The Vote, by Counties

Go to the Washington Post website for the interactive version of this map; when you run your cursor over each county, the stats display in a pop-up box.

Note to my overseas truckbuddies: there's a lot of Republican red on this map, true; but many, many of those scarlet counties are rural ones with low population, outweighed by the populous blue cities.

Also, while I can't tell you what the deal is in the Northeast, Midwest, and Far West states, I can say that across the South, from Virginia to Texas, many blue rural counties are those with a large population of blacks or Hispanics or both, who tend to vote Democratic; and some others are counties with large universities, hence a more liberal population of white voters.

If anybody wants to know, Texas went 57 to 41 for Romney. In the county where I live, the split was much greater: more than 6 out of 7 voters lusted for Mr. Etch-a-Sketch.


Related: Queer voters made up 5% of the electorate this time around, and 77% of them voted for Obama. Nationwide, 60,653,724 ballots have been counted for Obama so far, a popular vote margin of 2.4% over Romney. Ballot counting is still going on in Florida and Washington state.

Does that mean WE made his re-election happen? You do the math.

My God, what a fabulous election this turned out to be.  Here's a chart of the gay vote in other recent national elections, click to enlarge:

Well said: Your Head Trucker heartily seconds Mike Signorille's comments on the meaning of "pro-gay" from this point forward:

The re-election of Barack Obama, as well as the wins in states wherever gay marriage was on ballot -- in Maine, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington -- is a massive watershed for LGBT rights. No longer will politicians -- or anyone -- be able to credibly claim to be supportive of gays, and to love and honor their supposed gay friends and family, while still being opposed to basic and fundamental rights like marriage.

The very ads pushed by the enemies of gay rights, like the mastermind behind the antigay ballot measures, Frank Schubert, which claim you can support gay equality but be against gay marriage, no longer hold water. From now on, you're no friend to gays if you don't support full equality, and you're a bigot if you try to defend that position, as Mitt Romney did.

Many people previously hid behind the idea that since the president, prior to May of this year, didn't support marriage equality, but could still be considered "pro-gay," they could be considered pro-gay too. But President Obama not only evolved, he set a new standard: being pro-gay means supporting full equality.