UR launches 'Electing the President' interactive map
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As Americans prepare to cast their votes in the upcoming presidential election, the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab has launched a new interactive map that offers a historical perspective on presidential elections.
Electing the President visualizes the results of every presidential election from 1840 to 2020, allowing users to explore both the electoral college and popular vote outcomes from the 1840 election between William Henry Harrison and Martin Van Buren to the 2020 contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Two key features distinguish "Electing the President" from other similar maps, according to Robert K. Nelson, director of the DSL: the map emphasizes voters by focusing on popular vote patterns, providing a more nuanced view of election outcomes across the country; and it delves deeper into history, encompassing elections from a period when the Republican Party did not yet exist and the Whigs were a major political force.
The effort is part of the American Panorama project and joins other historical atlases that explore significant themes in American history. These projects include the award-winning Mapping Inequality, which examines redlining and housing discrimination, and Photogrammar, a tool for exploring a vast archive of photographs from the 1935-1944 period.
