On Nov. 7, 2024, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump posted (archived) on Truth Social an image of a map showing American counties, each displaying either a red or blue color. Red — the color associated with the Republican Party dominating the landscape of the map — purportedly represented Trump's county-by-county wins in the 2024 presidential election leading to his reelection. Meanwhile, the blue regions signified Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' individual county wins.
It's true that the map represented the counties in which Trump and Harris won, with very few exceptions. As of this writing on Nov. 8, officials had not yet projected the outcome of some counties. In those cases, the red or blue color represented the leading candidate.
We noted four possible issues with the map, though out of more than 3,100 counties the discrepancy appeared small: The Centre Daily Times reported that unofficial results for Pennsylvania's Centre County — appearing red on the map — showed that "voters favored Kamala Harris and kept the county blue for the fifth consecutive presidential election." The New York Times wrote that Harris led in Pennsylvania's Lehigh County, which showed up on the map as red. Connecticut's Naugatuck Valley planning region (a county equivalent) and Litchfield County — appearing blue — should both reportedly instead display as red for Trump.
Additionally, Alaska and Hawaii were not included on the map. A number of counties in Mississippi were shaded gray, likely indicating they hadn't reported results when the map was created.
In our research, we found that Reddit user u/ajmeko posted the map image on Nov. 6, titling it as "A Mostly Complete Map of Counties in the 2024 Presidential Election." We contacted the user to ask if they created the map and will update this story if we receive a response.
One Reddit commenter said under the post, "Yeah, its basically a population density map of the U.S. I know people say 'land doesn't vote,' but godd** if it isn't still crazy to look at."
Other users also mentioned the same "land doesn't vote" phrase and referenced Trump's projected victory in the popular vote. One person said, "'Land doesn't vote' - every Redditor. But didn't matter in this election. Trump still won the popular vote." Another person also commented, "Land doesn't vote, people do. But this time less people voted blue and more people voted red."
We will update this story if we notice or receive word of any further discrepancies in the map.