Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And so far you have yet to demonstrate why anyone should care about that little factoid.
Nor will I try to demonstrate it. Again, it's just a stat; feel free to intepret it as you wish. Just an interesting stat, very much like the popular vote. I don't see so much 'lady protesteth' when people report the popular vote results. hmmmm.
Nice response...just what I had hoped for. So far no one disputes that Mitt Romney won 77.7 pct of counties, or more than 3 out of 4.
Consider it undisputed. Also, nobody disputes that on this date in 1642, Abel Tasman discovered New Zealand - a fact equally relevant in the context of the 2012 Presidential election.
Nor will I try to demonstrate it. Again, it's just a stat; feel free to intepret it as you wish. Just an interesting stat, very much like the popular vote. I don't see so much 'lady protesteth' when people report the popular vote results. hmmmm.
Land area (counties) vs popular vote (registered voters)
So far no one disputes that Mitt Romney won 77.7 pct of counties, or more than 3 out of 4.
When the president is chosen by counties and not state-appointed electors, you can congratulate yourself. Until then, this is about as relevant as discussing who won the Ralph Lauren apparel wearing voting bloc.
I am not saying that it is, but even if the county percentage was an interesting topic for discussion the OP has completely ignored the fact that in the counties that Romney won, he didn't get 100% of the vote. So, even if counties meant something, the OP has chosen to disregard the possibility that Romney might have only received a slim majority of the vote of any specific county.
So, we are really talking about Romney winning 77% of the counties by an unspecificed percentage of the vote. That means that an undetermined number of people in those same 77% of the counties did not vote for Romney. I guess it would be fair to say that Romney received at least 50.1% of the vote of 77% of the counties in the US that when combined do not amount to more than a tiny percentage of all votes cast in the election.
In responding to the question about the electoral college, I threw in the factoid that W Bush won 2439 counties vs. 674 for Al Gore. Then it occurred to me that I never had seen anywhere what pct. of counties were won by Romney and Obama. I only find one source that bothered to do the calculation: Obama-Romney: The County Count « spreadsheetjournalism
(btw the blogger (I don't see his/her name listed) offers some interesting further analysis).
The blogger comes up with 2259 counties for Romney, 649 for Obama, a 77.7 rout for Romney. Note that there are apparently discrepancies in the way that counties are counted. If you add the totals from Bush-Gore, you get 3113, while Romney Obama comes to 2908. According to wikipedia there are certain cities that are not part of a county, so considered as 'county equivalents.' Also according to wikipedia, the US Census counts 3033 counties and county-equivalents in the US. Anyway close enough for government work.
If anyone has a different source for the number of counties won by Romney & Obama, please post it. Interesting that this particular number was pretty widely commented on in 2000, but ignored in 2012.
There's always that pesky problem of having to win counties that actually have people living in them that's hard to overcome...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
