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notspoon OP t1_iya6kr3 wrote

Source Made in R using Statebins and ggplot2!

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Fuck_Lasagna t1_iya8u6l wrote

What happened on Hawaii? Was it very Democratic to begin with?

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21Racr t1_iya9wxp wrote

I hate these types of pseudo-map visualizations because they distort geography horrifically. I mean, Minnesota, the northernmost contiguous state, is now south of several states? That’s just one problem.

Either use a map, or don’t. This is terrible data visualization.

−2

DuckDuckGoose42 t1_iyad67e wrote

How about a legend that explains what you legend means?

4% vote shift of Electoral College Votes is significant.

There is no such this as 'popular vote' for US President, that is a media made up item.

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jorsiem t1_iyae3sz wrote

Are these electoral votes or popular vote?

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Schnackenpfeffer t1_iyaf685 wrote

2016 was a particularly strong year for third partes. What would the comparison be like for 2012?

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JPAnalyst t1_iyag747 wrote

>There is no such this as 'popular vote' for US President, that is a media made up item.

There is absolutely a popular vote that exists and is a real thing. Just because it’s not the thing that matters most like electoral college doesn’t mean it’s “made up”.

Points decide winners and loser of football games, but yards are still a thing we count and analyze.

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ngfsmg t1_iyajr31 wrote

Two things: Hawaii voted highly democrat for Obama (he was born there) in 2008 and that effect has been fading, and Republicans in general improved in areas with a lot of non-white voters (Hawaii is the state with the least white people)

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DodgerWalker t1_iyalh4u wrote

I wrote a Python script where you can type in any two election years and it will give a map of the relative change in partisanship from the first year you put in to the second year. Note, however, that it is a relative change so e.g. Clinton and Biden both won Nevada by 2.8 points, but Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1, while Biden won it by 4.5, so Nevada moved 0 points in raw margin, but this shows up as -2.4 since that was the change relative to the national margins.

https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1MyV4K0m0dHywjSbz17qOE38ju8qauTH6?usp=sharing

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rodeler t1_iyamkuv wrote

NY's result does not surprise me. Even though it voted overwhelmingly for Biden, I can tell you anecdotally that I saw way more Trump banners, stickers, lawn signs, etc., than I did for Biden. This might be due to the palpable fear that was in the air of the possibility that Trump supporters would somehow retaliate against Biden supporters, however real or imagined it might have been.

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PBFT t1_iyb1ri2 wrote

It’s likely many people don’t feel the need to vote, so the results get skewed. Hawaii is perhaps the most blue-leaning state and Democrats I believe hold a supermajority at the state level.

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Rdan5112 t1_iyb2yz3 wrote

Looking at elections like this is messed up. Californias population is 65x as large as Wyoming. In some ways, it make as much sense to give Fresno its own box.

−8

benthib t1_iyb75xh wrote

Why is Democrat's a positive number and Republican a negative number in the legend? Wouldn't the red be "positive" also?

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Papancasudani t1_iybe2zb wrote

Loos like NJ got moved from the east coast to the Great Lakes region.

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kaizerdouken t1_iybie2h wrote

Mass media biased propaganda and several unfounded investigations worked their magic to kick Republicans out. 🫡

−9

secahtah t1_iybiho1 wrote

I can’t get over the fact that they put New Mexico next to Kansas though.

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Coachbelcher t1_iybkc6l wrote

The subtle bias of having the Republican shift be negative.

−7

bushman622 t1_iybkeve wrote

WI placement is killing me

16

PrimeNumbersby2 t1_iybl9jp wrote

It's a shame all the Governors of all states have to be voted in by a urban popular vote and not by a representative county vote so that all counties could have a voice. Also a shame that there's not another part of government that is powerful and gives a voice to all states, no matter how small.

3

leahjuu t1_iybmcmn wrote

While DC doesn’t have congressional representation, we still vote for the president! I’d be curious to know whether/how DC shifted, given that Hawaii (also very blue) went slightly more Republican. Interesting visualization though!

2

notspoon OP t1_iybodp8 wrote

It’s just the way the calculations and group by statements worked out, man. I don’t know what to tell you. In order to get the color scale to work properly someone had to be negative and someone had to be positive.

Blame the Phoenicians, or the Greeks, or the developers of R, for putting D over R in the alphabet.

Negative number shouldn’t imply negative connotations either. -1 isn’t evil! It’s just a number. 🤷‍♂️

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notspoon OP t1_iybor4s wrote

🤷‍♂️ I don’t know what to say to this. Next time I make a cartogram heatmap I’ll take the extra 30 seconds photoshop erase the negative sign. Promise.

Someone had to be negative for the color scale function, and D comes before R in the alphabet.

10

Droidatopia t1_iyby6ls wrote

As much as I abhor the constant whining about the electoral college, the popular vote still carries meaning.

A president who barely edges to an EC victory, but has a huge margin in the popular vote can lay claim to a bigger mandate than a president who wins a decisive EC victory, but only squeaks by with a slight popular vote win. And of course either of those scenarios are preferable to being president without winning the popular vote.

Perception matters in presidential politics.

The thing that annoys me about the popular vote whining is that people get confused and think that if a candidate won the popular vote, than that person would have been president if we used a popular vote system to elect presidents. That is absolutely an annoying fairy tale pushed by the media.

1

thewhizzle t1_iyc287p wrote

The more likely reason is that trump has cultivated a cult of personality whereas Biden hasn't. There's a reason why Jan 6 rioters were unironically waving both Trump and American flags while trying to overturn a legitimate election

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gylphin t1_iyc4q5b wrote

Where are you getting your data from?

NYS 2016 Hillary: 4.5 million (59.38%) Trump: 2.8 million (36.75%)

NYS 2020 Biden: 5.2 million +0.7 mil (60.87% +1.49%) Trump: 3.2 million +0.4 mil (37.74% +0.99%)

Overall a blue shift in NYS. Did you add working family party votes to the total (and I think biden also got other 3rd party lines in NY that year) or just raw dem votes? NYS has fusion voting so raw dem votes are not the total votes received - candidates run on and receive votes from multiple lines. *edited to make formatting look a little better

0

gylphin t1_iyc50cm wrote

It's a 4% increase in gop votes and a like 0.75% increase in dem votes - bc of weaker 3rd party candidates. Hawaii only sees like 500k voters a cycle so small changes can make a big difference. Biden gained 100k votes (266k->366k) in the state while trump gained about about 68k (128k->196k)- but due to the breakdown and fewer 3rd parties that translates to the above changes.

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MrMitchWeaver t1_iycr40q wrote

When you say "Republicans vs Democrats" in that order it suggests that Republicans are on the numerator or at the top of the color scale. However, the top is blue and there is no legend.

So is blue Democrat or republican?

Also is it a difference in percentage points or a percent increase?

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Twheezy01 t1_iycrjoy wrote

NY and Florida's congressional districts were gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. If it wasn't for that, it would have been a complete ass whooping

−1

TheSugarBowl105 t1_iydxv19 wrote

It’s called a political earthquake. Basically when the country isn’t doing great, people switch over the next petty in hope they’ll fix everything.

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