This diary is a response to reader's requests, including approval ratings from Bush’s first term, cartograms, and showing urban areas.
First, the state approval map and lower 48 county cartogram for Fall 2007. A cartogram is a map where the size of each geographic unit, in this case each county, is based on something other than land area, in this case population. It’s especially useful in politics because land doesn't vote, people do. For a great introduction to cartograms, see BentLiberal’s diary here.
Click to enlarge.
On the left, sagebrush has a bigger visual impact than New York City; on the right, urban areas get their fair share.
More maps back to 2001 below the fold.
Cross posted at Open Left.
Please note the scale: the least support for Bush (beyond blue) is colored green; the most support (beyond red) is purple.
Click to enlarge.
‘Fall’ means September, October, and November for 2005, 2006, and 2007. For 2001, 2002, and 2003, December is included and occasionally a poll from January because there were so few polls.
Most of the maps and cartograms (which are based on Gastner and Newman’s method) include estimates. For more information on how these estimates are calculated, see here. The estimates for the earlier years are shakier because they are based on fewer polls; however, I did check to see how well the estimate for Bush’s approval in New York City in 2001/early 2002 did, and it was just about right.
The map for November 2007 alone isn’t much different from October, but if you’re still curious I’ll have it up on the dKosopedia archive page soon.
There are 8 states for which I found no polls in the past three months: AK, HI, ID, LA, SC, SD, WV, and WY. Of these, AK, HI, LA, SD, and WY haven’t had a poll in about a year, so there’s no way to double-check recent estimates. In these states it’s possible that local events over the past year have made it so the method of estimating is not very accurate. We do know that in 2005 and 2006, HI and LA had an approval 3-5 points higher than what the estimates would have predicted; this has likely continued to this day.
Bush’s approval ratings probably still matter. In 2006 all those who approved of Bush voted for a Republican House incumbent, while often many if not all of those who disapproved voted for the challenger. Bush’s approval also contributes to the current toxic political environment for Republicans.