PolicyMap and Mapping Politics

We talked about PolicyMap last month, and so you've probably explored their site and checked to see what data they had on your community.

Now PolicyMap has added something new -- presidential campaign political contributions. It's an interesting data set that's fun to explore for your community -- I found some fascinating patterns for my neighborhood that challenged some of my assumptions.

I like the suggested questions under the Quick Answers section under the maps. This new data set doesn't yet have the questions put in that this data answers -- any ideas?

Here's a note from Tyler Hoffberger explaining more:

PolicyMap.com has now uploaded the latest campaign contribution data (current through May 20). Check it out: www.policymap.com/map

PolicyMap lets you map and research (for free) the concentrations of campaign contributions for Obama and McCain in your community and in any community across the country. Makes for a great visual map to illustrate your point – and can highlight strongholds within key swingstates.

Easy to use: type in any address, zip code, or census tract and then choose a "data layer" to learn about campaign contributions and voter demographics. The campaign contribution data is under the "TRFAnalytics tab" to the right. The site also has loads of data on voter demographics by geography.

What do you think? How can you use this site to help your community indicators efforts?