Ryne Rohla, a doctoral candidate in economics, created the map as a side project.He’s now planning to incorporate the results into part of his dissertation, where he’ll look at how changes in insurance coverage due to the Affordable Care Act correlate with voting patterns.

“I think that a lot of good research can come out of it,” Rohla said.

The map, which shows a sea of red across much of the Midwest and Rust Belt with blue pockets in cities and along both coasts, provides a much more detailed look at how people voted in different communities than the state-, county- or ZIP code-level data that’s often used to map elections.

Some data points are just interesting, like the handful of precincts where a plurality of people voted for Gary Johnson, Jill Stein or Evan McMullin. Rohla said the Johnson and Stein precincts are mostly rural and usually have just a handful of voters, often fewer than 10. Read more. Rachel Alexander/SR

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