The electoral college is a winner-take-all system that lends itself to the stark red/blue contrast we have seen in previous maps. The reality of the voting patterns in these elections is much more complex. As highlighted in this county level map from the 2004 election, the population of each state does not vote in a uniform way. There are different concentrations of voters in each state. Most states do not fall into the strict red/blue pattern, as the popular vote is often very close in many of these states.

As you can see from the map, more densely populated urban areas in the U.S. voted Democratic, while most other regions in the country voted Republican. Even in states that voted Democratic, such as New York, it looks as if most of the state voted Republican. But the urban areas of the state are so populous that they overcome voting patterns in the rest of the state. As depicted in the map, even though the Republicans won 81% of US counties, they only won 51% of the popular vote. The Democrats won almost as many popular votes because they captured large, urban counties. The non-urban Democratic counties tend to be either areas with a large African American population (in the south) or counties with Native American communities (in the west).