Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
| Available in | English |
|---|---|
| Created by | David Leip |
| URL | uselectionatlas.org |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional |
| Current status | Active |
Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections is a website that provides tables, graphs, and maps for presidential (1789–present), senatorial (1990 and onwards), and gubernatorial (1990 and onwards) elections. Data include candidates, parties, popular and electoral vote totals, and voter turnout. County-level data is available for many years, and all data are compiled from official sources. Leip's Atlas has been cited as a "preferred source for election results" by statistician and political pundit Nate Silver.[1]
Operations
[edit]The web site was created by electrical engineer David Leip from Massachusetts. Leip began the Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections as a hobby after the 1992 presidential election, while he was attending graduate school at MIT. The site was significantly amended in 1997, beginning with data from the 1996 presidential election, acquiring information from the Secretary of state offices which published election data on-line from 1996 onwards. The site was originally hosted by MIT, but moved to its own URL, uselectionatlas.org in 1998.[2] A part of the website is the Atlas Forum, a debate and discussion chamber on U.S. and international elections and politics as well as electoral mapmaking. In March 2020, the forum was renamed "Talk Elections" with a user and moderator going by the name "Virginia" becoming the forum administrator. [3]
Despite the general media coloring Democrats as blue and Republicans as red, the Atlas website uses blue for Republicans and red for Democrats. The website predates the conventional color scheme, which has only been in place since 2000; see Red states and blue states.
Reception
[edit]PolitiFact.com has referred the web site as "indispensable",[4] while The Washington Post describes it as "great-if-not-super-modern" and notes that "perhaps more interestingly, it lets us figure out which voters actually mattered -- that is, the votes cast before and after a candidate clinched the nomination."[5]
The site has been used a reference for U.S. election and political data by major media outlets including U.S. News & World Report,[6] The Atlantic,[7] The Wall Street Journal,[8] Roll Call,[9] CBS News,[10][11] Politico,[12] and Men's Health.[13]
References
[edit]- ^ Silver, Nate (September 25, 2014). "How FiveThirtyEight Calculates Pollster Ratings". FiveThirtyEight.com. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
- ^ Leip, David. "About the Atlas". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Elections. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
- ^ Leip, David. "Atlas Forum is now Talk Elections". Talk Elections. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
- ^ Jacobson, Louis (December 4, 2016). "Mike Pence says Donald Trump won most counties by a Republican since Ronald Reagan". PolitiFact.com. Archived from the original on February 5, 2017. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
- ^ Bump, Philip (February 5, 2015). "This is how few Americans are deciding who our presidential nominees are". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
- ^ Barone, Michael (April 2, 2008). "In Terms of Geography, Obama Appeals to Academics and Clinton Appeals to Jacksonians". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
- ^ Kron, Josh (November 30, 2012). "Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide Is Splitting America". The Atlantic. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
- ^ Taranto, James (July 20, 2015). "Perot Forma". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
- ^ "Superdelegates Look Down, Look Up for Assistance". Roll Call. March 25, 2008. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
- ^ Barone, Michael (May 9, 2008). "Clinton And Obama's Super Tuesday In Indiana And North Carolina". CBS News.com. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
- ^ Barone, Michael (November 17, 2008). "Obama's Organization Delivered Impressive Results Against McCain". CBS News.com. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
- ^ Wren, Adam (December 4, 2015). "Trump County, USA". Politico. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
- ^ Nichols, Michelle (September 15, 2008). "Raleigh the most political U.S. city: magazine". Reuters.com. Retrieved December 31, 2015.