CNN anchor Paula Zahn misleadingly downplayed Senator John Kerry's electoral wins in the November 2 presidential election. On the November 4 edition of CNN's Paula Zahn Now, she declared: “And there is just plain old geography. Look at the electoral map. Kerry took only the Northeast states, some of the upper Midwest and the West Coast. The rest of the country is a sea of red.” Zahn's statement was misleading because “plain old geography” does not reflect population distribution; the 20 states that Kerry won contain 48 percent of the U.S. population. In addition, nearly half of all Kerry votes were cast by voters in “red states.”

The 29 states that Bush won (the “red states”) are geographically much larger than the 20 states that Kerry won (the “blue states”), making any map that shows electoral votes significantly more red than blue. But the 20 states that Kerry won contain 48 percent of the U.S. population, according to 2003 U.S. Census Bureau numbers. Here's how the U.S. map would look depicting the vote based on state population rather than geographic size.*

Further, Kerry's support was not limited to the 20 blue states that he won, as Zahn's characterization suggested. According to results posted by CNN, Kerry received a total of 55,949,798 votes (48 percent of all votes cast). Of that number, 49 percent were cast by voters in “red states.”**

* At this writing, Iowa has yet to be called. Kerry is slightly behind in the current tally; were Kerry to win Iowa, the percentage would increase to 49 percent. The 20 states Kerry has won plus Iowa comprise 49 percent of the U.S. population.

** This tabulation includes the current tally of votes Kerry received in Iowa.