Maps of red-blue splits

Reader Kristen P. came across a data visualization of Minnesota's midterm election results on social media (link). The project focuses on the governor's contest, which pitted the Democrat Amy Klobuchar against the Republican Lisa Demuth. The headline map is a set of thinly-disguised bar charts. The overall result (found here) is a Democratic Party victory, 55.5% vs 42.6% (a winning margin of ~13%). I had to look up the results because I can't infer them from the map. That is a frequent issue with graphics showing granular data; the big picture is lost. It might be easier to visit the "boring" statistical graphic at the bottom of the page first, to get an idea of the dataset behind this project.Minnesota consists of 87 counties. The vertical axis labels display the proportion voting for the Democrat, which are the blue bars (reading red bars requires work). Imagine a 55% line above the 50% line; that's the state-wide proportion. Not unexpectedly, Klobuchar lost in the vast majority of…

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