Politics of Geography

By David Pakman

          On this page, we will look at what trends may exist among conservative and liberal states in the US. For comparison purposes, here is a map of how the 2004 election ended up:

Source: NY Times

          The first map we'll look at is a map of beer consumption in the United States (and Canada):

          There don't seem to be any particular political correlations here, while Nevada and New Hampshire have the highest beer consumption rates. I would say that the reason behind Nevada is clear (the casino/gambling industry drivers beer sales), but for those who do not live in the northeast, the reason behind New Hampshire's high rate of beer consumption may be a mystery. Quite simply, New Hampshire has no sales tax, combined with a large number of liquor stores located very close to the Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine borders, and the reason becomes clear. People from the surrounding states frequent New Hampshire for beer purchases.

          Next, let's look at fast food consumption as a percentage of total restaurant sales. For those not familiar with mapping, this isn't measuring "total fast food sales," as that would not be indicative of much useful information, since states with higher populations would have higher sales. Another way to think of this map is "amount spent on fast food restaurants for every $100 spent on food at all restaurants." Here's the map:

          Now we can start to see some interesting trends. There is a significantly higher rate of consumption of fast food in the "solid south," a consistently conservative/Republican voting area, and another slightly higher than average rate up the middle of the country (Texas, Oklahoma, etc, on up through North Dakota.), which is another conservative area. Conversely, there is a lower than average consumption of fast food in the liberal/Democratic area of the Northeast, and a slightly below average area on the west coast (also a liberal part of the country).

          What might this reason be? I've still not come up with specific reasons, but would be open to hearing what people have to say. I do believe, however, that the trend is clear enough that there shouldn't be much disputing the facts, although it seems almost anything can be seen more than one way.

          A great question is, is fast food linked to obesity? Here is the newest map available to us outlining obesity in the US:

          As many would imagine, the same trend as in the fast food map is present in the obesity map. As a general rule, the more fast food people eat, the higher the obesity rates in that state. Also, there is the distant correlation that may or may not exist between fast food/obesity and the political orientation of states.

          The next map is of the distribution of poverty across the United States: 

          Here there is another clear trend. The areas with the highest concentrations of poverty find themselves almost entirely in the "red states," or those that tend to vote for conservative presidential candidates. These areas are focused in the southeastern US, Texas, the Dakotas and Montana, as well as Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, with a particularly significant grouping around the Mississippi River in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

          Again, I do not yet have a hypothesis as to why this distribution exists, and would be interested in hearing from anyone with an idea. An interesting question would be, are fast food sales and poverty linked in some way, and if so, how?

Next, could education be linked to poverty or political orientation, or vice-versa? Here is the distribution of college degrees across the US:

          Now we come to religion. Here is a map of the distribution of religion across the US:

          There should be no surprises here. The majority of the particularly liberal states are Catholic, and the solid south and Texas are Baptist. The heavily conservative state of Utah is significantly Mormon. Since there is really nothing new or interesting here, we'll move on to the next map.

          A strange map by many accounts, this map shows the concentration of Wal-Mart stores across the US, by population:

          A similar trend to many of the other maps exists here. The heavily conservative states have many more Wal-Mart stores for each person living there, compared to the liberal states, particularly the Northeast and California, where there are the fewest Wal-Mart stores per the state's population. Another interesting note, not displayed on the map is that Wal-Mart employees, on a nationwide, overall basis, are significantly more conservative than the national average.

          Here is an interesting map which outlines the preference index for the entire country. In short, this map intends to show what parts of the country people like living in, and what parts they don't, according to residents of those areas:

          I think this is one of the more remarkable maps, by far. There is a clear trend here. The areas people have the highest preference rate in are the entire northeast, from New England all the way down to Washington DC and slightly beyond, the Chicago and surrounding areas, including parts of Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and the entire west coast, including California, Oregon, and Washington.

          Clearly the areas with the highest concentration of high preference as Democratic/liberal areas. Even more interesting is that in the conservative states, the areas with the highest preference are, within the overall conservative states, the more liberal, or in certain states' case, moderate, counties, i.e. those containing large cities, from Denver, to Phoenix, Miami, New Orleans, and the large Texas cities.

          The last map outlines the division of slave states years ago in the United States. The map is as follows:

Green: Free states & territories

Red: Slave states

Yellow: Territories open to slavery.

          Cleary the remnants of these divisions remain, as the Democratic-voting states are based pointedly around the green areas of the map, while the red areas are heavily Republican-voting.

What does this all mean? I'm not sure. The trends are clear, but the reasoning can certainly be interpreted many different ways. As people continue to send me more data and maps, I'll add to this page.

Please send any questions, comments, or hate mail to me here.