I think America's founding fathers would be proud that the state of Pennsylvania, where independence was written, is the most crucial state to determine where the entire country will lean politically. Philadelphia, an "American Rome" is one of the most historical city in America. Both it and Allegheny are the most dense in population who lean Democrat. Pennsylvania's county can be viewed to represent the entire nation where Philadelphia represents the East Coast. Allegheny represent California who is surrounded, but not influenced, by Republican regions. In the South, Bedford and Fulton county have a strong Republican lean much like Texas. It is the Southeast and Notheast regions who get influenced the most.

Posted by dumarcm

24 comments

  1. Thanks. I’m from Philadelphia and this is what I explain to people as to why it’s a solidly purple state.

    Might be enhanced to highlight some of the cities, since that’s a lot of the Democrat influence. Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Erie, State College, Allentown, Reading, Scranton, Lancaster.

    Then it had another dimension of people density versus rural areas.

    https://www.pennsylvania-demographics.com/cities_by_population

  2. I think it would help to have an idea of population of each cluster. Maybe incorporated into the bar at the bottom? Also what does the bar actually represent? It’d be better to have an actual break down in terms of how red or blue each cluster votes instead of just ordering them.

  3. So James Carville was right: Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.

  6. You’ll notice the best county’s for education in the state surround Philadelphia. Coincidence?

  9. I like your map, I just don’t think the founding fathers would be proud that PA is the decider. For one, they wouldn’t have envisioned such a strong central government in comparison the the states. If they would have, they’d probably have just opted for a popular vote.

  12. Should be noted that Erie tends to lean far to the left compared to the rest of the region labeled “west”

  13. State College & Erie are both moderate. Neither are extreme right wing, as you have them listed.

  17. This is so horribly color coded it took me minutes of staring to figure it out.

    The regions should be color coded by political affiliation if that’s supposed to be the main point of the map. You could maybe outline in different colors, use bold labels, or use patterns etc to designate regions, but coloring it by region then rearranging the regions onto a color gradient spectrum of political preference below it as if its the legend to read the map makes no sense. Also, the colors for “Dutch” and “Philadelphia” are so close theyre nearly indistinguishable. It’s also not clear whether the size of the region’s block on the political spectrum is related to their proportion of the voters in the state or is just due to letters in the name.

    It looks like a useful map for seeing how the counties of PA form into regions, but not for seeing the political affiliation of each region and how they spatially relate to one another.

  19. People are shitting on the color choices (fix them) but the concept is excellent. Looking forward to seeing version 2.0.

  24. Lehigh. Definitely half a step into democrat and half a step into republican region. You can feel the tension there. Also a bigger population.

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