§ The map · Virginia
Virginia ratified the Constitution in 1788, by a convention vote of 89-79, the 10th state to do so.
Ten votes. Patrick Henry argued against it for three weeks and nearly won.
Asked how many people in the other party support political violence, Virginia residents put the figure at 55.8%. Asked the same people whether they themselves support it, the answer comes back at 17%. The distance between what is believed and what is true is 38.8 points, across 3,502 respondents in Virginia.
Divided Houses is about what a country does after it stops checking whether the thing it believes about the other side is true.
Ratification votes and dates from the United States Senate Manual. Statehood dates from the National Archives. Where sources disagree, this map follows the Senate Manual and says so.
America's Political Pulse, Polarization Research Lab. Weekly from September 2022 to March 2026. 162,000 respondents nationally.
Answer the same question yourself — six seats, from the world down to you, and then you see where every other reader landed.
All fifty-one cards on the map
Divided Houses, Book One of the Union Trilogy