It's hard to imagine an analysis of presidential elections that doesn't or wouldn't benefit from considering maps and space. Throughout American history, where people lived—whether in a specific region, a city, or the rural countryside—has both shaped and reflected their party affiliations and voting behaviors. This site lets you explore maps of the electoral college results and the popular vote stretching back to the Second Party System in the 1840s.
The most consequential election in American history is also arguably the most pronounced example of the significance of geography, the election of 1860. That election is exceptional because it precipitated the most important event in American history: the outbreak of a civil war that would cost at least 700,000 Americans their lives and result in the end of American slavery and the emancipation of four million African Americans. In the 1860 election, Abraham Lincoln won the presidency with a majority of the electoral votes but only 40% of the popular vote. With antislavery as the core of the Republican Party's platform, he won no electoral college votes in the slaveholding South. He wasn't a national but a regional candidate, not even appearing on the ballots in most southern states. His victory was attributable to the comparatively large population and thus the larger number of electoral votes in the free northern and two western states, every one of which he won (though New Jersey did split its seven electoral college votes, awarding three to the Northern Democratic candidate and four to Lincoln).
Six weeks after Lincoln's election, South Carolina seceded from the Union. In the next six months, ten other southern states would follow as would the outbreak of armed conflict that wouldn't end for another four years.
The long legacy of the Civil War would shape the American electoral landscape for a century or longer. During Reconstruction, the Republican candidates Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes won some southern states with votes from newly enfranchised African Americans. But with the end of Reconstruction and the abandonment of federal efforts to advance racial equality and protect the rights of African Americans, southern Democrats—called "Redeemers"—retook power in the South. Solidified by the disenfranchisement of African American through Jim Crow laws passed beginning in the 1890s, for the next seventy-five years, the South could almost be characterized as a one-party region, the "Solid South."
Democratic dominance in the South eroded during the Civil Rights Movement. As the Democratic Party increasingly embraced a civil rights agenda from the late 1940s through the 1960s, more and more southern whites abandoned their loyalties to the party. The Republican Party seized the opportunity, increasingly campaigning in the South with a message about limited government that aimed at attracting once-devout white Democratic voters alienated by the federal government's enforcement of desegregation. The Republicans' "southern strategy" soon became a conventional explanation for the geographic realignment of U.S. elections from the late 1960s through Reagan's election in 1980, when he won every southern state except Georgia and two southern border states, West Virginia and Maryland. This was particularly remarkable as the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, was a southerner.
But a number of historians (particularly Kevin M. Kruse in White Flight, Matthew D. Lassiter in The Silent Majority, and Lisa McGirr in Suburban Warriors) have argued that there's a better alternative than the "southern strategy" for understanding the geography of electoral politics in post-war America. Instead of looking at regions, they locate the fault lines of party strength at a more granular level of cities, suburbs, and rural areas, arguing that the core of Republican conservative ideology—advocacy of free market over government solutions and hostility to most social programs—emerged from and found its electoral backing in the predominantly white suburbs (and later exurbs) that developed, in part from white flight from cities, in the second half of the twentieth century.
These fault lines can't be seen on electoral college maps but are often clearly visible on county-level maps and cartograms of the popular vote. (In the cartograms, counties are represented as bubbles, the size of which is proportional to the votes cast in the county, and they are repositioned to prevent overlapping each other). For example, the sharp partisan divide between Atlanta and its suburbs is clearly visible on the popular vote maps. Voters in Fulton County, Georgia, which contains the city of Atlanta, have for decades cast 55% to more than 70% of their votes for the Democratic presidential candidate. From the 1968 election until 2016 (with the exception of the 1976 election when Georgian Jimmy Carter was the Democratic candidate), the Atlanta suburbs in Cobb and Gwinnett Counties cast the majority of their votes for Republican candidates. Relatively speaking, the suburbs were decidedly whiter and wealthier than the city.
Similar patterns of Democratic strength in cities and Republican strength in surrounding suburbs can be seen across the country. Democratic candidates, for example, have consistently performed better in Los Angeles than in suburban Orange County; for decades, the same was true of Detroit and the suburban counties of Macomb and Oakland.
These are merely examples of how maps and space can be used to analyze presidential elections and voting behavior. Electing the President aims not to advance claims about the "Solid South," the "southern strategy," a Republican suburban strategy, or any other historical interpretation. Instead, we hope it can serve as a versatile tool for exploration. By offering different ways to visualize the electoral college and the popular vote for 46 elections stretching back to William Henry Harrison's contest with Martin Van Buren in 1840, our goal is to help users deepen their understanding of the complex factors that have shaped presidential elections over nearly two centuries. We encourage you to explore these maps, form your own interpretations, and contribute to the ongoing conversation about the history of American democracy.