Fall colors in Oregon make bike rides more pleasant. On election maps, though, colors can mislead.
On its website, the Oregon Secretary of State does a good job reporting election results on statewide and local contests. The color maps the office produces are helpful, but they also imply that Oregon’s regions are far more sharply divided politically than they are.
For example, here’s the map reflecting the presidential returns. Blue counties were carried by Harris and the brown ones by Trump. (Why the Trump counties are not shown in the by-now customary red is a mystery.)
The implication is that most of the land area of Oregon went solidly for Trump while only nine counties went equally solidly for Harris.
But obviously solid colors don’t reflect real votes. Linn County is shown in the color for Trump, because he won it with 60 percent of the vote. The solid color, though, does not show that Harris got about 25,350 votes in Linn County, which gave her 36 percent of the total.
To varying degrees the same is true to varying degrees of all the counties. Like Linn, Jackson County (where the photo of red leaves was taken the day after the election) is shown solidly for Trump. But it wasn’t solid. While the former president got about 59,800 votes, Harris came pretty close with 52,100.
The same point can be made about the nine counties shown as having been won by Harris. In Benton County, Harris beat Trump by a ratio greater than two to one, but the president-elect got 13,430 votes even there.
The map also doesn’t show that in those nine counties, Harris got more than enough votes, along with those she got in the Trump counties, to win the state as a whole, as everybody knew she would.
Elections, of course, are all about who gets the most votes. But the mental picture encouraged by those maps is that politically, counties as a whole are either one way or the other. And that’s not so. (hh)
Like blended families, we’re a blended electorate. Be it ever so…
Oregon has left its residents to fend for themselves with all the reactionary laws that have put in place in response to the homeless and housing crisis. These issues are not new but were not addressed until the people could get massive amounts of funding to throw mindlessly at solving them. The working class have carried the heavy burden of these causes. Being displaced from their homes for high residential housing plus dealing with the wave of hostile actions and financial costs of maintaining a high level of the disgruntled chronic homeless. The government needs to stop taking the easy way out and stop hurting the disparate working families that are living paycheck to paycheck. There is absolutely no way to have any form of common ground with a government that supports entitlement of one group of people and neglect another group of people. The government was designed to keep all this chaos from happening. Dropping the ball is all on them.
Well said, Chris J. With a Supermajority of the Oregon Senate and the majority in the House, the mindless spending will most likely continue while homelessness, drug addiction, and the mental health crisis will remain unhinged.
Also, I would like to add: There is a reason the Eastern Oregon counties have been trying to leave Oregon. The lopsided legislative outcomes that are manufactured in the liberal dominated cities do not fit or represent the lives of the rest Oregon citizens whose way of life is incomprehensible to the citizens who don’t live in rural areas. Another commenter wrongly stated that the red [brown] just represents sagebrush. The Oregon citizens that live in the rest of Oregon matter too! AND I’m pretty sure the state and counties appreciate the GDP created by those rural citizens AND the revenue from property taxes…among all the other taxes, fees, and permits. It seems like the only thing the Oregon is good at is taking; taking money from it’s citizens any way they can squeeze, taking rights, and taking away the hope of cohesion.
Hasso: Why didn’t you mention that there’s a lot more sage brush than people in most of the Eastern and Southern Oregon counties?
Love the picture of your bike by the beautiful fall colors of the trees, and the fence.
Gorgeous picture.
Binary choices purposefully divide, and a more deeply intelligent graphical might require a bit more expertise to create.
Everybody see that recent Vanity Fair cover?
If not, google away.
Division is his name! Bottom line, he only cares about himself.
Not surprised that protests have already begun in large BLUE cities!
The cover is spot on! Nevertheless, he is the president-elect and regardless of the facts, the country’s electorate has spoken.
It appears hj, Ray K, and the fashionista’s at Vanity Fair missed the fact that the lawfare campaign failed on Nov. 6th when about 75 million jurists returned a clear verdict.
Most voters realized early on that every trial and hearing gave Trump a boost in the polls.
Lesson Learned: Lawfare is a losing strategy. Don’t use the legal system for political purposes in an attempt to delegitimize an opponent.
I will trust our system of laws and its process[es] long before I will ever trust the mob. I may not agree with the outcome, we we are a nation of laws. I stand by what I said…
“…the outcome, we we are a nation…” s/b “but we are”
Thank you Gordon. I like you!
Hering has followed elections for more years that he’d admit to. He fully understands these sort of maps are standard and depict winners and losers based on aggregate numbers. His column plows ground that’s well understood, so it might prove more illuminating to consider what ulterior motives Hering might have that would cause him to strike this particular writing pose. Having worked in the News business for a lengthy period, largely promoting the Linn County reactionary perspective, Hering is expert at stirring the pot. In this blog, Hering seems to be doing more of the same. A shallow methodology demonstrating a crassness and a general dislike for the Electorate except when the Electorate votes in the manner he prefers. In short – Click Bait.
Everyone has a right to speak on what they know/feel. Just like you writing yours about his article. I found your comment at the end truley hilarious! “Click bait” huh? You read the article didn’t you? And commemted on it. Soooo……… Some people just have to say their peace.
HH~loved the article!
Well Hartman, if it is click bait, I noticed that you clicked.
So, even Marion County voted for Trump. Isn’t that where our state’s government is?
When will they learn?
This is a country run by the bureaucracy for the benefit of the bureaucracy at all levels. The education system in Oregon is 7th from last in the last measure I saw but spending is easily in top third. Per ODOT they have built 8 miles of new road in the last 40+ years but they have close to 5000 employees. Every time you look DHS has a problem. The unemployment department cannot get unemployment paid even though they spend money on systems and employees like a drunken sailor. The Forestry Department losses money even though they are managing billion in timber value. Can anybody name a government agency they think does a good job?
Hey Hasso, I wish there was a way to endorse or not the comments here.
I for one am very glad this election is over and Trump won! What a relief!
But now I would like to get on with life rather than constantly sitting on the edge of my seat and, if not disengage, then engage less…It would be great for example if there were a way to give say, Gordon L Shadle’s comment above a big thumbs up! He usually says it better than I could!