Kitteh's third party maps thread

[Kitteh]

So since I've got some free time on my hands, I'm going to do some maps of an (IMO) underappreciated part of American political geography: results of third-party candidates.

To kick things off, here's a map of the third-place candidate in 2012 in California:

Green is Jill Stein and Yellow is Gary Johnson. Obvs pattern is obvs, although I'm a little bit surprised by Sierra county (but there were like 20 votes there for each of them) and Santa Cruz (Johnson edged out Stein by .1%, would have thought she'd win this). Alpine and Sonoma were an exact tie between Johnson and Stein.

More stuff coming.

[Kitteh]

could I do some maps to?  I have some I have made.

Sure!

[Kitteh]

Another quickie: Jill Stein 2012 in California:



Stein gets stronger as you go North and towards the Coast. The scale is by .25%, so the light yellow-green is regions where Stein got >.25%, then >.5%, etc. The exception to this is Humboldt and Mendocino; Stein got 2.9% and 4.4% there, respectively, while the best she did other places is around 1.5% (that's what she got in SF and Santa Cruz, for example) so they really stand out even more than they do on this map. The pot vote is strong

[Kitteh]

Updated the title to reflect your contributions. Thanks guys!

[Kitteh]

Something a little different, Virginia 2012 3rd place:



Purple is Goode and Yellow is Johnson. Grey is Goode/Johnson tie. Stein didn't get third anywhere, though she was fourth ahead of Goode in NoVA and plenty of other places.

[Kitteh]

Utah:


Pink is Rocky Anderson. I'm actually a little surprised by this. I though Anderson would get more than Johnson in Salt Lake county and maybe Summit but he was behind by a good margin in both. Only place where Anderson got 3rd was Grand co (Moab), where he beat out Johnson by 7 votes

[Kitteh]

Now, for something totally different:

The total vote for "Other" (non-Bloomberg and Thompson) in the NYC Mayor's Race 2009, by pre-2012 NY Assembly district:


Color grading is by 1%, so the lightest purple is 1%, then 2%, etc.

This is mostly a map of the vote for the Conservative Party. They got more votes than all the "other other" candidates combined. There may be a little bit of Green support in there in places like Lower Manhattan. Staten Island and Hasidic Jewish areas obviously have the most, while poor minority areas have the least. The one weird result is that one district straddling the Brooklyn/Queens boundary where "other" got 10%, by far the highest anywhere. That district also voted for Thompson and AFAIK it's not a major Hasidic area. Maybe someone who knows NYC better could explain.

Here's the New York Times page where the results came from.

[Kitteh]

Thanks for the comments and help everyone! I'm thinking that eventually I'll put together a 2012 national third-place by county map, with the help that people have been giving.

Anyway, here's Gary Johnson 2012 by county, California:


One thing that stands out is Johnson voters were much more evenly distributed than Stein voters. Almost everywhere Johnson got between .75% and 1.5% (total 1.1% statewide). The stoner vote shows up once again here, but in different ways. Johnson's strongest counties were Trinity (just inland from Humboldt on the Emerald Coast) and Santa Cruz. This map also makes me think Johnson did badly among minorites, since his weakest areas (Imperial County, Alameda, Central Valley, etc) are all areas with big minority populations.

[Kitteh]

So Johnson's strong points were in Silicon Valley and weed growing areas. Not at all surprising.

Santa Cruz isn't Silicon valley. Silicon valley is Santa Clara/San Mateo, where Johnson did slightly below average. Santa Cruz is much more "alternative".

[Kitteh]

To round out the West Coast, Washington 3rd place:


Not much to say here, other than that Johnson did very well in WA. Maybe the marijuana/gay marriage referendums brought out a lot of libertarians. Stein got Jefferson County, "Write-ins" beat Johnson in Stevens County, and Johnson got 3rd everywhere else.

[Kitteh]

Jill Stein vote % in Washington:


Scale is by .25%, lightest color is >.25%.

[Kitteh]

And now, a map that is interesting for it's boringness, Gary Johnson 2012 in WA:


In only 13 of Washington's 36 counties did Johnson get more than 1.5% or less than 1.25%. Of those, about half were minor deviations (for example, Cowlitz, where he got 1.23%) and a lot were places with tiny populations. It's pretty amazing in such a divided state like Washington that Johnson appealed to almost the same percentage of people everywhere.

[Kitteh]

Another boring one, Colorado:



Purple is Virgil Goode. Kinda surprised Jill Stein didn't come in 3rd anywhere. I woulda thought at least Boulder.

[Kitteh]

Here's a fun one: California 3rd place 2004:


The statewide totals were:
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) 0.40%
David Cobb (Green) 0.33%
Leonard Peltier (Peace & Freedom) 0.22%
Michael Peroutka (American Independent) 0.21%*
Ralph Nader (Indie, write-in) 0.15%

*The American Independent Party is the Constitution Party's California affiliate. Peroutka was the national Constitution candidate.

Badnarik, Cobb, Peltier, and Peroutka all won counties (well, got 3rd). Nader was very close in San Francisco and Mendocino (he was only 12 votes behind Cobb there).

[Kitteh]

Who tied in Trinity?

Oh yeah, forgot that. Sorry. Badnarik and Peroutka.

[Kitteh]

*bump*

Playing around with animated gifs, since I've seen others do cool stuff with them. What does everyone think of this?



Cali 3rd place 2000-2012, obviously. Green is Green, Yellow is Libertarian, Purple is Constitution, Maroon is Peace & Freedom, and Grey is tied. One thing that really stands out is how weird Sierra county is: it went from voting for Michael Peroutka in 2004 to Bob Barr in 2008 to Jill Stein in 2012.

[Kitteh]

You'll have to adjust the 2012 image in that .gif...

Yeah, I know, that's a problem. I'm planning to fix that once I get my copy of photoshop back so I can install in on my new computer and I'm no longer a slave to the evils of MS Paint.

[Kitteh]

Since California seems to be my thing, here's Cali Senate 2010 third place:



The results statewide were:
Gail Lightfoot-Libertarian 1.75%
Marsha Feinland-Peace & Freedom 1.35%
Duane Roberts-Green 1.29%
Edward C. Noonan-American Independent 1.25%

Fresno was a tie between Peace & Freedom and Libertarian. Compare to the 2004 map above. These maps seem to say that the Partido Paz y Libertad is the most popular third-party among Cali latin@s, and that P&F takes the working-class leftist vote while the Greens win with "bobo" leftists. Not really surprising.

[Kitteh]

Related to the last map:



Peace and Freedom results, 2010 senate election. This is certainly not the pattern you'd expect from a left-wing party in California, getting more than twice as high % in Kern County as in San Francisco. The weakest county for P&F? Marin.

[Kitteh]

Related to the last map:



Peace and Freedom results, 2010 senate election. This is certainly not the pattern you'd expect from a left-wing party in California, getting more than twice as high % in Kern County as in San Francisco. The weakest county for P&F? Marin.

Could it be because voters in areas with overwhelming numbers of the opposite party tend to become more extreme, or are more receptive to third parties because they know their vote won't count anyway?

That's possible, but given that this is California I'd say that most people are used to having their vote not count. Also, the Green Party shows the opposite pattern, as my previous maps show they do very well in the Bay Area and very bad in the Central Valley. I think the best explanation is what I posited above, that the Green and the Peace & Freedom parties each take a very different type of left-wing voter. The Greens take the "latte liberals" in the Bay Area and elsewhere while Peace & Freedom's constituency is more poor, Latin@ Central Valley farmworkers and such, who are voting third-party because they feel disaffected from the American political system in general. That could be why each is weak in the area where the other is strong.

[Kitteh]

Also, here's Nevada 3rd place 2012. Brown is NOTA:

[Kitteh]

*bump*

A map of Bob Henry Baber, the Mountain Party (state affiliate of the Green Party) candidate for senate in WV in 2012:



Needless to say, this isn't quite what you would expect. Baber did pretty well in the "typical" Green places like Monongalia (UWV) and Kanawha (Charleston), but those weren't his strongest areas. I'm not sure what the pattern is; perhaps something to do with mountaintop removal?

Also interesting: Baber's weakest county was Joe Manchin's strongest (Logan). That's not a coincidence, I'm sure.

[Kitteh]

Here's something I've been working on on-and-off for a while, and finally finished: a map of the third-place candidate (behind Obama and Romney) nationwide in 2012 (click to enlarge):


Yellow: Gary Johnson
Green: Jill Stein
Purple: Virgil Goode
Orange: Randall Terry
Light Blue: Rocky Anderson
Maroon: Roseanne Barr
Pink: Richard Duncan
Brown: None of the Above
Black: Miscellaneous write-ins
Gray: Tie

No candidates other than Obama and Romney were on the ballot on Oklahoma, hence it is shaded out.

Not much to say, other than that Johnson was by far the most successful third-party candidate in 2012. The results vary a lot state-by-state, which has a lot to do with ballot access (Michigan stands out because it is the only state other than Oklahoma where Johnson wasn't on the ballot).

[Kitteh]

Fantastic work, thank you. I hope Mercer County, NJ's leading write-in was resident loon Jeff Boss, who did indeed witness the NSA conspire and commit the 9/11 attacks! He might've been running for senate though, I forget honestly.

If he was registered as an official write-in, then no. This is write-ins that the state didn't recognize as any real person, i.e. people who write in Mickey Mouse or Lizard People.

[Kitteh]

lazy minor bump, was curious about the minor parties in NY, made these quickies.

The 4th largest party in terms of # of active registered voters by county. 4th is important because the Independence Party is by far the largest after the two big parties, probs cause a lot of people mistake Independence Party for Independent (i.e. no party) when registering:



Key:
Conservative Party
Working Families Party
Green Party

Not very surprising, the Conservative Party is the biggest of the three by far, the Working Families Party beats them in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the Greens are the largest in Tompkins County (Ithaca)


Another one, very similar:



This is a map of fusion voting in 2012, showing the highest voted ballot line after the Democratic and Republican lines. In other words, whether Obama on the Working Families line or Romney on the Conservative line got more votes in each county. Colors are the same, only real difference is the Bronx.