Mapping the Election

We've all seen the map of the red and blue states, but have you seen the map of the red and blue counties?

Here's the USA Today map of red and blue counties from the 2000 election.

If you look on the USA today page where these maps are they tell you that in 2000 Bush carried 2,439 counties to 674 for Gore. They don't yet have statistics for the numbers for this year, however they do say the following:

Square miles of counties won

Bush 2,432,603 - Gore 577,029

Population (1999) of counties won

Bush 148,000,000 - Gore 133,000,000

Counties won by less than 5 percentage points

Bush 229 - Gore 175

Now, here's the USA Today map of red and blue counties from the 2004 election:In 2004 we have the following stats:

Square miles of counties won

Bush 3.28 million - Kerry 741,000

Population (2003) of
counties won

Bush 150,9 million - Kerry 103.6 million

Counties won by less than 5 percentage points

Bush 162 - Kerry 131

I'm still trying to figure out where they got their figures for square miles. If you look at their stats it appears that somehow the United States acquired about a million extra square miles of territory between 2000 and 2004. I'm sure there's an explanation for what they did here, I just dont know what it is. Bottom line though, you can see that Bush made some gains over the last four years. But the question, as always is, what do these things mean. Here's a few observations.

Notice that, though California is a solid blue state that, geographically speaking, the blue Californians are all on the coast. The vast majority of the area of California is red. The same goes for Oregon and Washington state. Even in the blue states of New England there are vast swatches of land that are red. Pennsylvania, which went into the Kerry column is almost totally red, except for major population centers like Philadelphia.

This illustrates the things that Hugh Hewitt and Os Guinness have been telling us for some years now. The centers of cultural power in the United States are Washington DC, New York City, and Los Angeles. Los Angeles, and the whole Southern California area, along with DC and NY (I suppose you could include cities like Boston, Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia in this, maybe on a second tier) have much denser populations and thus they have a cultural and political weight that is all out of proportion to their geographic size. Hugh and Os and others have been telling Christians that, if we want to make an impact on America we've got to influence these major cultural centers. This illustrates it - in a nation where Bush wins 75% of the counties, the population of the 25% he didn't win is nearly enough to make him lose the election. If Chrisitans want to impact the politics and culture of our country they need to flock to these majory population and cultural centers.

By the way, my comments assumed that Bush got most of the evangelical Christian vote. I do want to issue the standard caveat here that I recognize that there are many fine Christians who didn't vote for him and who are happily blue. Still, it's safe to say that the vast majority of evangelical Christians went Bush's way.

If this is true then I really think conservatives have every reason to be heartened by the whole thing. But I also hope it won't cause conservatives in general, and Christians in particular to take on an "in your face" attitude about the whole thing. I also hope it won't cause Christians to assume that, just because the vast majority of the country is red, that "red = Christian" or "conservative = Christian."

For a good example of how the left is taking this, check out this map from Matthew Yglesias. If you read Matthew's post from which this picture is taken you can see that he is not happy at all about this state of affairs, and this is a definite slam against Christians. I've been around enough conservatives and Christians to know that there are lots of them out there who will look at this and accuse Matt of just being a sore loser and who will use very conciliatory rhetoric like "don't let the door hit you on the way out to Canada." I hope we don't fall into this. Though I disagree with just about everything Matt says, he's a thoughtful writer, as his popularity in the blogosphere shows. And, he represents alot of the people we interact with on a daily basis. I would remind Christians who would bow up upon reading this map and post from Matthew that there are some definite biblical directives for dealing with those who malign us, and they don't include retaliation, arrogance, or insults. Healing the chasm between us isn't going to happen through hurling invective, nor will such invective please the God we follow.

One of the better election maps I have seen comes from MSNBC and I found this on the Social Tonic blog. This is a good reminder that the red and blue maps don't tell the whole story. It's probably more accurate to say that the US is made up of several shades of purple than to see it as neatly divided between red and blue.

So, while the USA Today maps and the one from Matthew Yglesias give the impression that we live in a red and blue (or pink and green) world where red (i.e. conservative) predominates, let's remember that they don't tell the whole story. The communities we live in are more purple than anything else. And, for Christians, our goals can't be described using red, blue and purple political categories. We're after the hearts of men and women. For one thing, even though I'm solidly in the red category I'm under no illusion that the Republican party embraces all of my concerns and I'm also persuaded that my blue friends arent' all as thoughtless as we red folks think they are. But my main concern is that, if our battle is focused on changing people from blue or purple to a solid political red, then Christ will be completely colored over, so that we don't even see Him in the picture. We are called to win the hearts of people to Christ, no matter what political color they are.

Comments

[heather]

i wonder if we can do a little better in analyzing this statistic in the red/blue map?

if we look at the geographical areas that are blue, and consider the make-up of those communities, we might have an inkling as to why they voted democratic, and possibly against an evangelical president.

possibly we could find these blue areas are more densely and diversly populated. and the red areas less densely populated by land-owning people of homogenous make-up.

i think one could dig a bit deeper, and reveal some other interesting perspectives as to why those who voted 'blue' did.

if christians, as you suggest, want to make an impact on those blue areas, they need to do more than show up in those areas- they need to understand the needs and concerns of people who live in those dense and diverse areas.

i think there's a depressing amount of people who've voted for bush, thinking they were voting for his platform of family values when so maany of his policies are directly de-valuing family.

the best example i can give is my brother who works in the postal service in omaha (which voted overwhelmingly for bush). he is very concerned about bush's plans to tighten up the postal service which largely include pinching the people- increasing the amount of part-time staff, stopping full-time staff who would require pensions, etc. the US gets great value for money in their postal service. still 32 cents? wow!

but his colleagues felt that this issue was not of voting importance, surely it never was discussed. they were be-dazzled by a war-loving mantra of good vs evil, and said they wanted to vote for bush to help spread 'family values' over the world.

it seems to me the chasm is getting ever-wider, and the moderates are going to be marginalized now, taking the baton from the christian-right.

i just hope the christian evangelical people who get in power have the compassion to look at the policies of the republican party, and really ask what kind of value it places on people over corporations.

maybe they'd be better off in a third party? the republican suit is looking like a wolf-in-sheeps-clothing.

[Ken]

Check the ratio of welfare bums, trust-fund kiddies, C*E*L*E*B*R*I*T*I*E*S, lawyers, and perpetual students to people. I think you'll find a correlation.

[heather]

LOL. insightful. thanks.

top quality debate there, ken.

[super_math_geek]

The reason that people in 25% of the land area in this country can affect the election moreso than the other 75% is simply because that's where most people live. Would you suggest that Alaska be given considerably more power to choose the President of the United States than New York, when New York contains about 20 times the people in Alaska?

[David Wayne]

s_m_g - I was offering that more as observation than a complaint. I don't disagree with what you have said.

[heather]

there's a good debate on this subject over here:
http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/000955.html#more

i wouldn't have posted my half-rambling if i had read that first.

the comments are great there; and they are analyzing population data as well as economics. here's one stunning point: (added by Peter)

"I have also found it interesting to compare data on per capita dollar returns from federal taxes (available from the Tax Foundation at taxfoundation.org) with the state-by-state red/blue map. Surprisingly, blue states (considered "liberal") tend to contribute more in federal taxes than they receive in federal largess, whereas the red states (considered to be "conservative" and against big government) tend to receive more from the federal government than they contribute. In other words, via their federal taxes, the folks in blue states like
Connecticut and Massachusetts are effectively subsidizing the folks in red states like Alaska and Montana."

anywho, it's only worth debating if we take it seriously. i'm from an blue area, and i never met a single trust fund baby or celebrity. not really sure what ken's on about. :/