Political Affiliations within the US

For my final project, I want to compare and contrast the political affiliations within the United States in order to speculate which areas are more likely to vote Democratic or Republican. I chose this topic because politics remain consistently relevant within our lives, so it felt both applicable and important to me. I want to explore whether there is a correlation between population density and political allegiance, and if there is, then I want to explore whether higher populated areas are more likely to vote for a certain party.

These two maps both represent each state's likelihood to vote a certain party. The first map shows the democratic likelihood, and the second shows the republican. If you zoom in, you can see the likelihood by county, which you can draw more specific conclusions from.

These tables gives in-depth data on the states and how left- or right-leaning they are, and the adult population of each state. Based on the table, it looks like the majority of the populations are in the middle of the road, rather than having a certain preference. However, more precise information can be drawn when looking at the counties.

There are approximately 3 million adults within the New York counties that I highlighted. Within Los Angeles county, there are more than 1 million adults, and within the West Virginia counties, the adult population is about 43,000. There are less than 1,500 adults within the four Montana counties (and only about 200,000 adults within Montana in general; which is only about 6.67% of the five New York counties and 20% of Los Angeles County).

It appears that there is definitely a correlation between population density and political allegiance. The more populated areas, like New York City and Los Angeles, were the darkest shades of blue on the Democratic affiliation map and the lightest shades of red on the Republican affiliation map. The less populated areas, like Montana and West Virginia, were the darkest shades of red and the lightest shades of blue.

The structures of the areas are important too. New York and California are known for their urbanized societies, while Montana and West Virginia are much more on the rural side. Taking all of this into account, it appears that there is definitely a correlation between population density and political allegiance.

Living Atlas. (2022). Esri. Retrieved from  https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/en/home/  (last accessed 15 December 2022).