The depth and degree of geographic polarization in American politics are key arguments that reside within the larger political polarization debate. Evidence used to argue against the significance of geographic polarization is the prevalence of “purple” counties. It is argued that when the aggregate voting results within counties for candidates from the two major political parties are close enough and competitive enough not to be designated as either “red” or “blue” and are designated as “purple”, the electorate is considered spatially and homogeneously mixed within the county. It is assumed that these purple counties demonstrate that voters whose polarized political ideology are either closely divided or deeply divided live near one another. This paper challenges the assumption that partisans from differing parties live within proximity to one another in competitive counties by examining ten of the most “purple” counties of the 2016 United States Presidential Election. The results of this study provide evidence as to whether “purple” counties are homogeneous places where there is no geographic polarization or whether county aggregation merely masks a micro-scalar geographic political divide.

美国政治中地理两极分化的深度和程度是更大的政治两极分化辩论中的主要论点。过去常常反对“地理两极分化”意义的证据是“紫色”县的普遍性。有人认为，当两个主要政党候选人在县内的总投票结果足够接近且具有足够的竞争力而没有被指定为“红色”或“蓝色”而被指定为“紫色”时，则认为该选民在县内在空间上是均匀混合的。可以认为，这些紫色县表明，两极化政治意识形态被密切分裂或高度分裂的选民彼此接近。本文通过考察2016年美国总统大选中最“紫色”的十个县，来挑战来自不同政党的党派在彼此竞争的县中彼此毗邻的假设。这项研究的结果提供了证据，证明“紫色”县是否是没有地理两极分化的同质地方，或者县的聚集是否仅掩盖了微观尺度的地理政治鸿沟。