Chris Kirkwood
Political Cartographer, Ph. D. Student
Political Cartographer, Ph. D. Student
Featured MapsÂ
Featured Maps
One of my favorite election results of 2018 was Democrats winning North Carolina's 119th House District. The seat contains some of my favorite places to travel in the state, including Pisgah National Forest and Shining Rock. Rep. Joe Sam Queen won by just over 4.5 points, sweeping Jackson County, winning the Haywood portion by a decent amount, and not getting blown out of the water in Swain
Ohio recently voted on Issue 1, which would have raised the threshold to pass constitutional amendments to 60% (in anticipation of a pro-choice referendum). In Hamilton County, home to Cincinnati, this failed by a 2/3 margin. The city proper and more educated suburbs came out hard against Issue 1, with only the west of the county and a few wealthy/conservative enclaves favoring it
Kentucky SD 28 saw a special election with a 3-way race on the 2023 primary election day. Elkins was ultimately elected by a plurality, losing votes to Henderson (a former conservative Democrat who had wanted the Republican nomination) in the east, and getting trounced by Sainte in Lexington
This map was one of the first that I created using QGIS. The referendum asked voters if they would like to approve restrictions on the use of traps, poison, and hunting dogs against bears. Voters in the more inland and rural parts of the state were more against these measures, while voters along the more urbanized coast were more in favor of them. The measure ended up failing by just under a 7-point margin. Notably, the interior of the state has a higher concentration of bears than the coast
In 2019, Forrest County MS almost voted Democratic in the gubernatorial race. Unpopular then-Lt. Governor Tate Reeves ultimately defeated AG Jim Hood, but his margins dropped off significantly across the state. Hood ran up the margins in Hattiesburg, and his efforts paved the way for Brandon Pressley to carry the county 3 years later in his much more narrow defeat
Merrimack County NH is one of the more Democratic counties in the state, and home to the state's capital of Concord. Harris won it in 2024 by just over 5 points, with most of her margin coming from Concord, New London, and the southwestern towns, whereas Trump did best in Franklin and the eastern towns
Tulsa County OK is the former home of the state's capital, and aptly contains the state's major cities of Tulsa and Broken Arrow. Trump won it by 15.5 points, with the Tulsa proper being his weakest part of the county. This was notably one area of the state where Harris improved over Biden's 2020 margins