In the recently concluded Democratic Primary more than 1.684 million voted, that is 30,000 more votes than the combined votes for all of the previous caucuses/primaries such as Iowa (est 220,000), New Hampshire (284,100), Michigan (593,800) , Nevada (10,500) and South Carolina (530,300).

And yet, the media has branded Florida Democratic primary as just a beauty contest since no delegates will awarded to Clinton who won nearly 50% of the total vote (~857,000), or to Obama getting 569,000 votes or to Edwards with 249,000 votes. The spatial distribution of the share of each candidate’s votes in the Florida Democratic primary is even more interesting. See the map below that shows share of candidate votes by county, the bright colors indicate higher share.

Red = Clinton counties, Green = Obama counties, Blue = Edwards counties

Clinton dominated in 47 counties compared to 8 counties each for Obama and Edwards . Jackson county showed near equal distribution for all three, while Bradford, Gulf and Taylor were almost a tie between Edwards and Clinton.

The top five counties with more votes for Clinton are: Broward (~106,830), Miami-Dade (~90,850), Palm Beach (40,875), Pinellas (~48,575), Hillsborough (42,990).

Top five counties with more votes to Obama are: Duval (~40,800), Leon (~21,080), Alachua (~14,640), Escambia (~13,030) and Gadsen (~5,290)

Top five counties with more votes to Edwards are: Jackson (~2,465), Suwanee (~1,960), Holmes (~1,360), Baker (~1,250) and Taylor (~1,220)

For detailed datasets go to GeoCommons and search with keywords “Florida Democratic Primary” and explore interactive thematic and heatmaps of vote counts for each of the top three Democratic candidates.

Popularity: 6% [?]

The winner-take-all Republican primary awarded McCain with 57 delegates. This was his second win over Romney in nearly as many weeks. A spatial distribution of the share of votes at the county level (see the map below) shows an interesting pattern where bright hues indicate higher share of votes for a candidate compared to all other candidates. McCain won more votes in 47 counties than any other candidate (counties shown in red), while Romney had plurality of votes in 17 counties (green) and Huckabee with an overall showing of 4th place, managed to claim Holmes county (blue), in Florida panhandle. On the other hand, Giuliani, who invested so heavily in just one state strategy, ignoring all the early primary/caucuses came in a distant third with not a single county to show for all his concentrated efforts/resources in Florida. Late today, Giuliani annouced that he was ending his presidential bid.

Color key: McCain counties = Red, Romney counties = Green and Huckabee counties = Blue

Vote counts by counties for McCain and Giuliani shows a very strong correlation coefficient of 0.999048, indicating that both were going after similar constituency within the Republican party and that McCain’s gain was Giuliani’s loss. Below are vote counts for the top five counties for each of the four candidates.

McCain’s top five counties by vote counts are Miami-Dade (~75,500), Pinnellas (~44,000), Broward (~40,660), Palm Beach (~38,480), Hillsborough (~37,800).
Giuliani’s top five counties by vote counts are: Miami-Dade (~ 40,250), Pinellas (~19,280), Broward (~18,660), Palm Beach (15,975), Hillsborough (~15,850).
Romney’s top five counties by vote counts are: Duval (~36,650), Pinellas (~34,970), Lee (~34,140), Hillsborough (~30,450), Palm Beach (~29,230).
Huckabee’s top five counties by vote counts are: Orange (~15,710), Duval (~13,830), Hillsborough (~12,840), Pinellas (~12,350), Brevard (~11,580).
Overall, out of 1.9 million votes cast in the closed primary, McCain won 36% (689,000) votes to Romneys’ 31% (~593,000), followed by Giuliani (~279,880) and Huckabee (~258,300).

For detailed datasets go to GeoCommons and search with keywords “Florida Republican Primary” and explore interactive thematic and heatmaps of vote counts for each of the top four republican candidates.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Obama’s decisive double digit victory (55%) over Clinton (26%) in the South Carolina Democratic primary is a major setback for Clinton campaign. Obama won more votes (~295,000) than the combined total for Hillary (~141,000) and Edwards (93,000). He won in all but two counties, see the map below, Oconee for Edwards shown in blue and Horry for Clinton shown in green

This overwhelming victory gives Obama the momentum going into the super Tuesday when nearly two dozen or so primaries/caucuses take place.
A defeated Clinton faces an uphill task that may not be entirely insurmoutable. And lets see why its possible for Clinton to lose primaries and yet win the nomination. Its all about winning majority of 4049 delegates. If a candidate has 2,025 delegates then he/she will get the nomination. Unlike Republican primaries, which are “winner take all” contests, Democratic candidates win delegates in proportion to the percentage of votes, provided a candidate has at least 15% of the total votes. So far, Clinton leads the pack with nearly 232 to Obama’s 152 delegates. These do not include Michigan and Florida, both of which were stripped of delegates by Democratic National Committed (DNC) for moving forward their primaries. If Clinton, who won Michigan by default and is leading in Florida polla, is able to convince DNC to allow Michigan and Florida to be counted among the delegates then Clinton’s delegate count becomes nearly twice that for Obama. Under the current circumstances, Clinton camp has already started talking about such change.

Having lost much of the black vote to Obama, in future primaries, Clinton may seek votes from the other growing vote bank in the Democratic party, the Latinos. She appears to be a favorite among Hispanic voters. Thus along with California (441) and New York (281), if Clinton can stake wins in in states (Arizona (67), Colorado (71), New Mexico (38)) that have substantial number of Latino voters, she will still be in competition after the super Tuesday and could continue the race even in late primaries in Virginia (101), Texas (228), Wisconsin, Pennsylvania (188), North Carolina (139), West Virginia (134). If Obama and Clinton stay competitive in the race to get more delegates this fight could continue right on upto Democratic convention in Denver, the last time something like this happened was in Democratic convention of 1952. It will certainly expose all the fault lines in the Democratic party, deplete funds of both Obama and Clinton and whoever happens to be the ultimate nominee will have to unite the party first and fight for winning the General election next, both of which are monumental tasks that if the nominee succeeds in achieving, she/he would truly deserve to be the next President!

Below is a thematic map that shows delegate counts by state primaries.

The states in red hues are the early primary states, which had primaries/caucuses in January. The green hues are for the super Tuesday states where bright green indicates higher number of delegates. The blue hues are for the late primary states, again bright color indicates higher number of delegates. Michigan and Florida are shown in black, because the delegates from those two states have not been counted (yet). For an interactive versions of the maps go to GeoCommons and search using key words Campaign finance, Election, Primary, Politics etc to explore ton of data and maps on the 2008 Presidential campaigns.

Popularity: 7% [?]

How can we make sure that after a lifetime of hard work, we all will enjoy a stable and secure retirement?

Social Security in the United States refers to the Federal Old Age and Disability Insurance program or OASDI for short. The program was created under President Roosevelt in 1935 in order to aid the nation’s retired, disabled, unemployed, and to families in the event of death. Forecasters believe that the program is becoming less solvent, and we are moving closer to a pivotal point in which the amount paid out in benefits will surpass the amount collected through taxes.

In an attempt to personalize this data, I mapped the number of recipients of Social Security by their home zip code. So by looking at this map you can see how many of your neighbors received benefits in 2006. Who knows, you might live in an area with many recipients of Social Security benefits that depend on their benefits as their main source of income.

All of us East of the Mississippi are cashing in more Social Security checks than our Midwestern counterparts. This can be seen in this map which displays the amount of benefits received in the thousands of dollars.

When looking at these maps I discovered that a number of condensed areas in the suburbs of Baltimore around my hometown housed a surprising high number of Social Security Beneficiaries. For example, the downtown and Northeast Baltimore, Lochearn, and Elkridge areas show this condensed pattern.

As expected the cities and surrounding areas with higher populations had more beneficiaries. In an attempt to curb the bias that population played in mapping, I created a ratio by dividing the total number of beneficiaries, by the population of the area in 2001. An odd result of mapping this ratio is West Virginia has a very high ratio of beneficiaries to its population. This can be seen here:

Also of note: the numbers of disabled, widowed, children, and retired persons is also included in this dataset/map. When looking at this data you can see that certain areas seemed to attract the retired. Here is a picture showing the southern half of the lower 48 states that shows the locations of the United State’s retired population that collects Social Security.

After zooming in you can see in this map that Utah and Texas showed a high Retired/Population ratio compared to Colorado and Arizona. The Salt Lake City, Dallas, and the San Antonio cities seem to be the hot spots for the retired.

Social Security is a very real and large problem that must be mended, especially for the future generations. By looking at these maps we can see where the money is going, and what areas depend on a social security check to support themselves. So please visualize this data on Social Security, and feel free to explore the interactive map .

Look at your hometown, or any area of interest.

*Data is also available for Alaska and Hawaii*

With the coming election, our next president will have a huge influence in the fate of the program. Who will take the wheel of this sinking ship and steer it away from danger?

So, what will our next president elect to do in order to aid the faltering system? In an effort to present the facts here is what a few of the front runners in the election believe to be the answer.

Barack Obama

• The wealthy should pay a bit more on the payroll tax. (Oct 2007)
• Privatization puts retirement at whim of stock market. (Sep 2007)
• Stop any efforts to privatize Social Security. (Aug 2007)
• No privatization; but consider earning cap over $97,500. (Jul 2007)
• Voted NO on establishing reserve funds & pre-funding for Social Security. (Mar 2007)

Hillary Clinton

• Have a bipartisan commission on Social Security and its tax. (Oct 2007)
• $1000 matching tax credit for first $1000 in 401(k) deposit. (Oct 2007)
• Solvent until 2055 under Bill Clinton; now has lost 14 years. (Sep 2007)
• Nothing else on table until fiscal responsibility returns. (Sep 2007)
• Make sure nobody ever tries to privatize Social Security. (Aug 2007)
• Voted NO on establishing reserve funds & pre-funding for Social Security. (Mar 2007)

Mike Huckabee

• Personalization of retirement funds, not privatization. (Oct 2007)
• Personal retirement accounts allow investing in one’s future. (Sep 2007)
• Replace payroll tax & fund Social Security with FairTax. (Sep 2007)

Mitt Romney

• Favors private accounts; prepared to be entirely bold. (Oct 2007)
• Private accounts work better than extending retirement age. (Oct 2007)
• Reform entitlements by negotiating behind closed doors. (Aug 2006)
• Honor expectations of recipients, but take action for future. (Aug 2006)

Candidate’s Stances were obtained at: link .

Popularity: 8% [?]