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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Using Self Organizing Maps To Analyze Demographics And Swing State Voting In The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Paul T. Pearson, Cameron I. Cooper
Using Self Organizing Maps To Analyze Demographics And Swing State Voting In The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Paul T. Pearson, Cameron I. Cooper
Faculty Publications
Emergent self-organizing maps (ESOMs) and k-means clustering are used to cluster counties in each of the states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio by demographic data from the 2010 United States census. The counties in these clusters are then analyzed for how they voted in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, and political strategies are discussed that target demographically similar geographical regions based on ESOM results. The ESOM and k-means clusterings are compared and found to be dissimilar by the variation of information distance function.