Map of Countywide Elected Officials, 2011-2015

[Adam Griffin]

I originally started this close to two years ago by doing the results of each countywide race in Georgia in 2012. In the summer of last year, I decided to do MS in the run-up to the 2015 elections. Later, I did South Carolina.

Recently, I've compiled three more states and am probably going to (slowly but surely) complete the map as much as possible. I wanted to get the Solid South completed, but TN, AL & KY (if you want to call it Southern) do not keep county-level results on their websites. As such, I've completed six states thus far:

If Imgur links do not display the image after clicking, then click on the URL in your browser and hit 'enter' to load it again, or hit refresh. Stupid Imgur is blocking direct links from Atlas but once you do that, it should work.

• Arkansas (All)
• Florida (All)
• Georgia (All)
• Louisiana (All)
• Maryland (All)
• Mississippi (2011)
• North Carolina (2014)
• South Carolina (2014)
• Virginia (All; Incomplete)
• West Virginia (2012)

The maps above use the "Blue = Democratic & Red = Republican" color scheme. The map below, however, uses standard Atlas colors.

Don't cry for Southron Democrats just yet:

Full-size image

[Vern]

Awesome work!

[Miles]

Awesome work!

[smoltchanov]

Thanks a lot! The only problem -i don't see pictures on imgur (empty screen). Snag.gy links work fine for me...

[Adam Griffin]

Thanks a lot! The only problem -i don't see pictures on imgur (empty screen). Snag.gy links work fine for me...

Click on the URL in your browser and hit 'enter' to load it again, or hit refresh. Stupid Imgur is blocking direct links from Atlas but once you do that, it should work.

[smoltchanov]

Thanks a lot! The only problem -i don't see pictures on imgur (empty screen). Snag.gy links work fine for me...

Click on the URL in your browser and hit 'enter' to load it again, or hit refresh. Stupid Imgur is blocking direct links from Atlas but once you do that, it should work.

Thanks, it works! But i don't see an explanation of abbreviations for Louisiana (though i can make an educated guess about most)...

P.S. Of special interest to me there are 2 main regions: South (especially - Deep South and surrounding areas, like Northern Florida and Arkansas) and New England. I hope to see something about them in the future (and remain thankful for those you already made)

[Adam Griffin]

Thanks a lot! The only problem -i don't see pictures on imgur (empty screen). Snag.gy links work fine for me...

Click on the URL in your browser and hit 'enter' to load it again, or hit refresh. Stupid Imgur is blocking direct links from Atlas but once you do that, it should work.

Thanks, it works! But i don't see an explanation of abbreviations for Louisiana (though i can make an educated guess about most)...

P.S. Of special interest to me there are 2 main regions: South (especially - Deep South and surrounding areas, like Northern Florida and Arkansas) and New England. I hope to see something about them in the future (and remain thankful for those you already made)

I had actually starting working on Florida last night, as luck would have it!


Florida has now been added to the map.

[smoltchanov]

Some short (and incomplete) observations:

1. West Virginia. Republicans sweep (or prevail) most of the Ohio river counties plus some in Panhandle. Democrats prevail in other parts of the state, especially in "Tomblin country"....

2. North Carolina. Republican sweep (or prevail) far far West of the state, "textile" and some other counties NW and NE of Charlotte, and far South-East  (probably - the most "Dixie" area of the state), Democrats prevail or sweep most of the East (Black majority areas +Triangle) and Central-South.

3. South Carolina. Republicans dominate the coast, far NW (most "Appalachian" and populist part of the state) and Central-West (around Aiken), Democrats - majority Black areas plus, generally, most of the central part of the state

4 Georgia. Democrats dominate to varying extent in Black Belt and big city areas (Atlanta, Savannah and so on), Republicans are especially strong in the North (outside of Atlanta area) and South-East, closer to the coast (Savannah excluded). Most of the rural counties gradually become republican-leaning, but Democrats still have residual strength there...

5. Louisiana. Besides Orleans i don't see parishes swept by one party: even conservative Bossier, West Carroll and Livingston elect some Democrats and even majority Black Mississippi river counties - some Republicans. Probably - Democrats from conservative parishes are "old school conservative Democrats" (even extremely conservative LaSalle parish, where Obama got slightly over 11% in 2012, elects considerable number of Democrats), and Republicans from majority Black parishes learned how to tend their Black voters and get their vote.

6. Mississippi. As expected Republicans dominate big city suburbs (DeSoto, Rankin, Madison) and South-East (including coast), Democrats - almost everything else. It's interesting how long the Democratic dominance of North-East (and most of the Cetral-East) on local level will hold.

7. Florida. I would make a sort of imaginary split of the state in two: "old Dixie Florida" (approximately N and W of Alachua county), and the rest. In the second part it's "all normal": Democrats dominate big city Gold Coast, Orlando area, St. Petersburg area, Republicans - almost everything else..  But first is really interesting. On Presidential level almost all this area (except Gadsden, Leon, Jefferson and Alachua counties (blacks + big university)) is Republican, in many cases - extremely Republican (for example - 15% for Obama in Holmes and 20% - in Lafayette county), but many counties are much more Democratic locally. For example - Holmes officeholders are almost equally split between Indies, Republicans and Democrats, and Lafayette - between Democrats and Indies with minimal Republican representation. Even better: Liberty county (28% Obama in 2012) elects a lot of Democrats locally, substantial number of Indies and NO Republicans... An exception seems to be area around "Redneck Riviera" - Santa Rosa, Ocaloosa and Walton counties, where we observe a lot of Indies, substantial number of Republicans and no Democrats at all. Again - i expect many of Democratic officeholders in this part of the state being a conservatives (some even in "old" sense of the word, not present, according to  which even centrist Democrats are frequently called this name...)

P.S. Waiting for  Arkansas, where Democrats cratered recently not only on Presidential, but on Congressional and even state legislative level. Would like to get at least some information about Alabama too (the same situation), bit if it's impossible - .....

P.S. 2 Hope these observation will be useful at least to some people...

[Adam Griffin]

P.S. Waiting for  Arkansas, where Democrats cratered recently not only on Presidential, but on Congressional and even state legislative level. Would like to get at least some information about Alabama too (the same situation), bit if it's impossible - .....

I spent over an hour last night trying to (again) dig through potential sources for AL countywide election results. I first attempted to track them down through each county's website...but a lot of counties either don't have websites or don't have the results listed. I then went back and really dug through AL SoS' offerings, and buried within one obscure section, I found election results for 2012 and 2014. In the case of 2012, the results by precinct and the partisan affiliations are there, but not many countywide offices seem to be elected in presidential years there. For most counties, it was only 2 or 3 offices (usually 1 or 2 each of School Boards & County Commissions).

Turning to the 2014 spreadsheet, all of the results are there...but partisan affiliation is not included in the spreadsheet (for whatever reason!). Therefore, I know who won but I have no idea who is a D and who is a R. Even though I was happy to find the actual county-level results that I could not find previously for AL, they are still functionally useless and it would take tons of time to track down the affiliations of each, and even then, I'm sure there'd be plenty of holes where there is no internet reference to various officials' affiliations.

[Adam Griffin]

Just added (most of) Virginia. Barring the significantly-populated ones, I eliminated cities from this measurement. Virginia is just...exhausting for me. I don't know why: I'm guessing the combination of counties/municipalities paired with the frustrating map parameters (whether you're using shapefiles or hand-drawn ones). Additionally and here, the # of counties that have transitioned to all non-partisan/independent offices makes it tedious and throws off the map's flow.

My original metric for measuring partisan control this has been put to the test here; there are several counties where all but one office are held by independents/non-partisans, and as such, those counties are colored "sweeps" for the party with literally one office-holder. Throughout the Deep South, this isn't an issue.

At any rate, I need a break from Virginia, so I've uploaded my progress thus far and will come back to it sooner or later. Ugh, I'd rather do Texas when it comes to county-level map machinations than Virginia.

[smoltchanov]

One word - thanks!

[/]

Great job, Griff!

I am, however, wondering why Wilson County, NC is left blank for the 2014 countywide office election results. If you need them, they are as follows:

Clerk of Superior Court - D
Sheriff - D
Board of Commissioners - 4 D; 3 R (7 total)
Board of Education - 4 Nonpartisan (3 elected in other year)
Soil and Water - 2 Nonpartisan

Their Register of Deeds was elected in 2012 and they don't have an elected Tax Commissioner.

[Adam Griffin]

Great job, Griff!

I am, however, wondering why Wilson County, NC is left blank for the 2014 countywide office election results. If you need them, they are as follows:

Clerk of Superior Court - D
Sheriff - D
Board of Commissioners - 4 D; 3 R (7 total)
Board of Education - 4 Nonpartisan (3 elected in other year)
Soil and Water - 2 Nonpartisan

Their Register of Deeds was elected in 2012 and they don't have an elected Tax Commissioner.

You know, what I think happened was that I clicked the wrong setting on the website (perhaps referendums or whatever) and it showed no election results. I'll correct that shortly. Thanks!

One word - thanks!

You're welcome!


Up next: Arkansas

[Adam Griffin]

Arkansas has been added.

For some of those counties, we have to take it with a grain of salt. Why? Because for some damn reason, the SoS only shows 1 or 2 offices being up for election in both 2012 and 2014. I noticed that in some cases, there was an "unopposed races" entry in the results, but I also observed many counties with officers listed that were not opposed, so it doesn't appear to be a case of "we're only going to show the elections if there was competition". I have no idea why this is, but I decided to proceed with completing the state, anyway.

I sometimes gripe about my GOP SoS, but the more I see from other states...the more I realize that Georgia has one of the most comprehensive and straightforward sets of election results, voter registration/turnout statistics and easily-accessible voter/elections information in the country.

[smoltchanov]

Arkansas has been added.

For some of those counties, we have to take it with a grain of salt. Why? Because for some damn reason, the SoS only shows 1 or 2 offices being up for election in both 2012 and 2014. I noticed that in some cases, there was an "unopposed races" entry in the results, but I also observed many counties with officers listed that were not opposed, so it doesn't appear to be a case of "we're only going to show the elections if there was competition". I have no idea why this is, but I decided to proceed with completing the state, anyway.

I sometimes gripe about my GOP SoS, but the more I see from other states...the more I realize that Georgia has one of the most comprehensive and straightforward sets of election results, voter registration/turnout statistics and easily-accessible voter/elections information in the country.

Generally what i expected. Republicans prevail in North-West and Central-West, plus suburban counties around Little Rock and Texarkana suburbs, Democrats - almost everywhere else (in many counties - rather strongly). So, Democrats are still strong in Arkansas on local level. Another proof is that Republicans sweep only couple of counties, Democrats - much more...

P.S. What next? Texas with it's myriad of counties?

[Adam Griffin]

P.S. What next? Texas with it's myriad of counties?

Ugh, I have no idea. Even though the South has tons of counties, it's sort of "familiar" to me in terms of geography and the lack of monotony. In any direction from here, I run into one set of problems or another.

With TX, the issue is file size. Since I'm having to manually extract the data for a lot of states, I don't save any time by using shapefiles (hence why my maps have been hand-drawn for this). To make a template for TX that's big enough to fit the data into it, it'll be something like 6000x4500 pixels. Immense. I mean, it'll probably be OK but it'll crash older computers.

Moving NW (into the Great Plains and Midwest) is a personal nightmare for me because of the lack of variance in county shapes. It just bores the hell out of me...the number of counties and the fact that most are just silly squares.

I probably need to finish Virginia first (I hate VA - my least favorite state to do because of city issue, number of counties, coloration difficulty on hand-drawn maps, etc). I *probably* will continue moving NE in the short-term and try to finish the mid-Atlantic and New England before going any further west.

[smoltchanov]

Excellent! Especially New England. It' in some sense a "South in reverse": with present strong domination by Democrats even in states with past Republican tradition (Vermont a.o.). It would be VERY interesting to see whether Republicans preserve some local strength there (as Democrats in North Florida, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana still do).

Waiting....

[Adam Griffin]

Maryland has now been added.

[smoltchanov]

Maryland has now been added.

More thanks! Generally - what could be expected: Republican NW, many Baltimore suburbs, most of the Eastern Shore (though Democrats still hold some offices there), and Ann Arundel. But Democrats absolutely dominate Baltimore city, Prince George and Montgomery county (in the past - a good source of moderate-to-liberal Republicans of Charles Mathias-style)

[Gass3268]

I think you miscolored Charles County, Maryland for the Presidential map. Great work on this. Great to see how Maryland is considering it's my home state, which I only know a little bit about.

[jimrtex]

P.S. What next? Texas with it's myriad of counties?

Ugh, I have no idea. Even though the South has tons of counties, it's sort of "familiar" to me in terms of geography and the lack of monotony. In any direction from here, I run into one set of problems or another.

With TX, the issue is file size. Since I'm having to manually extract the data for a lot of states, I don't save any time by using shapefiles (hence why my maps have been hand-drawn for this). To make a template for TX that's big enough to fit the data into it, it'll be something like 6000x4500 pixels. Immense. I mean, it'll probably be OK but it'll crash older computers.

If you use QGIS you can join spreadsheets to shapefiles.

[Adam Griffin]

P.S. What next? Texas with it's myriad of counties?

Ugh, I have no idea. Even though the South has tons of counties, it's sort of "familiar" to me in terms of geography and the lack of monotony. In any direction from here, I run into one set of problems or another.

With TX, the issue is file size. Since I'm having to manually extract the data for a lot of states, I don't save any time by using shapefiles (hence why my maps have been hand-drawn for this). To make a template for TX that's big enough to fit the data into it, it'll be something like 6000x4500 pixels. Immense. I mean, it'll probably be OK but it'll crash older computers.

If you use QGIS you can join spreadsheets to shapefiles.

If the data was already compiled in an effective format (at least for me), I would definitely be doing something like that (I usually just use Google Fusion Tables, since I have yet to get the learn how to get CartoDB's system to not geocode random columns that have nothing to do with coordinates). It's so relatively quick to just eye-ball, count, and color at this point since I'm needing to extract the results manually, anyway. Presumably I am going to at least create a FT map with the percentage of offices held by each party in each county, but I understand that's not going to be as interesting necessarily.


I have now finished the 2014 elections for Georgia and have merged 2012/2014 into one map.

[OneJ]

Nice work (even though I'm like a year behind )!

[RINO Tom]

I originally started this close to two years ago by doing the results of each countywide race in Georgia in 2012. In the summer of last year, I decided to do MS in the run-up to the 2015 elections. Later, I did South Carolina.

Recently, I've compiled three more states and am probably going to (slowly but surely) complete the map as much as possible. I wanted to get the Solid South completed, but TN, AL & KY (if you want to call it Southern) do not keep county-level results on their websites. As such, I've completed six states thus far:

If Imgur links do not display the image after clicking, then click on the URL in your browser and hit 'enter' to load it again, or hit refresh. Stupid Imgur is blocking direct links from Atlas but once you do that, it should work.

• Arkansas (All)
• Florida (All)
• Georgia (All)
• Louisiana (All)
• Maryland (All)
• Mississippi (2011)
• North Carolina (2014)
• South Carolina (2014)
• Virginia (All; Incomplete)
• West Virginia (2012)

The maps above use the "Blue = Democratic & Red = Republican" color scheme. The map below, however, uses standard Atlas colors.

Don't cry for Southron Democrats just yet:

Full-size image

1) Amazing work, this is fascinating!

2) I officially motion for the bolded to become Forum tradition to describe not just a "Southern Democrat" (i.e., a Democrat who lives in the South, with no other implications) but a "traditional Southern Democrat" (with implications of being mostly White, culturally conservative and economically to the left of the Republicans who took their place).

[VPH]

Are most of these Democrats probably as conservative as Republicans, or do they hang onto some vestiges of their party's stances?