For me, it’s helpful to remember what the underlying reality is.
Skewed for population and colored on a red-blue scale to reflect vote mix.
When those votes are counted, the resulting electoral votes align to those votes, which results in maps like what you showed. When strategists tune their messages to target demographics they can divide (e.g., rural vs. urban), they’re playing a game of inches and shades on this map of purple goo, and that’s still the reality behind the ultimate electoral vote, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Keep voting, everyone!
edits: So much autocorrect.
Data can be beautiful. I just found a similar but maybe clearer example from 2016 with a nice write-up about it.
Teaser from that article:
I think the common term for these is “cartogram”.