You’ve seen it every four years. A giant, bleeding sea of red covering almost the entire center of the United States, with thin strips of blue hugging the coasts. If you just looked at a standard presidential election results map without any context, you’d swear the Republican candidate won by a landslide every single time.
Honestly, it's kinda misleading.
The big problem is that land doesn't vote. People do. But our brains aren't wired to see it that way when we stare at a geographic map. We see 500 miles of red dirt and think "dominance," even if only three people and a very confused cow live in that specific county. This visual distortion is why the 2024 results—and every election before it—often feel so disconnected from the actual popular vote.
Why the map looks like a "Sea of Red"
The classic map we use is called a choropleth map. Basically, it shades an entire area based on who won the most votes there. In the 2024 election, Donald Trump took 312 electoral votes and a plurality of the popular vote (around 49.8%). Because his base is heavily concentrated in rural areas with massive acreage, the map looks overwhelmingly red.
✨ Don't miss: Scotland's First Minister: Why John Swinney Still Matters in 2026
Take a state like Nevada or Arizona. On a county-level map, you’ll see huge swaths of red. But the "blue" parts? Those are usually tiny dots like Las Vegas or Phoenix. Those "dots" hold 70% of the state's population. When you color the whole county blue or red, you’re hiding the millions of people living in the other party’s territory.
The "Purple" Reality
In reality, there are no truly "red" or "blue" states. There are just shades of purple. Even in a "deep red" state like Wyoming, which Trump won by a massive +46 points in 2024, tens of thousands of people voted for Kamala Harris. Conversely, in "deep blue" Vermont, which Harris won by +32 points, a third of the voters wanted Trump.
When we use a binary red/blue map, we delete those people from the visual record.
Cartograms: The Map That Looks "Broken" But Is Actually Better
If you want to actually understand how an election was won, you’ve gotta look at a cartogram. These maps distort the size of states based on their electoral votes or population rather than their physical landmass.
Why Cartograms Matter:
- Rhode Island vs. Montana: On a normal map, Montana looks like it should be way more important than Rhode Island. In the Electoral College, they are much closer than their sizes suggest.
- The Northeast "Explosion": In a cartogram, the tiny states in the Northeast suddenly puff up like a blowfish. This is because they have a high density of people and electoral power.
- The Rural Shrink: The massive "flyover" states in the Great Plains shrink down significantly. It looks weird, but it's a more honest representation of where the power lies.
Experts like those at the University of Michigan have been refining these for years. They often use "population-weighted" maps that make the US look like a weird, bubbly blob. It’s ugly, sure. But it’s the only way to see that a tiny blue square representing Chicago actually carries more weight than a dozen red counties in southern Illinois combined.
The 2024 Shift: What the Map Didn't Show Immediately
The 2024 presidential election results map had some surprises that a simple color-fill doesn't capture well. While Trump won all seven "swing states" (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada), the margin of those wins was actually smaller than his national popular vote shift.
According to data from the Pew Research Center, Trump’s coalition became more racially and ethnically diverse. He made significant gains with Hispanic voters, moving from 36% support in 2020 to roughly 48% in 2024.
🔗 Read more: Rt 1 Saugus MA Accident Today: What Real Commuters Need to Know
You can’t see that shift if you just look at a map that says "Florida is Red." To see the movement, you need a swing map or a "lead change" map. These use arrows or gradients to show how much a place moved compared to the last election. In 2024, almost every single state moved to the right (redder), even if they stayed blue on the final map. New York, for instance, had a massive shift toward the Republicans, even though Harris still won the state.
Historical Color Swapping (Wait, what?)
Here is a fun fact: the red-blue thing is actually pretty new. Before the 2000 election (Bush vs. Gore), there was no set rule. Sometimes Democrats were red and Republicans were blue. Sometimes they used yellow.
It was actually TV journalists like Tim Russert who standardized it during that long, drawn-out 2000 recount. Before that, some networks used blue for the incumbent party and red for the challenger. It’s sorta wild to think that our entire modern political identity—"Red State" vs. "Blue State"—was basically decided by a few graphic designers at NBC and CNN about 25 years ago.
The Urban-Rural Chasm
The map has become a visual shorthand for the urban-rural divide. In 2024, this gap grew even wider.
- Rural areas: Trump won these by roughly 40 points.
- Urban areas: Harris maintained a massive lead, winning about 65% of the vote.
- Suburbs: This is where the real "map-making" happens. The suburbs are the "purple" zones that actually decide the outcome.
How to Read a Map Like a Pro
Next time you're scrolling through election results, don't just look at the big colors. Do these three things to get the real story:
- Check the "Margin of Victory": Look for maps that use shades (light pink to deep crimson) rather than flat colors. A light pink state is a "swing" state; a deep crimson one is a "base" state.
- Find the Cartogram: If the site offers a "proportional" or "tile" view, use it. It’ll show you why a candidate can win a "tiny" state like New Jersey and have it matter way more than winning a "big" state like Alaska.
- Look for the "Shift": See if there's a toggle for "Change from 2020." This tells you where the momentum is actually heading, regardless of who won the state.
Understanding a presidential election results map is basically an exercise in ignoring your eyes and trusting the data. The land doesn't change, but the people do.
To get a better handle on this, you should try looking at a county-level bubble map. These represent each county’s vote with a circle—the bigger the circle, the more people live there. It’s the best way to see the "hidden" voters that the big blocks of color usually bury. You can find these on most major data journalism sites like The New York Times or The Washington Post during election cycles.