America’s counties are less purple than they used to be

By Robert J. Vanderbei, Professor of Operations Research and Financial Engineering, Princeton University

The United States isn’t mostly red or mostly blue. It’s mostly purple. That’s what I’ve learned from a quarter-century of making maps based on the results of presidential elections.

The country is, however, becoming more split along party lines.

This work started as a curiosity project. Back in 2000, most maps of election results showed states colored either red or blue depending on which side had more votes in that state – Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore. But that one-or-the-other…

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