Cool election map

It’s the next morning and we still don’t know if Bill De Blasio won the Democratic Primary by 40% – enough to avoid a run-off.

The New York Times provided a nice map. Go, look, play.

There are buttons on the right to “filter” the map.  Push, for example, “Hispanic Areas” – there are two categories of things to notice. First, notice how the colors just changed. Red (Liu) and Yellow (Quinn) faded a bit. And the Green (Thompson), and the Blue (De Blasio) look about equal. Look at the table on the left – it confirms in numbers (34% – 29%) what you are seeing.

Next, notice it is now showing you in which parts of the city at least half of the voters are Hispanic. There’s my borough (of course) but also Washington Heights, Inwood, East Harlem, Jackson Heights, Bushwick, Sunset Park, etc.

Right above the table is a “slider” – move it to the right, until it says 75%. Now you can see the parts of the city where at least three quarters of the residents are Hispanic. You also see that the voting pattern changes – this is no longer close, but a dead heat. Move the slider again, to the left, until you get to 25%. Then hit the “flip” button. you are now looking at the parts of the city where the Hispanic population is less than 25%. Notice all the yellow, as Quinn’s numbers are better here.

Try White, or Asian, or Black. There are interesting things buried here, both about where people live, and about how they voted.

Don’t skip “Income” and “Home Owners”.  You can predict how Quinn did among higher income voters. But I bet you wouldn’t have guessed that Thompson was especially strong in home-owning neighborhoods in the outer boroughs… Slide it up to 75%.