States are so boring. For the last few years, I have been dreaming of putting together a system that could forecast political attitudes at the local level using polling data. I have more free time now than I used to, so finally put the project together.

I know U.S. politics is let's say, oversaturated with polls and Donald Trump, but this is a question people care about so seemed like a good place to start.

Posted by g_elliottmorris

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22 Comments

  1. So every county that no one lives in… Makes sense

    Edit: of course people live there, but Nebraska is all corn fields, Nevada is all government lands, and no one lives in Wyoming.

  2. /r/wherepeoplelive/

    Every President’s approval rating drops after being elected. This isn’t showing anything.

  3. InevitablePresent917 on

    So I should live in Vermont and avoid Oklahoma. That tracks.

    Of all the states on here, I am most fascinated by South Carolina. That is some fascinating information. Visually, SC looks most like WA or NY, and that’s not the company I would expect (well, I’m not terribly surprised because I’m from there originally and the politics are much more nuanced than gerrymandering and outspokenness would suggest).

    On topic: regarding formatting, I’m wondering if the intensity of red/orange might be skewing the perception of disapproval slightly.

  4. His approval rating should be lower than this, no

    I thought his approval was trending towards 30% overall 

  5. Noodly_Appendage_24 on

    I like the second cartogram map in the post vs the original map because it shows where the people are concentrated. First map makes it seem like most of US supports Trump because of the large swaths of land in the center of the US that are in fact very sparsely populated.

  6. InsuranceToTheRescue on

    Since the interactive map isn’t laid out by county, how were the regions decided?

  7. FellowOfHorses on

    I found the table more interesting than the maps. It appears Trump’s low approval is across demographies except for his own voters, which itself is fairly concentrated demographically. Like, white non college voters tend to vote Republican, but approval is only 53%. I would like to see the totals. A lot of people tend to gaslight themselves when they disapprove the leadership, saying they didn’t vote or not remembering who they voted for

  8. Afraid_Sample1688 on

    The muted colors make it challenging to see the details. Is there a way to go with a more traditional blue/red/purple?

  9. Colors could pop more. Pro-trump should *definitely be orange.

    Otherwise, very nice map! State-level maps lose so much information.

  10. illustrious_focuser on

    Interesting that the cartogram map, which is more accurate and tells a different story than the standard, is placed second. The inaccurate map is first in the story, so that’s what’s showing up in the previews, but tells an entire different story than the accurate one.

    The article writers should adjust it so the cartograph shows in the preview

  11. West Virginia is incredible. Not even the urban effect of Charleston manages to bring Trump’s approval into negative territory, staying positive by a whisker at 51.1% (margin of error notwithstanding). From what I can see West Virginia is the only state where his net approval rating is positive in every single area. Even Wyoming has an area where it’s negative, Cheyenne’s Laramie County, where it’s 48.1%.