Purple America
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
national elections reveals that the U.S. electorate is not as polarized
Polarization (politics)
In politics, polarization is the process by which the public opinion divides and goes to the extremes. It can also refer to when the extreme factions of a political party gain dominance in a party. In either case moderate voices often lose power and influence as a consequence.-Definitions of...
between "Red" America (Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
) and "Blue" America (Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
) as is often depicted in news analysis. The term reflects the fact that news organizations generally use the colors red and blue on maps
Red state vs. blue state divide
The terms red states and blue states came into use in 2000 to refer to those states of the United States whose residents predominantly vote for the Republican Party or Democratic Party presidential candidates, respectively. A blue state tends to vote for the Democratic Party, and a red state tends...
to indicate when a state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
or congressional district
Congressional district
A congressional district is “a geographical division of a state from which one member of the House of Representatives is elected.”Congressional Districts are made up of three main components, a representative, constituents, and the specific land area that both the representative and the...
has been won by a Republican or Democratic candidate, respectively. Because the American political system awards a state or congressional district entirely to one candidate ("winner take all") without regard to the margin of victory, it results in a map that does not reflect the true distribution
Frequency distribution
In statistics, a frequency distribution is an arrangement of the values that one or more variables take in a sample. Each entry in the table contains the frequency or count of the occurrences of values within a particular group or interval, and in this way, the table summarizes the distribution of...
of "red" or "blue" votes across the nation. The distortion
Distortion
A distortion is the alteration of the original shape of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of information or representation. Distortion is usually unwanted, and often many methods are employed to minimize it in practice...
s contained in these maps, the argument goes, contribute to the misperception that the electorate is highly polarized by geography.
Robert Vanderbei at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
made the first Purple America map after the 2000 presidential election
United States presidential election, 2000
The United States presidential election of 2000 was a contest between Republican candidate George W. Bush, then-governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush , and Democratic candidate Al Gore, then-Vice President....
. It attempts to reflect the margin of victory in each county by coloring each with a shade between true blue and true red. In light of the general absence of overwhelming victories, this technique results in mostly shades. This map was reprinted in US News and World report a few months prior to the 2004 election.
After the 2004 election, Vanderbei and then others made similar maps summarizing the results. Quickly thereafter, the term Purple America permeated the political blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
and entered the public lexicon as a way of stating that the United States is not as divided as the political pundits would have the people believe.
Cartograms developed by Gastner, Shalizi
Cosma Shalizi
Cosma Rohilla Shalizi is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh....
, Newman at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
provide another way to depict election results.