Last week we looked at an analysis done in R by the good folks at Offensive Politics, looking at the political climate surrounding the recent Senate election in Massachusetts. There were some very insightful comments (thanks, Revolutions readers!) about the design of the charts, especially in the choice of color schemes used (the originals didn’t use a neutral white midpoint to represent no change). Well, Offensive Politics have taken another look at the charts, and produced some new ones which are a great improvement. With the revisions, the chart comparing the increase in Republican vote percentage from 2008 to 2010 looks like this:
Offensive Politics notes:
From this map we can see that from 2008 to 2010 the Republican vote percentage actually increased in every single township in MA. This is kind of shocking, especially when you consider that Democrats enjoy a 15 point registration advantage statewide.
Check the link below for all the updated charts, and of course the R code to create them.
Offensive Politics: Re-mapping Massachusetts Special election results
