We’re going to spend some time over the next few weeks talking about elections here in the US – a topic of tremendous and current importance. There are a number of things that we might talk about but I’m certainly planning to cover the following topics:
- Predicting simple elections
- Simulating US Presidential Elections
- Gerrymandering
- Voter access
Illustrations
Here are some of the kinds of images we’ll be looking at, starting with something that’s currently in the news!
I built that map with a tool called Datawrapper that makes it super easy to build some pretty impressive interactive visualizations. You guys will learn Datawrapper as we go along, too!
Speaking of Datawrapper, here's a map that someone else built that I've embedded here. It's also embedded on this site.
The first map is an illustration of gerrymandering, something that I've been studying for a while. Of course, I tend to build my maps with Observable.
If you don't think this is important, then look back at 2016:
Sometimes, it's fun to take a somewhat different look at things like this
Hex map of the Electoral College
We can also take a more local view of things, such as this
Look at voting patterns in Buncombe County
Before we get into the maps, though, we'll talk a bit about predicting election using data that might look something like this: