinton would have won at least 48.
“Over all, gun-owning households (roughly a third in America) backed Mr. Trump by 63 percent to 31 percent, while households without guns backed Mrs. Clinton, 65 percent to 30 percent, according to SurveyMonkey data,” the New York Times reported. “No other demographic characteristic created such a consistent geographic split.”
Mapping Mass Shootings
CityLab maps the geography of mass shootings in America since 1982, “both geographically and by number. ‘Mass shooting’ is defined as an incident during which four or more people are killed during a single attack in a public place, excluding the shooter. This is one of the more conservative counts—the data does not include shootings that took place during conventional crimes, like armed theft or gang violence.”
See also Vox’s collection of maps and infographics and Maps Mania’s roundup of gun violence maps.
Mapping Confederate Monuments
Politico maps the locations of Confederate monuments in the United States, and correlates their locations with where African-American populations are concentrated.
The majority of these symbols were dedicated between 1900 and 1920, when the South enacted Jim Crow laws aimed at resegregating society or discriminating against blacks. There was also a notable spike in new symbols during the height of the civil rights movement.
Among states with the highest proportion of African-Americans, Mississippi, whose population is 37 percent black, has more than 130 commemorations, while Louisiana, which is 32 percent black, is home to 91 symbols. Georgia, whose population is 30.5 percent black, has 175 monuments.
There’s an unstated implication there.
United Hates of America
For Geographical magazine, cartogrammer extraordinaire Benjamin Hennig maps the geography of hate groups in America, with a set of cartograms that show where each category of hate group—anti-Muslim, anti-LGBT, neo-Nazi, neo-Confederate, and so forth—is located.
A Map of the Ideological Leanings of U.S. Congressmen
Based on data from GovTrack, this map displays the ideological leanings of current (at the time) members of the U.S. House of Representatives by their district. “The data is based of numbers from 0-1. If the congressman is a 0 he is the most liberal in the House. If a congressman is at 1 then he is the most conservative. If the congressman is a 0.5 they are centrist. […] The most conservative congressman is Jeff Duncan, a Republican from South Carolina’s 3rd District. The most liberal congressman is Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California’s 13th District.”
Amtrak Before and After
Following up on this post about maps of cuts to Amtrak, here’s a visualization from Will Geary showing a week of Amtrak trips before and after the proposed budget cuts. [CityLab]
Mapping Amtrak Cuts
President Trump’s proposed budget would end funding for Amtrak’s long-distance passenger routes, leaving only the Northeast Corridor and state-funded lines. Maps of the lines that would be closed share the problems of Amtrak network maps in general. Take USA Today’s map from its 12 April article on the subject:
Like electoral maps that make large, less-populated areas look more important than densely populated areas, this map is somewhat deceptive: it distorts the extent of the cutbacks because it shows lines rather than trains. There are, for example, a lot more trains in the Northeast Corridor than run between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest (the daily Empire Builder). State-run services tend to have lots of lines and trains over short distances that are too small to see clearly on this map. Adding connecting services (which are usually bus routes) adds even more detail, and clutter, to a small map.
Cameron Booth, for his part, visualizes the proposed cuts by starting with his Amtrak Subway Map and greying out the lines that would be cut. This doesn’t solve the number-of-trains problem, but it does provide a clearer sense of what’s happening to the network.
Proposed budget could eliminate 15 long-distance Amtrak trains, which would leave the notionally "national" rail network looking like this: pic.twitter.com/OkBTsz8hCg
— Transit Maps (@transitmap) April 15, 2017
Previously: Cameron Booth’s Amtrak Subway Map.
Mapping Great Lakes Pollution
President Trump’s budget proposes eliminating the EPA’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. That fact is no doubt what’s behind two publications posting maps earlier this month, only a couple of days apart, showing the environmental stresses on the Great Lakes basin.
Canadian Geographic reposted a map from their July/August 2013 issue:
And the Washington Post included the following map in an article on the proposed elimination of two EPA programs (including the aforementioned Great Lakes Restoration Initiative):
Appraising the Eagle Map
On a recent episode of the PBS version of the Antiques Roadshow, Chris Lane appraised a copy of the 1833 Churchman Eagle Map of the United States at $25,000. On the Antiques Print Blog Lane explains how he arrived at that number, which some have thought was a bit on the high side. [WMS]
Mapping Bomb Threats Against Jewish Organizations
ProPublica is tracking—and mapping—bomb threats against Jewish organizations and community centers in the United States. As of this moment, there have been 133 threats against 99 locations since January 1st.
Mapping Safe Washrooms
In response to measures like North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which restricts access to public washrooms by transgender people, crowdsourced online maps of safe washrooms—places with unisex or gender-neutral washrooms, or that let transgender people use the washroom that matches their gender identity—have been created: Refuge Restrooms has both a list and a map view; Safe Bathrooms uses Google My Maps. These maps seem like the modern-day equivalent of The Negro Motorist Green Book for trans people. [WMS]
Mapping Where America Depends on Trade
The Washington Post maps the parts of the United States most dependent on trade—and thus most at risk if the Trump administration starts a trade war with the U.S.’s trading partners.
50 Fantasy States
50 Fantasy States is Chris Engelsma’s ongoing project to create fantasy-style maps of all 50 U.S. states. Six have been completed so far, including the above fantasy map of Alaska.
Duck Dynasty and Donald Trump
Last month the New York Times mapped the U.S. cultural divide by looking at television viewing preferences. More precisely, the geographic distribution of viewership for the 50 most-liked TV shows. The correlation between Duck Dynasty fandom and voting for Trump was higher than for any other show. More surprisingly, the show most correlated with voting for Clinton? Family Guy.