A Salon blogger friend of mine sent me this:

[AllyCat]

Hey, all:
Those who are wondering about "blue" vs. "red" states can see something a little less primary by going here:
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/11/03/purple_haze.html

I also note that a link was provided to a USA today article that breaks the voting down by counties.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm

"Bill" wrote: "In contrast to your purple map, USA Today has published a country map broken down by county that shows where each party won. It's an even more depressing sea of red than the full US map, but clearly shows how the city folk liked the Dems and the rural folk liked the Reps this time around. Population difference is slight, land area difference is huge."

I'd like to point out the part of this sentence: "clearly shows how the city folk liked the Dems and the rural folk liked the Reps this time around. Population difference is slight, land area difference is huge."

Actually, that's not true for Southwestern Wisconsin, or western Wisconsin along the Mississippi River. The largest cities in this area are: Madison (about 200,000), Dubuque, IA (pop. 58,000), and La Crosse, WI (pop. 58,000). While those are large cities for this area, many people are still living and working in the small towns. The Republicans concentrated a *lot* of time and energy to the areas in Wisconsin along the Mississippi. They still lost most of the counties. Additionally, northern Wisconsin is shown as having gone Democratic. That's waaay out in the country. So, not everyone who lives in the country thinks only of God, guns & gays.

Yes, WI went Dem, but it's good to know that it wasn't only due to Madison and Milwaukee. And I'm happy to see that, as I thought, the 2 counties that I hang out in are blue.

[Liberal Christian]

1. Eau Claire County went Democrat, too

So did:

Adams, Ashland, Bayfield, Buffalo, Crawford, Douglas, Dunn, Grant (which almost always goes red), Green, Iowa, Iron, Jackson, Kenosha, La Crosse, Lafayette, Menomonie, Milwaukee, Pepin, Pierce, Portage, Price, Rock, Sauk, Trempealeau, and Vernon.

Of these, only Milwaukee, Dane, and Kenosha can really be considered "urban."

Eau Claire, La Crosse, and Rock counties are "small-city" counties. Each has a city of about 60,000-65,000. Rock County also has Beloit, with one of the few large African-American populations outside of the Milwaukee and Madison areas.

The rest are rural, as far as I know.

Jeanny

[AllyCat]

2. My mom knocked and dragged in Beloit on Tuesday

She did this with her similarly pushing-70 friend. I think they are doing a great job making retirement mean something!

Wisco did well in this one. I've started looking at some of the results for a few precincts in 3 counties. There are distinct areas where voter turnout exceeded registered. Not sure how this happens, but we do have same day reg. here. Hard to tell if the numbers mean BEFORE election day or up to and INCLUDING election day.

[Liberal Christian]

3. I think it must mean BEFORE election day

I worked at the polls and we registered or did address changes for almost 1000 people at our polling place.

Jeanny

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. I think this loop will let you see counties blink red and blue to compare