Losing BIG, Very SAD!

The Economist has mapped President Trump’s approval rating in each state, and the results look bleak for the president and the Republican Party ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Drawing on data from YouGov polling, The Economist finds that Trump holds a positive net approval rating in only 11 states.

In its cartogram of Donald Trump's Approval Rating, the magazine shows that the president enjoys double-digit positive approval in just three states — Idaho, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Conversely, in 39 states and in Washington, D.C., Trump has a negative approval rating, and in 11 of those his disapproval exceeds approval by more than 30 percentage points.

 

This Strength in Numbers interactive map of Trump's Net Approval Rating in Each State shows a slightly better picture for the president.

One reason it looks different from The Economist’s approval map is that it doesn’t rely on new state-by-state polls. Instead, it models estimates for each state by:

• starting with Trump’s 2024 presidential vote margin in that state,
• comparing his 2024 national vote margin with his current national net approval,
• then shifting every state’s 2024 result by that same national swing.

A separate Strength in Numbers chart shows 53.8% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance while 42% approve, giving him a net approval of -11.8 points (about 12 points under water). The map uses that -11.8-point national figure to adjust the 2024 election results and estimate his current net approval rating in each state. The map would look a little different using The Economist's -17% approval rating.

Trump's DEPT of ILL HEALTH

NBC News and Stanford University have created a powerful interactive map that visualizes the percentage of students vaccinated for measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) at the county level. The map is a key component of their six-month investigation - Childhood vaccination rates are backsliding across the U.S.. 

What the Map Shows (and Doesn't Show)

The map's core purpose is to show the current state of vaccination rates, using a choropleth map where each county is shaded based on its MMR vaccination percentage. This is effective for identifying areas with low vaccination rates, which the accompanying article rightly highlights as a growing public health concern. The use of a simple, dark-to-light color scale makes the data easy to interpret at a glance.

However, the map doesn't visualize the change in vaccination rates over time. The investigative article emphasizes that America is "dangerously backsliding," but the map itself only provides a static snapshot of the latest data. It doesn't show where these steepest declines in vaccinations are occurring.

The Missing Piece Map View

After Trump appointed the barely-sentient Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services, there has been a growing tide of government sponsored anti-vaccine messaging - with the obvious concurrent rise in public health scares.

To visualize this fall in vaccination rates the map would need to also display the percentage point change over a specific period, perhaps the last five or ten years. Such a map would more visually connect the current public health crisis to the rise of anti-vaccine sentiment and misinformation. It would directly show where the most significant impacts of these movements, often amplified by political figures and conspiracy theories, are being felt. 

Also See 

CDC Map of Measles Cases
CDC Map of Vaccination Rates for Kindergarteners (which curiously shows New Mexico as having a good rate of MMR vaccinations and not one of the worst rates - as shown on the NBC map)

Is This 2024's Most Detailed Election Map?

VoteHub has launched a new interactive national precinct map for the 2024 election. The map is designed to provide a granular look at the US Presidential election results, allowing users to explore the data at the most detailed level possible.

The 2024 Election at a Precinct Level is a goldmine for election junkies, providing several features that go beyond simply showing who won which state. Users can explore results, compare them to the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections to understand vote shifts, and even see how different demographic groups voted using advanced statistical methods.

One of the most innovative features is the vote density mode, which allows users to see election data in three dimensions. This mode visually represents the concentration of votes, rather than just the geographic size of an area, which helps to illustrate the adage that "land doesn’t vote; people do."

The map also boasts a powerful set of filtering and selection tools. You can filter the map by state, county, metro area, city, and even specific congressional and legislative districts. By simply entering the name of the area you're interested in, you can instantly view the aggregate results for that entire area.

Also See

The NYT's An Extremely Detailed Map of the 2024 Election

What States Would You Live In?

Last year I created the World Level O map for Tripgeo. This fun travel-tracking tool colors the countries of the world based on whether you have lived there, stayed for a while, visited, passed through or never been. You are then awarded a level based on how well you’ve “covered” the globe.

States I'd Live In is a map in the same sort of personal tracking ballpark. However on this map instead of coloring the countries of the world based on your travel experience the objective is to show which countries you would live in. Your preferences are visualized using 5 different colors to indicate Never, Reluctantly, Maybe, Willing and Absolutely.

States I'd Live in includes a number of different regional maps and individual country maps, where you can show which states you would live in within individual countries. In fact I became aware of the map because of the number of people sharing their maps of the United States. Judging from these shared maps, Democratic and Republican supporters seem to have almost diametrically opposed ideas about the best states to live in.

“States I’d Live In” also features a fascinating Stats page that ranks individual states, regions, and countries based on votes from all users. According to the data, Colorado is the most popular U.S. state to live in, while New Zealand tops the list of countries worldwide. The United States itself sits in 17th place, just below Portugal.

At the other end of the scale, Mississippi is the least-favoured U.S. state, and Djibouti ranks last among the 175 countries on the world map.

Here Be Animated Monsters

One of the most underused features in Maplibre and MapBox is the video overlay, which enables developers to display a video on top of a base map layer.

The Hailou AI Video Generator currently has a trial that allows you to create unlimited videos from a starting and finishing image. I decided to make use of this offer to create an animated sea monster. First I asked Gemini to create two images of the same kraken monster with its tentacles in different positions.

I then asked Hailuo to create an animated Kraken sea monster starting from one image and ending with the other. The result is a short video of a kraken waving its tentacles.

 

You can see this sea monster on my Animated Seamonster map. To place the kraken video on the map, MapLibre uses a video source and a matching raster layer. You supply the video file (for example, kraken.mp4) and define four geographic coordinates that mark its corners on the globe. MapLibre stretches the video between those points so it appears as part of the map, following the same panning and zooming behavior as other layers. By adjusting the bounding box, you can position the animation anywhere - in this case, above the ocean.

Observant users might notice that the background color of the video does not quite match the color of the ocean. I attempted to change the background color of the OpenFreeMap base layer in Maputnik. As you can see I seem to have given Maputnik the wrong color.

The 3D Dot Map

Everybody loves a good dot map, such as:

• CNN's Racial Data Map of the USA
• The UK's ONS Census Dot Density Map
• The Dot Map of South Africa

However the Toronto Dot Density Map is not just your average, run-of-the-mill dot map of census data. Yes, the map uses 2021 Canadian Census data to create dot map layers of gender, age, income, ethnicity, immigration, commute modes and commute time in Toronto - but it is also much more.

Press the 3D View button on the map and the hundreds of thousands of dots become a shimmering point cloud, forming a landscape of population density across the city. Peaks reveal Toronto’s most crowded neighbourhoods, while valleys trace the less densely populated areas of the city. The colours of the dots still represent the chosen demographic variable, letting you see not only where people live, but also how age, income, or cultural background shape the city.

The Toronto Dot Density Map is the work of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. 

The Google Maps Platform Awards Winners

Google has announced the winners of the very first Google Maps Platform Awards. The awards were launched to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of the Google Maps API and were open to anyone who has used the Google Maps Platform over the past two decades.

As one of the judges for the competition, I can attest to the overall quality of the maps submitted. Winners were named in 10 different categories, and a Grand Prize was awarded to the overall winner of the Google Maps Platform Awards.

The Grand Prize Winner - Innobrix

Innobrix uses Google’s 3D Map Tiles and the Geocoding API to create an advanced planning environment for architects and builders, allowing them to visualize designs in real-world contexts.

Normally, you need to be an Innobrix customer to access its interactive planning tools. However, for the Google Maps Platform Awards, the company created a special demo map. This demo lets you explore how parcel maps can be integrated directly on top of a 3D Google Map, and how different types of 3D buildings can be placed within a planning site.

10 Category Winners

Daryaft - First Place - Best of Immersive

You can view the winners, runners-up, and fan-vote selections across all 10 categories on the Google Maps Platform Blog. First and second place in each category were chosen by the competition judges, while the Fan Vote winners were decided by the public.

There are many exceptional maps to explore among the winners, runners-up, and fan favorites (plus five honorable mentions). When you click on the links in the Google Maps blog post - look for the 'see in devpost' link to read more and to find the actual link to the winning map.'

Data Visualization in VR

Flow Immersive is a platform that specializes in immersive data visualization for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) environments. It transforms data into interactive 3D visual stories - called “Flows” - which can be viewed on a variety of devices, including VR headsets, desktop browsers, and mobile screens in AR.

CO₂ Emissions Per Household is a demonstration “Flow” that uses a 3D map to visualize the amount of CO₂ emitted by households across the USA. As shown in the video above, the 3D map is visually compelling and, I assume, looks particularly impressive when viewed through a VR headset. Unfortunately, I don’t find the interface very user-friendly.

On the map, colored circles indicate levels of CO₂ emissions, while height represents population density. Users can zoom in and click on individual markers to view the exact amount of CO₂ emitted per person and per household in each ZIP code area. However, there doesn’t appear to be an option to pan the map. The gestures that typically allow panning on an online map instead rotate the scene around a 3D axis. As a result, it’s impossible to obtain a straightforward overview of coastal cities - or any location near the edge of the map - and this makes the data difficult to read.

As far as map visualizations go, I would say that, at the moment, while the immersive 3D map is visually impressive, Flow is not particularly effective as a tool for data visualization. It prioritizes aesthetic impact over clarity, making it hard for users to access and interpret the underlying data. I don't have VR glasses so I may be being unfair here - if in VR there are more intuitive controls and clearer ways to view the actual ZIP code values for coastal cities.

The True Size of Africa

There has been much written in recent weeks about the African Union's endorsement of the Correct the Map campaign. Reuters The true size of Africa is one of the better explanations of why Africa is encouraging the use of the Equal Earth map projection over other maps.

In a neatly illustrated article Reuters explains how for centuries, the Mercator projection has dominated classrooms and navigation, and how its distortions have profoundly misrepresented Africa’s true scale. A couple of animated maps are used to show how on Mercator maps, Greenland looks nearly the same size as Africa despite being 14 times smaller, while Canada and Russia also appear deceptively comparable. 

In reality, Africa spans 30.3 million square kilometers - about three times Canada’s size. Another comparative map is used by Reuters to show how Africa is also larger than the U.S., China, India, and much of Europe combined. The African Union, argue that this long-standing distortion is more than a cartographic quirk; it has fueled perceptions of Africa as “marginal” despite its vast size and significance.

The Correct The Map campaign is pushing for adoption of the Equal Earth projection, which preserves proportional land areas more accurately than Mercator while still offering a practical global view.

The College Football Imperialism Map

The CFB Charts Imperialism Map is a fan-created, season-long project that turns the college football season into a map-based "conquest" game. It started on Reddit and Twitter a few years ago and has become a tradition among college football fans.

Here’s how it works (I think):

• Each FBS team begins the season owning the county in which its school is located (and probably all the nearest counties).
• After every week, the results of the games determine which teams expand their "territory" on the map.
• When Team A plays Team B, the winner takes over all of the loser’s territory.
• That means if a team beats another team that has already conquered a lot of counties, they instantly inherit all of their counties.

The College Football Imperialism Map works on the same principle, except instead of counties it uses a voronoi map.

On this map (presumably) at the beginning of the season the USA is divided up into voronoi territories based on the closest college football team. Again after each game the winning team conquers all the losing team's territory. This includes all the land that the losing team might have previously won from other teams, leading to cascading changes. If the losing team had no territory, then no land is transferred.