--- description: The election map President Trump hands out to visitors grossly exaggerates the extent of his victory. title: Here's the Election Map President Trump Should Hang in the West Wing image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Politics](/section/politics/) ## Politics Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [2016 Election](/tag/2016-election/) ## 2016 Election Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Here's the Election Map President Trump Should Hang in the West Wing  by [Chris Wilson](/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 17, 2017 3:35 PM CUT  by [Chris Wilson](/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 17, 2017 3:35 PM CUT Very few people still question the results of the 2016 election. But at least one person—the winner—seems to remain fixated on exactly how definitively he pulled off a win. As the New York _Times_ [reported last weekend](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/us/politics/election-is-over-but-trump-still-cant-seem-to-get-past-it.html?%5Fr=0 "undefined"): --- > “” --- An image of the map snapped by a reporter last week shows a familiar picture: Every U.S. county colored red or blue according to who won. The data appears to be accurate, but there’s one problem: While this may be a familiar way to display the results on election night, it grossly exaggerates the extent of Trump’s victory. > [](https://twitter.com/TreyYingst/status/862669407868391424) It is well known that Trump won the vast majority of U.S. counties—2,649 to Hillary Clinton’s 503, by TIME’s count, when one tallies [Alaska’s results](http://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/16GENR/ "undefined") by its 40 state districts instead of its [20 “boroughs,”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%5Fof%5Fboroughs%5Fand%5Fcensus%5Fareas%5Fin%5FAlaska "undefined") since the state does not report returns by these county-like jurisdictions. But the majority of his counties have small populations, even if they are geographically larger than average. By TIME’s calculations, Trump’s territory accounts for 75.6% of the nation’s land mass, not including water. And yet, he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, since Clinton won most high-population, urban areas that take up less space but house many more people. This is why county-by-county election maps are so misleading: The population is highly concentrated in a relatively small number of jurisdictions. Cartographers have tried all sorts of ways to correct for this, including [eye-popping “cartograms”](http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/ "undefined") that redraw the map so that each county is proportional in size to its population. A simpler way is just to place a dot over each county that is proportional in area to the number of votes that the winner received, like so: Maps like this look busy, but they are much more adept at visually communicating the scope of the election. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4780991/donald-trump-election-map-white-house/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4780991/donald-trump-election-map-white-house/"},"headline":"Here's the Election Map President Trump Should Hang in the West Wing","datePublished":"2017-05-17T15:35:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:57:18.001Z","description":"A more accurate way to display the 2016 election results","url":"https://time.com/4780991/donald-trump-election-map-white-house/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election topic","White House","Maps","Donald Trump","electoral college","interactive studio"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Chris Wilson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4780991/donald-trump-election-map-white-house/","name":"Here's the Election Map President Trump Should Hang in the West Wing"}}]}] ```