Media brands Florida Democratic Primary as Clinton's beauty contest!

In the recently concluded Democratic Primary more than 1.684 million voted, that is 30,000 more votes than the combined votes for all of the previous caucuses/primaries such as Iowa (est 220,000), New Hampshire (284,100), Michigan (593,800) , Nevada (10,500) and South Carolina (530,300).

And yet, the media has branded Florida Democratic primary as just a beauty contest since no delegates will awarded to Clinton who won nearly 50% of the total vote (~857,000), or to Obama getting 569,000 votes or to Edwards with 249,000 votes. The spatial distribution of the share of each candidate’s votes in the Florida Democratic primary is even more interesting. See the map below that shows share of candidate votes by county, the bright colors indicate higher share.

Red = Clinton counties, Green = Obama counties, Blue = Edwards counties

Clinton dominated in 47 counties compared to 8 counties each for Obama and Edwards . Jackson county showed near equal distribution for all three, while Bradford, Gulf and Taylor were almost a tie between Edwards and Clinton.

The top five counties with more votes for Clinton are: Broward (~106,830), Miami-Dade (~90,850), Palm Beach (40,875), Pinellas (~48,575), Hillsborough (42,990).

Top five counties with more votes to Obama are: Duval (~40,800), Leon (~21,080), Alachua (~14,640), Escambia (~13,030) and Gadsen (~5,290)

Top five counties with more votes to Edwards are: Jackson (~2,465), Suwanee (~1,960), Holmes (~1,360), Baker (~1,250) and Taylor (~1,220)

For detailed datasets go to GeoCommons and search with keywords “Florida Democratic Primary” and explore interactive thematic and heatmaps of vote counts for each of the top three Democratic candidates.