David B. Sparks, a political science Ph.D candidate at Duke, put together the following animation showing the red-blue divide as it has evolved in presidential elections from 1920-2008:

It’s perfect example of how visual representations of data can be so powerful. As Sparks noted in his blog post about the video: “This animated interpretation accentuates certain phenomena: the breadth and duration of support for Roosevelt, the shift from a Democratic to a Republican South, the move from an ostensibly east-west division to the contemporary coasts-versus-heartland division, and the stability of the latter.”

(Thanks to TPM Reader FM for the tip.)

David Kurtz

David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.