Multi-scalar cartographic analysis of 2008 and 2010 election returns in Wisconsin, USA

The 2008 election cycle signaled a recent high in Democratic voting in the State of Wisconsin. At the national level, Wisconsin awarded its electoral votes to Democrat Barack Obama. Democrats performed well at the state level too, taking control of the State Assembly, State Senate, and Governor's mansion, a first since 1986. By 2010, in the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, voters turned their attention away from Democrats. Nationally, Democrats lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives and clung to a three seat majority in the US Senate. Wisconsin voters propelled Republicans to victory in unprecedented fashion, making it the only state in the 2010 election cycle in which one party lost majorities in both houses of the state legislature and the governorship. The purpose of this paper is to use cartographic illustrations at the county and voting district levels to provide spatial evidence of voting patterns in the State of Wisconsin. County-level analysis is provided for the 2008 presidential and the 2010 gubernatorial elections, while voting district-level analysis is conducted for the 2010 gubernatorial election. Voting district results are the smallest scale of voting results available to the public and allow a more intimate and local contextual analysis of election patterns. This study also provides a technological framework for troubleshooting election reporting methods that do not align with voting district shapefiles in a GIS format.