Yet another election map
Had some time to kill last week and I had this idea for another election map, so I started gathering data. The idea was to combine the well-known purple map with GDP (gross domestic product) data per state (aka GSP). This is the result:
The GSP data are shown in units of 1E9 (a million times a thousand) dollars. They are 2001 estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (US department of Commerce). I also looked at the GSP data pro capita; states where Kerry won the electoral college (blue states) have an average GSP pro capita of $38301 (averaged over these states), the states where Bush won the college (red states) $31597. Furthermore, blue states generate 54% of the total GDP of the US and red states 46%.
So the red states may be much more numerous than the blue but they generate a disproportionate amount of the US wealth. Ironically, red states - favoring Bush hence tax cuts - benefit most of the US income tax (to use Belgian terms, 'cash flows' are flowing from blue to red). As they are also the least likely terrorist targets in the US (New York, DC and the West Coast cities being the most probable ones), there must be some truth in that 'moral values' were a decisive factor in the 2004 elections, rather than the economy and the war against terror. So essentially the religious zealots in the heartland got Bush in the White House, and we, poor enlightened slobs, are financially supporting them. Rove truly is a genius.
The GSP data are shown in units of 1E9 (a million times a thousand) dollars. They are 2001 estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (US department of Commerce). I also looked at the GSP data pro capita; states where Kerry won the electoral college (blue states) have an average GSP pro capita of $38301 (averaged over these states), the states where Bush won the college (red states) $31597. Furthermore, blue states generate 54% of the total GDP of the US and red states 46%.
So the red states may be much more numerous than the blue but they generate a disproportionate amount of the US wealth. Ironically, red states - favoring Bush hence tax cuts - benefit most of the US income tax (to use Belgian terms, 'cash flows' are flowing from blue to red). As they are also the least likely terrorist targets in the US (New York, DC and the West Coast cities being the most probable ones), there must be some truth in that 'moral values' were a decisive factor in the 2004 elections, rather than the economy and the war against terror. So essentially the religious zealots in the heartland got Bush in the White House, and we, poor enlightened slobs, are financially supporting them. Rove truly is a genius.
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