Exercise 06

2004 vs 2008

mapping

This 3D model shows a comparison between the election in 2004 and the current election.

Electoral Mapping

I started by mapping the electoral votes alloted to each state and in what direction that state voted. A state like California with 55 electoral votes in an election that voted democratic would be 55 units above the horizon, while a state like Texas that has 34 votes and voted republican would be 34 units below. I then went back to the last 7 elections to see if there was any type of trend. What I found was that in recent history, other than the 8 years Clinton was in office, the country voted HIGHLY Republican. It has not been until recently that there was more disparity among the states. Finally, the color of each graph denotes who won that election, blue being democratic and red being republican.

This elections stats are based on estimates with no toss up states.

Generation Y

I started with an election poll of generation Y adults which range from age 18-29, both registered and unregistered, on percentages for Obama vs. McCain. The second poll was again for generation Y to see how many were registered. The numbers fell at 78% registered, 22% not. This means that although the majority of generation Y picked Obama, only 78% of our generation will vote on election day. I went back and applied this percentage to the original polls, demonstrating four separate scenarios. Scenario one is if 100% were registered, scenario two is if that 22% that did not vote were all Obama supporters, scenario three is if the 22% were all McCain supporters, and scenario four was if the 22% not voting was spread evenly through both parties. The final graph I used was from a separate source showing a graph of age and declaration of party. As the ages get younger through all ages and into the generation Y category, the percentage of democrats increases and republican support decreases, widening the gap and showing the movement towards a democratic majority in our generation.

Not to be cynical, but this election might come down to money…

Starting with a map of the lower 48 states, I extruded each state based on total financial contributions to the 2008 presidential election.  Interwoven with this information is a warped plane that reflects the total electoral college votes for each state.  The intent of this juxtaposition is to produce a map that reflects both the relative wealth of states and the relative interest of states in the current election through the medium of the two biggest contributions a state can make to a national election, namely money and votes.

Swing States (seems to be a popular trend..)

I mapped data from the swing states only to look at how often each candidate (McCain and Obama only) visited each place. At the bottom, I mapped both McCain and Obama in popularity polls against the rising gas prices. I found this to be a relevant statistic because of economic factors and the candidate’s differing policies on energy. I made two images, one including the states where the data corresponds, and one with no context. Any comments on which is more successful? As a diagram, it is better without the states because it can be interpreted differently and is more about the spatial relationships and clustering of data, but having the states allows you to read it as a political message– showing who visited what state more and whether the end polls were leaning republican or democrat.

how much wood could a wood chuck, chuck, if a wood chuck, could chuck, wood?

For this project I looked at the electoral map from RealClearPolitics.com (more specifically the “Toss Up” states) and chose to relate them to when the presidential candidates were on tour there over the past several months.  Each of the “skins” (one rendered, the other in wire frame), reflect an abstracted map of the United States.  Portions of the map are raised according to how often each candidate visited the “Toss Up” state over the past several months.  The colored dots throughout the map relate to the time line atop the image, the darker the dot, the more recent the visit.  The three tallest parts of the map relate to a trend I saw while looking at each candidates tour schedules.  Barack Obama seemed to have spent a large majority of his time in Iowa while, John McCain seemed to split alot of his time between Florida and Arizona.