Is Pennsylvania the Tipping Point?

Today we look at a piece that focuses on my native (and favourite) state: the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (Along with Virginia, Massachusetts, and Kentucky, we self-identify as a commonwealth and not a state.) FiveThirtyEight examines how Pennsylvania and its shifting political preferences might just be the key (get it? keystone) to the election for both candidates. The crux of the article can be seen in the map, but the whole piece is worth the read. If only because it mentions Pennsyltucky by name.

Shifting states
Shifting states

Credit for the piece goes to David Wasserman.

Where is Normal America?

Not every graphic information graphic is a sexy chart or map. Sometimes tables communicate the story just as well. Maybe even better. Today’s post comes from FiveThirtyEight, which examined a claim about what places represent “Normal America”. Turns out that when one looks at the data, here age, race, ethnicity, and education, Normal America is found in the eastern half of the country. And it includes some big cities, notably both Philadelphia and Chicago. The whole article is worth a read, as it goes on exploring states representing Normal America and then places that represent 1950s America.

Where is Normal America?
Where is Normal America?

So where is Normal America? New Haven, Connecticut.

Credit for the piece goes to Jed Kolko.

Trump Knocks out Cruz

Donald Trump will be the Republican Party candidate for President of the United States.

Last summer I never imagined I would type those words in all seriousness, but after Trump won a majority of the votes in Indiana and likely swept all the delegates there, Ted Cruz suspended his campaign.

Two graphics strike my mind to best capture the story. The first is from last summer when FiveThirtyEight added Donald Trump to an existing graphic that loosely mapped out which candidates belonged to which factions of the Republican Party.

Trump was the exception in so many ways…
Trump was the exception in so many ways…

You can clearly see Donald Trump falls as an outlier at the extreme end of the Tea Party circle. This would be the argument that Trump is not a true conservative. But how did that argument play out over the following months?

Well this New York Times results map breaks down results to the county level. And you can see a lot of Trump red.

Results as of 4 May
Results as of 4 May

It started with wins in New Hampshire and, more importantly South Carolina. Candidates try to win Iowa and New Hampshire and whatever other states there are prior to Super Tuesday, because Super Tuesday requires a ground game that is expensive to maintain. And early victories lead to donations. But Trump’s crushing victory in South Carolina led to a series of wins in the deep Republican red South.

Importantly for this last phase of the contest, the Cruz campaign had bet on winning those very same southern states, the Bible Belt. While Cruz won Texas, it was his home state, he lost almost every other state. The map above shows just how wide and diverse Trump’s victories were. From liberal Massachusetts to Alabama and as far west as Arizona. The final one-two blow, however, came in the above map’s deepest reds: a swath from Rhode Island through Connecticut and New York into Pennsylvania then south into Delaware and Maryland. Trump was favoured in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, but most had not expected those margins. The second blow, look at the deep red in Indiana. Cruz needed to win Indiana. He lost it big. And now he has stepped aside.

Donald Trump will be the Republican Party candidate for President of the United States.

The Quadrants of Trump

My apologies to you for the blog being down the last week and a half. This is what happens when I get 33,000 spam comments in the span of 24 hours: the blog crashes. Rest assured, I have lots of things to post.

But for today, we are picking up after a yuuugge night for Donald Trump so let’s get on with the data visualisations. Trump decisively won Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island with a majority of votes in every state. As he made sure to point out, winning 50–60% in a three-way race is quite difficult to do. Simply put, Cruz and Kasich got destroyed.

Why is that? Well a few days ago—can you tell I meant to post this then?—David Wasserman over at FiveThirtyEight posted an insightful article about the various counties thus far contested and how, when divided into quadrants based on socioeconomics and conservativeness, Trump has won three out of four quadrants. The whole article is worth the read.

The Quadrants of Trump
The Quadrants of Trump

Credit for the piece goes to David Wasserman.

How Moderate is John Kasich

Last night contained one victory for John Kasich. The Ohio governor outlasted all but Trump and Cruz and therefore represents the only establishment candidate. He also supposedly represents the moderate wing of the Republican Party. But within an article on FiveThirtyEight is a map showing how he may not be as moderate as he claims. Kasich has signed legislation creating difficult conditions for clinics and so many have closed.

Abortions and clinics
Abortions and clinics

Credit for the piece goes to Ella Koeze.

GOP Media Time

Well, Super Tuesday is over. And if you spent last night under a rock, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton cleaned almost enough house to brush away their competition. Almost. The political analysis begins…now. But we will leave that for another day. I liked this one particular chart from FiveThirtyEight’s coverage.

Media coverage
Media coverage

We have a nice set of small multiples—please kill the cute illustrations of the candidates’ heads—comparing the number of items in Google News and Google Searches. The graphic goes a long way in showing just how much coverage Trump has received over the past few months against very little for others.

Credit for the piece goes to FiveThirtyEight’s graphics department.

The Iowa Caucuses

If you did not realise it, today is the first day of the second phase of the American presidential election process. Phase 1 was all the posturing and getting-to-know-me stuff from every candidate. A few dropped out, but now the first votes will be placed in the cold and later tonight snowy town centres of Iowa. The big story for Iowa is can Trump fend off Cruz and can Hillary fend off Bernie. (I like how we can clearly delineate the two parties by whether we use surnames or given names.)

I love election season and in particular the visualisations that go along with them. But I have been making a conscious effort not to go overboard. But that phase is over, so today we look at FiveThirtyEight’s range plots that I have enjoyed for some time now.

Who will be first in Iowa?
Who will be first in Iowa?

They are sort of like a more intuitive version of the familiar box plot. Your highest probability falls within the red—what other colour did you expect—and the average value is denoted. But you can also see that the curves are asymmetric. In short, anybody from Carson up really has a shot. But expect to see Trump or Cruz on top in Iowa.

The race, however, is not quite as exciting on the Democratic side. However, much like I am surprised that Trump is not just still running, but leading, I am surprised about Bernie Sanders’ strength. While he is further behind than Cruz is behind Trump, it is still quite possible for Iowa to “feel the Bern” as they say.

The Democratic plots
The Democratic plots

There are of course other visualisation pieces out there—on this page even—but how about we ease into the commentary? After the presidential election is much more a marathon than a sprint. Anyway, I guess we will all see how accurate these plots are come this time Tuesday.

Credit for the piece goes to the FiveThirtyEight design team.

Married Men

Sorry for not writing the last few weeks, but I was on a much needed holiday. But I’m back now. And first things first, one of my good mates got engaged whilst I was back in Philadelphia. And so in honour of that we have today’s piece.

Married men
Married men

As the graphic might hint, it’s about marriage. The piece dates from September of last year—2015 and I think I will have to get used to that for a few weeks—and looks at the demographics of marriage mostly in the United States. The chart above in particular looks at men that are married at every age by year, i.e. how many men aged 30 were married in 1960 versus 2013.

Credit for the piece goes to Mona Chalabi.

The Relative Value of Republican Primary Votes

The day after Election Day—no, not that Election Day—we take a look at a nice scatter plot from FiveThirtyEight. They explore how an eventual conservative candidate, whoever that may be, will face a structural challenge. There are slightly more delegates at play in blue states than red. And typically those blue Republicans are “less religious, more moderate and less rural.” The big graphic supporting their argument looks at the value of the primary votes. Surprise, surprise, the higher-value primary votes come from blue states.

The relative value of the votes
The relative value of the votes

Credit for the piece goes to the FiveThirtyEight graphics department.