Obama won about 70 percent of these counties. Here’s the map:

The Daily Viz

That map, of course, can be misleading — as often happens in elections. That because the area of the counties can distort their actual voting power. In this case, Obama won more “majority minority” counties with urban populations and many more voters, such as Los Angeles (Calif.), Cook (Ill.) and Kings (N.Y.) counties, among others. Romney carried rural Republican counties, largely in Texas and the west.

Obama received nearly 18 million votes in the “majority minority” counties he carried. Romney got 2 million votes in his “majority minority” counties. In the end, Obama received a net 10 million votes from “minority majority” counties — nearly double his national margin over Romney in the country as a whole.

The map below uses proportional circles on top of the choropleth map above to help visualize the total votes in each county. You can see how Obama won in many of the most-populous counties, increasing his national margin (though not necessarily helping with the Electoral College — except in critical purple states he carried, such as Florida and Virginia).

The Daily Viz

You can download the data here.

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First, the Republicans:

And the Democrats (so far):

We’ll see what this looks like after Thursday night.

See the charts, and download the data.

UPDATE: Ron Paul included at disobey’s request: 

When it comes to cars, the results are often predictable. It probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that the data, as collected by Scarborough Research, show that drivers of hybrid automobiles tend to skew Democrat and are highly likely to vote. Subaru owners, as well. Saab and Volvo owners also lean left and vote in large percentages, though not by as wide a margin.

Bubbles in this view are sized the represent the number of speeches given by each president, with colors representing format (purple = oral; green = written).

This shows the total number of words used during each president’s tenure in both formats. Teddy Roosevelt needed 174,000 to deliver his thoughts, leading all presidents. 

A better view is to look at the average number of words used, given that presidents have had varying term lengths over time. Jimmy Carter led all presidents, with an average of 33,000 words, though that’s skewed by one long written address as he left office.

Bill Clinton had the longest average oral speeches since 1966, at 1 hour and 14 minutes. Richard Nixon gave the shortest speeches, averaging about 35 minutes. 

View interactive version | Download data

Taiwanese voted on Saturday for their next president and parliament, an election being closely monitored by China and the United States as they look for stability in the region at a time of political transition for both superpowers.

The votes will be tallied overnight, but I mapped the regional divide from the last election, in 2008, which propelled nationalist Ma Ying-jeou to power. His Kuomintang party has pushed for warmer relations with China. Four years ago, he defeated Frank Hsieh, of the Democratic Progressive Party, which favors independence from China and a distinct identity from the Middle Kingdom. 

This map shows administrative areas won by both candidates. Ma’s party is stronger in the north, where business groups in large population centers like the capitol of Taipei generally prefer better relations with China: 

This map shows the intensity of Ma’s support in 2008. Again, the regional divide is evident (he won with 58 percent of the vote, so the maps have different totals): 

And here’s Hsieh’s vote: 

We’ll see what happens in the morning in the contest between Ma and pro-independence DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen. Though Ma won easily four years ago, this year’s contest is too close to call. This time, a third-party candidate, James Soong, is in the race. He threatens to pull votes away from Ma’s party, as he did in 2000.

More maps tomorrow…

Mitt Romney, who lost to Mike Huckabee in 2008, carried the eastern and western portions of the state. Will he tonight? Huckabee carried the middle of the state, including Des Moines. Who will take them tonight? Paul won just one county. Will he improve on that total?

This map displays the raw vote total by county. Larger bubbles represent higher margins of victory. Huckabee won Polk County, which contains Des Moines, by 2,700 votes — one quarter of his victory margin. Who will win it tonight?

View the interactive maps (which also include the Democratic caucuses).

The chart below shows pardons granted per year from 1900-2011. Click on a bar to see the number of pardons granted and by which president. The timeline below the chart shows notable pardons.

Built with Timeline Setter.

Some Democrats believe Ohio may no longer be crucial to a 2012 election victory. Instead, states like Colorado and Virginia, with more highly educated voters, may be the Democrats’ must-win states.

I found the graphic, btw, while reading a post by Matthew Ericson — who works with Parlapiano and Cox — in which he argues that maps aren’t always the most effective method for displaying geographic information.