US Split By Party? A Map

So a lot of chatter goes on here and elsewhere about the USA splitting up on the political fault lines. I thought it was worth a look into how we could do that and what the USA would look like at that point.

To do this, I will be using the Gallup Polls for party affiliation, and splitting the US population into three groups: The Republic of America, The Democratic Alliance, and the Independent States of America.
I will be using the landmasses of states and their political leaning to choose which states go to which group.

Gallup: https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
Landmass: Google
Leaning: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-republican-states and https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-democratic-states

The United States

The USA is 9,834,000 square kilometers and contains 50 states (this does not count US territories; we’ll leave them out for now).

Its total population is 333,449,715

States vary greatly in population, not always related to their size.

Each state has a voting pattern that makes it “lean” Republican or Democratic. This lean is more pronounced in Republican states.

The Republic of America

28% of all US potential voters identify as Republicans. This means that to split the nation on landmass, we need to allocate 2,753,520 square kilometers to this new nation. We also expect a population of 93,365,920.

To do this, we will begin with the most Republican states, and see how that looks on the map.

To begin with, Wyoming is the Republican stronghold, with a solid 26 point lean to the right.
West Virginia is next, at 23 points.
Next up are North Dakota and Oklahoma, at 20 points.

Dropping to the next tier, Idaho comes in at 19 points.
Arkansas, Kentucky, and South Dakota round out this tier at 16 points.

At 15 points, we get Alabama and Texas.
At 14 points, we have Tennessee.
At 13 points, we have Nebraska and Utah.

Louisiana would be up next, but at a landmass of 135,658 km2 it would significantly overshoot the allocation and dig into the Independent States of America. So we will keep it to this:

StateAreaPopulationLeanRepublican Population (est)
Wyoming253,348590,01326448,410
West Virginia62,2591,793,716231,309,413
North Dakota183,112780,52320546,366
Oklahoma181,037 3,972,815202,780,971
Idaho216,632 1,850,000191,276,500
Arkansas137,733 3,000,000161,980,000
Kentucky104,6594,510,000162,976,600
South Dakota199,905 858,46916566,590
Alabama135,765 5,100,000153,315,000
Texas695,66229,200,0001518,980,000
Tennessee109,247 6,950,000144,448,000
Nebraska200,3461,970,000131,241,100
Utah219,887 3,340,000132,104,200
TOTAL2,699,59263,915,53641,973,149

As you can see, this would create a bit of a two-state nation, with a cluster in the middle and a cluster in the upper mid-west:

US Split By Party? A Map

We can see if we can negotiate some later, but for now, this would be the land allocated and the population of Republicans living here would already be 29.89% of the total Republicans in the USA

The Democratic Alliance

29% of all US potential voters identify as Democrats. This means that to split the nation on landmass, we need to allocate 2,851,860 square kilometers to this new nation. We also expect a population of 96,700,417.

To do this, we will begin with the most Democratic states, and see how that looks on the map. Democratic voters are far more spread out over the nation, so this will require us to go a tier down in leaning.

To begin with, Hawaii and Vermont tie for the Democratic stronghold, with a 15 point lean to the left.
California, Maryland and Massachusetts are next at 14 points.
New York rounds out this tier at 10 points.

In the next tier up we have Rhode Island and Washington, with an 8 point lean.
Illinois and Connecticut have a 7 point lean.
Oregon, Delaware and New Jersey round out the bottom of this tier at 6 points.

Since we’re only at 1,312,890 square kilometers, we have to keep going right to the edge of their lean.
To start off, we have Colorado and New Mexico, at 3 points.
Then we have Virginia with 2.
Lastly we can round off this tier with Maine and Minnesota at 1.

To pick up the last states, we will pick the ones with a slight lean to the left. Both Nevada and New Hampshire lean slightly above zero there, so we’ll add them.

This leaves us with 2,636,117 square kilometers, actually less than the Republic of America, but seeing as most other states lean right, this would violate our rules for distribution. We may add one later from the Independent Nations if it would make a finer and more land-equal map. For now, this is it:

StateAreaPopulationLeanDemocratic Population (est)
Hawaii28,311 1,460,00015642,400
Vermont24,900 648,56015285,366
California423,970 39,700,001417,071,000
Maryland32,134 6,200,000142,666,000
Massachusetts27,363 7,100,000143,053,000
New York141,300 20,400,000107,956,000
Rhode Island3,144 1,100,0008407,000
Washington184,6667,766,925 82,873,762
Illinois149,998 12,850,00074,626,000
Connecticut14,357 3,600,00071,296,000
Oregon255,026 4,270,00061,494,500
Delaware5,133 994,735 6348,157
New Jersey22,588 9,400,00063,290,000
Colorado269,837 5,700,00031,824,000
New Mexico315,1942,100,0003672,000
Virginia110,786 8,670,00022,687,700
Maine91,6461,370,0001411,000
Minnesota225,181 5,700,00011,710,000
Nevada286,367 3,200,0000931,200
New Hampshire24,216 1,380,0000401,580
TOTAL2,636,117143,610,22054,646,666

As you can see, this would create a coastal nation setup, with both coasts covered and a few blue hold-outs in the center of the country.

We can see if we can negotiate some later, but for now, this would be the land allocated and the population of Democrats living here would already be 56.51% of the total Democrats in the USA.

The Independent States of America

Having allocated land to the parties, we are left with 4,498,291 sq km of land and a population of 125,884,987, all filling in 16 states. They are a bit scattered over the map, so they may form up into groups or not, depending on location, culture, political persuasion, etc. Some might even elect to join the other two nations. Let’s take a look at the general map:

Montana isn’t really far off from being a red state, and so long as Republicans promise to leave it alone otherwise, I think they might join with the Republic. This is also the case for Kansas.

Alaska is well set to be independent. I think they’d keep it, though they lean Republican in general.

The Great Lake states + Iowa and Missouri will probably form a union, potentially edging in Minnesota. Illinois will probably remain Democratic and serve as a hub for this union.

Both Mississippi and Louisiana lean right, but I think only Mississippi will join the Republic. Louisiana will probably leverage it’s location and culture and history to remain independent.

The Carolinas, Georgia and Florida don’t always get along well, so I think they might form a loose Confederacy of coastal states. They can leverage that with the Republic by providing them trade via the oceans that otherwise all needs to go through the gulf of Mexico.

Arizona is a tricky one. Fiercely independent, they probably would remain that way, but they’d likely become a client nation to the Democrats, as it allows them passage and connection without having to go through Utah. Utah, also fiercely independent, may at some point break off to join Arizona as an alliance of free states.

I believe in the end, once things settle a bit we’ll have a map that looks something like this:

In the end, I think this will lead to the creation of 5 distinct large nations and 4 distinct small nations. The Cascadian Democrats would work closely with the Deseret States, and trade ocean access and lumber for agriculture with the Republic of America. The Northern Union would be primarily industrial, working with their agriculture-rich members to be mostly self-sufficient, and working with the Illinois Nation as a neutral arbitrator between states. Louisiana and Alaska would be independent nations retaining their names and not much would change for them. The East coast would be split between the Northern Democrats and the New Southern Confederacy, both serving as important ocean allies for the Northern Union and Republic of America, respectively. The Union and the Democrats on both coasts may even expand into / merge with Canada, while it is unlikely that the Republic would as their best connection to conservative Canadians would be split by the Union.

I could see this working as a solution, with variations around the Texas/New Mexico area, and potentially with the eventual inclusion of Illinois into the Union. Frankly, this doesn’t look too bad at all to me.

What do you think? Is this the outcome you think would be most natural? What else would you take into account if the nation were to split? And where would you like most to be if this image holds true?