red versus blue

when people show you this map of the states:

refer them to this map instead:

As described in this page:

The cartogram was made using the diffusion method of Gastner and Newman, which is described in detail in this article. Population data were taken from the 2000 US Census. Iowa and New Mexico, which at the time of writing were officially undeclared, we have assumed to have a Republican majority — all indications are that this will be the final declaration once recounts are complete.

[snip]

The answer seems to be that the amount of red on the map is skewed because there are a lot of counties in which only a slim majority voted Republican. One possible way to allow for this, suggested by Robert Vanderbei at Princeton University, is to use not just two colors on the map, red and blue, but instead to use red, blue, and shades of purple to indicate percentages of voters.