The New York Times published an article on April 17, 2021 with a headline that read: ‘Least Vaccinated U.S. Counties Have Something in Common: Trump Voters’. The article breaks down survey and vaccination data for nearly every U.S. county in order to find if there is any type of correlation between part affiliation and vaccination rates. This article was rather interesting to me, so I decided to base my geospatial project on the theory that party affiliation does have an impact on vaccination rates. I hypothesize that the data will show that Republican states are more likely to have a lower vaccination rate than Democratic states.

For more information, please visit the New York Times article previously referenced. You can access it at this link: ‘Least Vaccinated U.S. Counties Have Something in Common: Trump Voters’

To begin this project, it’s important to understand which states are considered to be Republican and Democratic. To accomplish this, I have included the electoral college map from the 2020 election, so you can visually compare between it and the map I have included below. 2020 Electoral College Map As you can see, Joe Biden was victorious in the 2020 election by a score of 306 to Donald Trump’s 232. Biden was able to flip multiple states that Hillary Clinton lost back in 2016. Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia are key states that Biden was able to claim in 2020. Being that each of these states has at least 10 electoral college points, this was a huge swing for the Biden campaign.

Now that we have looked at how the 2020 election broke down into electoral college votes. Let’s take a look at the states percentage of people with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The interactive map below displays this. Hover over or click on a state to see the percentage. The states filled in with a more orange tint have a lower percentage of people with at least one dose, while the bluer states have a higher percentage.

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After comparing the electoral college map from the 2020 election to the geospatial map that shows the percent of population with at least one dose, it’s safe to say that there is a noticeable trend. The majority of states that voted for Donald Trump have a less percentage of state population with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in comparison to the states that voted for Joe Biden. Of the 22 states that Donald Trump won, seven have at least 38% of their population with at least one dose. Of the 25 states that Joe Biden outright won, 23 have at least 38% of their population with at least one dose of the vaccine.

While there may not be a definitive way to actually decipher whether or not there is a direct correlation between party affiliation and vaccine hesitation, the map above is important to note. Of the states that voted for Trump, Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Kentucky and Florida seem to be more receptive to the vaccine than the other states that Donald Trump won. In Joe Biden’s case, there is a much clearer correlation. The only states that had less than the 38% threshhold were Nevada and Georgia. Based on this information, I can say that my hypothesis was accurate.

By looking at the geospatial map, one can infer that the south-east states are the most hesitant region within the entire country. Specifically, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Louisiana and Tennessee were all less than 33% with at least one dose. Perhaps another interesting thing to look at would be finding out why the people in the southeast are so hesitant to taking the vaccine.