Geeking out
I've just discovered Congressional Quarterly's map of all 435 House races. It's awesome. By default, it shows you the "Projected Landscape" -- every single district is mapped, and shaded in either red (safe GOP), dark pink (GOP favored), light pink (leans GOP), yellow (tossup), light blue (leans Dem), medium blue (Dem favored), or dark blue (safe Dem).
That's already more than most polling & prognostication sites offer. (Pollster.com, for instance, doesn't bother with most of the "safe" House races, and doesn't map the individual districts; it just has little boxes for 'em. Real Clear Politics just has a table of the competitive seats -- no map, no safe seats. Same goes for Electoral-vote.com. And Five Thirty Eight doesn't cover the House at all.)
But CQ doesn't stop there! Click "Races to Watch," and the map colors all the "safe" district sa neutral gray, allowing you to focus on the contested races. Click on a state, and it gives you a close-up map of that state, from which you can click an individual district for more information on that race. As I said: awesome!
Meanwhile, back on the national map: click "Current Landscape," and it shows you which party holds the seats now. Click "2004 Presidential Results," and it shows you how each district voted between Bush and Kerry. Last but not least, if you prefer your House data in tabular form, they have that too, for all 435 races. Whee!! Political nerd heaven!!
That's already more than most polling & prognostication sites offer. (Pollster.com, for instance, doesn't bother with most of the "safe" House races, and doesn't map the individual districts; it just has little boxes for 'em. Real Clear Politics just has a table of the competitive seats -- no map, no safe seats. Same goes for Electoral-vote.com. And Five Thirty Eight doesn't cover the House at all.)
But CQ doesn't stop there! Click "Races to Watch," and the map colors all the "safe" district sa neutral gray, allowing you to focus on the contested races. Click on a state, and it gives you a close-up map of that state, from which you can click an individual district for more information on that race. As I said: awesome!
Meanwhile, back on the national map: click "Current Landscape," and it shows you which party holds the seats now. Click "2004 Presidential Results," and it shows you how each district voted between Bush and Kerry. Last but not least, if you prefer your House data in tabular form, they have that too, for all 435 races. Whee!! Political nerd heaven!!
posted by Brendan Loy at
10/22/2008 12:20:00 PM
