Using an area map of districts and shading it according to the winner is grossly misleading.
Huge red areas in the Midwest that have very few house seats. But you get the impression of overwhelming Republican presence in the US. The NYT gives us a terrible example.
Using a square per seat gives you a much better representation. Most of the US districts are Democrat blue. AP has a great example.
Nov 4, 2026, 4:53 PMSquare miles don't vote.
Nov 5, 2026, 4:37 AMThank you for this! What an excellent example of how to lie, or tell the truth, with charts
@carstenfranke a sorted list of population per senator and another of acres per senator would be handy.
@carstenfranke also GDP per senator
@carstenfranke incredible comparison!
and proving yet again, as if we still needed to be convinced, how badly the NYT is misleading us.
@carstenfranke @PapyrusBrigade yes, the huffpost election site has both options and flipping between them has been quite revealing!
@carstenfranke That IS a great way to do it!
@carstenfranke showing actual boundaries is useful, but so is showing how, because they're equal population, the smaller ones matter just as much
Nov 5, 2026, 3:29 PM@carstenfranke Land votes red, people vote blue.
@wcbdata @carstenfranke it’s funny because if land could vote, it would vote against mining, deforestation, data centers, and unsustainable resource abuse. It’s odd that we still use ‘conservative’ to describe the right wing party these days, because I can’t think of a lot of things they actually want to conserve.
Nov 5, 2026, 4:44 PM@forty2 @carstenfranke I was thinking exactly this as I typed it! Maybe land should vote... 🤔
Nov 5, 2026, 3:47 PM@carstenfranke I could have sworn NYT had the blocks view back in the day, did they get rid of it this year or was it just not the default?
@carstenfranke @mwichary things like this have been a fav.
@carstenfranke
BBC have done this too, you can flip between geographic and seats, shows it much better.