what program

do you use for these maps?  I've tried MS Paint and it sucks.

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.

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by: doug_tuttle @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 13:17:34 PM UTC

Where do you

 Find the precinct maps anyway?

for more election analysis, visit  http://frogandturtle.blogspot....

17, CA-06,  

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by: Alibguy @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 13:20:24 PM UTC

I would also

like to know where to find the precinct maps. The one jeffmd did for Fulton County, Georgia had my jaw on the floor. They are so detailed. Please let us peons know where to find these maps.

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by: FreeStateDem @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 20:57:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's really hard, and the availability really varies by jurisdiction.

DC was good in that the underlying vector data was directly available from the Board of Elections and Ethics. Bigger jurisdictions tend to be better about this; NYC and Chicago also have all this information available.

The GA data I took from the University of Georgia's Legislative Reapportionment Services Office. http://georgiareapportionment....

Othertimes, I've created the underlying base data myself from Census blocks, which is extraordinarily time consuming.

I use MapWindow GIS to manipulate the underlying vector shapefiles (which is what these maps were made on); when I was still in school I had access to ArcGIS (which is what the Fulton County, GA ones were made on).

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by: jeffmd @ Fri Sep 17, 2010 at 00:08:56 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Interesting

Thank you for your reply.

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by: FreeStateDem @ Fri Sep 17, 2010 at 03:57:14 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Great DC Maps

First post here on SSP (been reading for about a year though), but as I am currently living in DC I feel like I can offer a little bit of insight.

The maps wonderfully illustrates what everyone here in the city basically knew, which was that even though both candidates were African-American, Fenty had been accused of not being "black enough" and therefore lost most of his support in the black community.

You can really see this on the maps, as the whole Northwest portion, basically Georgetown, which is the darkest blue area on the bottom map, Chevy Chase and "suburban DC", etc. went overwhelmingly Fenty, as did Capitol Hill, which is the little spot of blue you see in the center right, surrounded by red (Hill staffers and lobbyists). It's just that these areas aren't as densely populated as the red areas, and weren't as motivated to get out to vote this time around.

There has been a lot of chatter about Fenty trying to run as an indy (which he can't do) or on the GOP line. The DC GOP basically doesn't exist, their primary ballot consisted of all write-ins, which would allow Fenty to theoretically be nominated by them. That would be quite intriguing I think, since he garnered only 10k votes less than Gray in the closed Dem primary. In the general you would have to think that he would taket he overwhelming majority of the District's Republicans (about 40k) and a good portion of the "NP"s or independents (about 75k). Assuming he maintains his Dem support, that would put him over the top in the general. Of course this is all moot since he declared last night that he is "done with politics". It would make a great story however and I think the results might be really interesting.

Sorry for the long post, keep up the good work here.  

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by: UpstateNYer @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 13:59:14 PM UTC

The DC Maps

I had the two maps reversed.

I didn't know Capitol Hill was that white and knew Fenty did well there since he carried Ward 6 and Ward 6 has a few areas that are mostly black and where I doubt Fenty did particularly well.  (Although now that I think more about it, Ward 6 also now includes much of downtown and the SW waterfront, which had generally been in Ward 2 prior to the remapping.)

The remapping was interesting from a demographic point of view and underlined the changes in the city. Essentially, the areas east of the Anacostia lost enough population that most of the eight wards had to shift to the west. Previously, Ward 7 and 8 and a portion of Ward 6 were east of the river, but now Ward 7 crosses over (to the area around RFK Stadium) and Ward 6 does not. The end result is a Ward 6 where whites will probably always cast more votes than blacks, which caused a fair amount of consternation in some circles.  

The other big change was that Ward 3, essentially the whitest, most affluent, and most suburb-like part of DC had to shrink, both because it was least affected to DC's poulation loss of all wards and because Ward 2 got pushed further uptown. So Ward 4 jumped Rock Creek Park into Chevy Chase. This proved pretty controversial in the sense that a mostly white neighborhood was transferred into Ward 4, which is otherwise mostly black and entirely on the other side of Rock Creek Park, which is pretty wide up there. (It's not anywhere nearly entirely a racial thing, as parking permits are zoned by wards and Chevy Chase residents lost residential parking privileges in nearby Ward 3 neighborhoods that they had gotten used to. But if I understand correctly, those permits have been defined more narrowly in many other instances as well now.)

It'll be interesting to see how Mayor-Elect Gray and the new council handle things. There's a lot of people out there fearful that we'll see something of a return of the Marion Barry days when no one expected much of anything good out of DC government or its employees.  

36, M, Democrat, MD-03

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by: Answer Guy @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 14:08:58 PM UTC

Regarding New Hampshire

It looks like LaMontagne might have won the first district but lost big in the second.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 14:31:08 PM UTC

would make sense

especially seeing as how his base (Manchester) is the anchor of the 1st while Ayotte's base (Nashua) is the anchor of the 2nd.

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/

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by: sapelcovits @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 14:58:37 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Agreed

That map has no way of telling you how big those different towns are, but the deep red patch around Manchester, most of which would be in the 1st, tells much of the story, as does the nearly unbroken string of green in the west, all of which is in the 2nd.

There is a certain inherent weakness to Ayotte's campaign insofar as she needs people who strongly preferred Lamontagne to turn out for her. You can see this starkly if you overlay this map against almost any Dem/GOP map by color from recent history. Most of that dark green, especially as you approach the Connecticut River, is dark blue in recent competitive general elections.

Ovide for his part very quickly offered up his endorsement, but I wonder if the Tea Party types are going to be mollified entirely either by this or by Ayotte getting the Mama Grizzly Seal of Approval. Do Granite State voters have much of an idea what, if anything, she stands for?    

I don't particularly like Hodes' chances due to the change in political climate which seems especially relevant to NH in that voters don't have Republican foreign policy adventurism or aggressive religiosity (two things that turn New Hamsphire voters off) in mind anymore.  

36, M, Democrat, MD-03

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by: Answer Guy @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 15:01:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Bingo

I don't particularly like Hodes' chances due to the change in political climate which seems especially relevant to NH in that voters don't have Republican foreign policy adventurism or aggressive religiosity (two things that turn New Hamsphire voters off) in mind anymore.  

This is very important in understanding why New Hampshire went Democratic over the last few cycles.


23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7

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by: Ryan_in_DelCo @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 16:06:16 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You're right

I used the county data from Politico, the town data from the AP, and the CD info on Wikipedia to come up with:

CD-01: Lamontage wins 53-47 (two way vote share), 3500 vote margin

CD-02 Ayotte wins 55-45, 4600 vote margin.

Ayotte's best areas are all in Hodes' district and are the places he needs to win to have a shot statewide. Likewise, her worst areas are in the places Republicans need to win to win the state. It looks like this race is going to depend on Ayotte's ability to consolidate the vote in Hillsborough and Rockingham counties.

20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

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by: MassGOP @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 15:17:12 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yep

If Hodes can keep from getting blown out in the 1st, he can probably win (this is assuming he runs a competent enough ground game/campaign to get a decent margin out of the 2nd).

Ayotte needs to work the suburban towns and cities hard.

21,Democrat, NY-02, male

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by: lidem89 @ Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 16:49:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]