5 ms·

Purple America Has All but Disappeared

17 points by mrjaeger 10y ago

thinkmilitant 10y ago
I can't help but wonder how much of this is just the evidence of rampant gerrymandering.
undersuit 10y ago
I don't understand. The author is insisting on Twitter that gerrymandering isn't involved, "the boundaries of America's counties didn't change since 1992." So when did Electoral Districts become inconsequential?
- pc2g4d 10y ago
  They're not inconsequential, but the analysis they did seems to have been in terms of counties, not districts, which would insulate their results from being explained simply as gerrymandering.
jrnichols 10y ago
Everyone wants to blame gerrymandering, but how does that affect presidential votes? I wouldn't think that it does. Your local district doesn't dictate who your presidential vote is for. "President Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton was among the narrowest in history," goes to show image showing that a huge amount of counties voted for Trump by more than 20 points Hmm.
- Terr_ 10y ago
  > Everyone wants to blame gerrymandering For bizarre Congressional outcomes, yes. That's not new. The article does not mention gerrymandering at all. Districts just happen to be the most-granular level of voting-data most folks have to work with, and when they get redrawn you need to do something to help compare elections from before and after the redraw. > "President Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton was among the narrowest in history," Well, yeah. That's not new news either. [0] > image showing that a huge amount of counties No, it shows a large land area of counties. It doesn't tally up the number of discrete counties, nor is it adjusted for their wildly varying populations. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/swing-state-margins/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-electi...
- tdb7893 10y ago
  I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic but the election victory was narrow. The population of the country isn't uniform.

17 points by mrjaeger 10y ago

I can't help but wonder how much of this is just the evidence of rampant gerrymandering.

I don't understand. The author is insisting on Twitter that gerrymandering isn't involved, "the boundaries of America's counties didn't change since 1992." So when did Electoral Districts become inconsequential?

pc2g4d 10y ago
They're not inconsequential, but the analysis they did seems to have been in terms of counties, not districts, which would insulate their results from being explained simply as gerrymandering.

jrnichols 10y ago

Everyone wants to blame gerrymandering, but how does that affect presidential votes? I wouldn't think that it does. Your local district doesn't dictate who your presidential vote is for. "President Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton was among the narrowest in history," goes to show image showing that a huge amount of counties voted for Trump by more than 20 points Hmm.

Terr_ 10y ago
> Everyone wants to blame gerrymandering For bizarre Congressional outcomes, yes. That's not new. The article does not mention gerrymandering at all. Districts just happen to be the most-granular level of voting-data most folks have to work with, and when they get redrawn you need to do something to help compare elections from before and after the redraw. > "President Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton was among the narrowest in history," Well, yeah. That's not new news either. [0] > image showing that a huge amount of counties No, it shows a large land area of counties. It doesn't tally up the number of discrete counties, nor is it adjusted for their wildly varying populations. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/swing-state-margins/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-electi...
tdb7893 10y ago
I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic but the election victory was narrow. The population of the country isn't uniform.