Maybe, but I think it’s a combination of things that are confusing my eye:

• There are probably too many different buckets, what happens if you cut the number in half? Do you lose relevant data for your story?
• The legend boxes of color are much bigger than the states that are colored. This makes it really hard to evaluate color density by eye.
• “No data” can’t be white on a chart like this or you are biasing the story. It should probably be a different palette completely (yellow?) if you are being more neutral.

What story you are trying to tell should dictate your choices.

Interesting plot, btw. Love that you are bringing original content to the sub.