{"id":2027,"date":"2003-12-14T09:12:58","date_gmt":"2003-12-15T01:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/12\/14\/us-political-regions\/"},"modified":"2019-12-06T14:44:22","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T22:44:22","slug":"us-political-regions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/12\/14\/us-political-regions\/","title":{"rendered":"US Political Regions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:12666,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.massinc.org\\\/commonwealth\\\/new_map_exclusive\\\/beyond_red_blue.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20050921030104\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.massinc.org\\\/Commonwealth\\\/new_map_exclusive\\\/beyond_red_blue.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-12 00:55:32&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-09 20:45:42&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-24 18:30:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-24 18:30:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12667,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.massinc.org\\\/commonwealth\\\/new_map_exclusive\\\/ten_regions.html#sagebrush&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/massinc.org\\\/commonwealth\\\/new_map_exclusive\\\/ten_regions.html&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12668,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.massinc.org\\\/commonwealth\\\/new_map_exclusive\\\/ten_regions.html#uppercoasts&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/massinc.org\\\/commonwealth\\\/new_map_exclusive\\\/ten_regions.html&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12669,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/brokengoalie.typepad.com\\\/eyv\\\/2003\\\/12\\\/big_river.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Commonwealth Magazine, unsatisfied with the standard blue (Democrat) vs.\u00a0Red (Republican) political reporting of elections past, has proposed an interesting division of the country into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.massinc.org\/commonwealth\/new_map_exclusive\/beyond_red_blue.html\" title=\"Beyond Red and Blue\">ten seperate political regions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  this primary-color collage resonates only because it turns up the contrast. Given that more than 40 percent of voters in the blue states backed Bush and more than 40 percent of voters in the red states backed Gore, doesn&#8217;t the red vs.\u00a0blue model seem, well, a bit black-and-white?<\/p>\n<p>  So CommonWealth decided to make a map of our own. Aiming somewhere between the reductionist red-and-blue model and the most accurate (but least useful) subdivision of the United States into infinity, we split the county into 10 regions, each with a distinct political character. Our regions are based on voting returns from both national and state elections, demographic data from the US Census, and certain geographic features such as mountain ranges and coastlines. Each region represents about one-tenth of the national electorate, casting between 10.4 million and 10.8 million votes in the 2000 presidential election.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/graphics\/2003\/12\/graphics\/uspoliticalregions.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"2003\/12\/graphics\/uspoliticalregions\" src=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/graphics\/2003\/12\/graphics\/uspoliticalregions-thumb.jpg\" width=\"350\" height=\"212\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>By their map, when I moved to Seattle from Anchorage, I moved from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.massinc.org\/commonwealth\/new_map_exclusive\/ten_regions.html#sagebrush\" title=\"Sagebrush\">Sagebrush<\/a> region (more centrist, 57.4% Bush\/37.5% Gore\/3.7% Nader in 2000) to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.massinc.org\/commonwealth\/new_map_exclusive\/ten_regions.html#uppercoasts\" title=\"Upper Coasts\">Upper Coasts<\/a> region (more liberal, 57.5% Gore\/35.8% Bush\/5.6% Nader in 2000). Works for me.<\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/brokengoalie.typepad.com\/eyv\/2003\/12\/big_river.html\" title=\"Big River\">Lane<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Commonwealth Magazine, unsatisfied with the standard blue (Democrat) vs. Red (Republican) political reporting of elections past, has proposed an interesting division of the country into ten seperate political regions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-2027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}