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FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

nytimes.com

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Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#11

Post by kevinnk »

dmix wrote: post #5

It's not surprising to see the swaying support from citizens. What I'm curious about is given its a mixed economy and given the scale of the government (making change difficult), how much variability/difference is there between what the two parties can accomplish? I wouldn't be surprised to see that difference is quite narrow (10%). Although it's hard to quantify this stuff.

I think you're right in the sense that the president doesn't really control things like the direction of the economy as much as most people think he does. However, I do think there are decisions that the president does have direct control over that have huge long term effects. For example, it's hard to imagine a Gore presidency would have had quite the same call to action in Iraq that the Bush presidency did, which really did have long term consequences on the economy and on the government as a whole.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#12

Post by jcdreads »

Dove wrote: post #8

I am always astonished by what an outlier DC is.

It is almost entirely big city. Most American cities, considered by themselves, would be over there on the left with Washington.

Here's a visualization of this; mostly bluer cities and mostly redder non-city:

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#13

Post by azernik »

netmau5 wrote: post #10
Dove wrote: post #8

I am always astonished by what an outlier DC is.

I'm not. If you ever visit, it's pretty clear where each economic group lives. Practically anyone with money who works in DC lives in VA or MD. DC has the highest ghetto per capita in the world.

It's not just the "ghetto" that votes Democratic - those suburbs are a major factor in the leftward swing of Virginia and Maryland over the last decade.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#15

Post by andyl »

crazypyro wrote: post #9
btilly wrote: post #4

I would love to be able to switch to a visualization where each state is tracked by color according to how it votes now . (Or even better, starting at a random date.) That would make the great long-term swap between Republicans and Democrats much more obvious. Yes, we can mouse-over. But you can't easily mouse-over, scroll, and keep the mouse-over going.

I wish we could click on a state and it would stay highlighted. That would be much easier, in my opinion.

Try clicking a state, then arrow-key up and down.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#16

Post by Dove »

jcdreads wrote: post #12
Dove wrote: post #8

I am always astonished by what an outlier DC is.

It is almost entirely big city. Most American cities, considered by themselves, would be over there on the left with Washington. Here's a visualization of this; mostly bluer cities and mostly redder non-city: http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

Yeah, I know cities tend to vote liberal, but DC has always seemed extreme to me, even accounting for that. I mean, I don't have data for how big cities vote in general, but I thought it was something like 70% liberal. A solid majority and dissenters.

But DC voted 93% Democrat in 2008. 93! That's not a majority. That's a consensus.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#17

Post by mbell »

It would be awesome if this could somehow incorporate relative positions of the parties over time, perhaps by 'waving' the center line left-right as well. For example it could be argued that republicans during Nixon's time were closer to middle of the road democrats of today in terms of overall platform.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#18

Post by rayiner »

ww520 wrote: post #14

This is an amazing data visualization for historic data. Very interesting to see how the states shifted over time. California was solidly GOP before Clinton, how did they lose to Democrat afterward?

Population boom in the urban areas of LA, SF, etc.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#19

Post by marshallp »

Of course, none of this actually matters anymore. The corporo-verlords have bought both parties. The only way is parliamentary system with proportional representation. This isn't a political statement, just that hackers should investigate how to hack the system into that form. One clever hack is being done by John Koza (inventor of genetic programming) to do away with the electoral college http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/about.php . Some more hacking is needed.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#20

Post by drivebyacct2 »

marshallp wrote: post #19

Of course, none of this actually matters anymore. The corporo-verlords have bought both parties. The only way is parliamentary system with proportional representation. This isn't a political statement, just that hackers should investigate how to hack the system into that form. One clever hack is being done by John Koza (inventor of genetic programming) to do away with the electoral college http://www.nationalpopularv…

Why do people love to act like both parties are the same? Is it just errant, broad pessimism?

I understand wanting more options or not liking either available option but they're not the same. They don't have the same values, beliefs, principles, policies or experiences. They have many things in common, but they're not the same and it's not useless to talk about them and their perception in the polls.

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