The Politcal Clout of Fairfax County, Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia has been a fairly solid Republican state from many years. However, in response to President Bush's "unpopularity", Democrats gained control of the State Senate in last Tuesday's voting.

See: The Washington Post's Virginia Post-Election Roundup

In my previous post, I pointed to maps that demonstrate the cartographic "lie" of the national electoral map. Here, in yet another interesting map blog, The Electoral Map, Patrick Ottenhoff points out that the shift in State politics can be attributed, chiefly, to a shift in the voting pattern of the most populous county in the state: Fairfax County, suburb of Washington, D.C.



This map demonstrates the population of Fairfax County, relative to the rest of the state.