Electoral maps reveal a lot about political change in the U.S.
The U.S. wasn’t always divided between blue and red states—the parties that dominated the national conversation once included Whig, National Republican, Democratic-Republican and more.
Electoral maps dating back decades reveal a lot about political change in the U.S. as the country grew and two dominant political parties emerged. In the 2016 election, Donald Trump won the Electoral College tally by taking traditionally Democratic states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
For some presidents, elections ended in landslide wins. Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1936 election with 523 electoral votes, while his opponent Alfred M. Landon received 8. Decades later, the country turned almost entirely red, when incumbent Republican candidate Ronald Reagan carried 49 of the 50 states, with 525 electoral votes. He was the second candidate to do so, following Richard Nixon, who took 520 electoral votes in the 1972 election.
Check out election results going back nearly 200 years in the interactive below.
