David B. Sparks, a political science Ph.D candidate at Duke, put together the following animation showing the red-blue divide as it has evolved in presidential elections from 1920-2008:
It’s perfect example of how visual representations of data can be so powerful. As Sparks noted in his blog post about the video: “This animated interpretation accentuates certain phenomena: the breadth and duration of support for Roosevelt, the shift from a Democratic to a Republican South, the move from an ostensibly east-west division to the contemporary coasts-versus-heartland division, and the stability of the latter.”
(Thanks to TPM Reader FM for the tip.)
