Election cartograms

Cartograms of the 2008 US election

Electoral college cartogram:

In the cartogram above, all states are represented by areas proportional to their votes in the electoral college. For example, California with 55 electors is eleven times the size of Nevada which has 5 votes. The colors represent the two leading political parties: (red=Republican, blue=Democratic).

You might be wondering why Nebraska appears in two different colors. John McCain won the 1st and 3rd congressional district as well as the overall majority in Nebraska. However, Barack Obama won the 2nd congressional district (Omaha and suburbs). Because Nebraska distributes electoral votes according to the Congressional District Method , McCain received four, Obama one of Nebraska's votes. Accordingly, 4/5 of Nebraska is red and 1/5 blue.

Cartogram of the US House of Representatives election 2008:

Each of the 435 congressional districts is rescaled to have the same area. The two white districts are Washington DC (only sends a non-voting delegate) and the 5th congressional district of Illinois (Rahm Emanuel resigned his seat to become the White House Chief of Staff; a successor will be elected on April 7).

Cartogram of the US senate after the 2008 election:

All states are equally large on the cartogram in proportion to the number of senators they have, two for each state. (Exception: DC is not represented in the US senate, but I left it as a white spot on the map for your orientation.) One seat in Minnesota remains vacant for the time being; the race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken is still too close to call (17 Jan, 2009).

You can find more election cartograms on Mark Newman's web site.