Chris Kirkwood

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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

The Cincinnati metro area is among the more conservative in the country. Trump won the region by about 11 points, only losing Hamilton County OH. Despite the size of this win, Republican lost decent ground in all of Hamilton's collar counties, especially on the Northeastern end of Cincinnati

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

Knox County, Tennessee is where one of my PhD cohort members is from. Biden decidedly improved on Hillary Clinton's margin here from 2016, as she was unable to crack 40% of the vote. Biden made Knoxille a decent amount bluer, and its suburbs a lighter shade of red. Notably, former pro-wrestler Kane is the County Mayor here

In 2022, Kansas Republicans saw their ballot measure to ban abortion fail significantly. Wichita, one of the more typically conservative areas of the state, went pro-choice by about 24 points, and fueled a decent amount of the statewide margin. The pro-life areas were concentrated on the outskirts of town. 

In 2022, Cherokee County flipped Republican gubernatorially, but Republicans were still down a lot of ground from federal races. Talequah, which normally has one blue precinct, and its surrounding area turned a bright shade of blue, holding Stitt to just over a 1-point win margin

Douglas County, Nebraska is home to a plethora of competitive elections. In the 2022 Congressional race there, Republican Rep. Don Bacon won 4/7 of Omaha's Council Districts, as well as the outer portions of the county, whereas Democrat Tony Vargas only won 3 despite only a narrow loss of the county

Jackson County IL is home to Carbondale (which is home to SIU) and Murphysboro, and is the one light blue dot in southern Illinois. Biden won it by just over a point, with the heavily Democratic margins from the city of Carbondale pushing him over the finish line in the county

Desha County AR is one of the counties most likely to flip to Trump in 2024. Democratic margins have been dropping significantly years, and Biden only managed to win it by 2.5 points in 2020. Republicans won the county in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections, so there is definitely established precedent for a flip

Chatham County GA is home to Savannah, as well as several tourism-centric coastal towns like Tybee Island. Biden won the county by about 19 points in 2020, primarily due to strong numbers from African American residents of Savannah. The coastal towns went for Trump in significant numbers