Awesome NYT County Maps

I feel like this has come up here before but in case it hasn't - I can't stop looking at this map. It's like the coolest thing ever.

This is a comparison of the 2008 Obama-McCain margin with the 2004 Kerry-Bush margin by county. So blue counties got bluer (even if they're red counties) and red counties got redder (even if they're blue counties).



Arizona's mildly redder, no surprise there. I'll say this: while my initial reaction was "hey, everybody turned on the Republicans - except the racists in the south," it looks a bit more complicated. First of all, many poor and/or black people have had to move away from southern Louisiana, explaining part of the shift there. Also, Arkansas clearly has a problem, but keep in mind that it is the (original) home state of a former Obama rival (what was her name again?) and so there could quite understandably be some bitterness there. If you count out those two regions, you're left with what is closer to being Appalachia than the South. So when it comes to racism, maybe coal mines are the new cotton fields?

For comparison, here's the 2008 Obama-McCain margin against the 1992 Clinton-Bush margin: (And even more reason not to call 2008 a presidential landslide)