Failed to understand "County leaders" and "size of lead"

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NewHopeR

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As I opened The New York Times this morning, the headline "Romney Wins Arizona" jumped out with a diagram labeled with "county leaders" and "size of lead" which confused me.
Romney is not a county leader but a nation-level presidential candidate in my eye; "size of lead" seems referring to "the position in lead" - how much votes the candidates have earned.
What exactly do they mean?
 

BobSmith

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[AmE - not a teacher]

I believe you are referring to the graphic at the right side, here? (The URL doesn't seem article-specific, and therefore may be transitory.)

The "county leaders" graphic is denoting which candidate is leading which state county. You are expected to know the counties on sight (I don't!).

The "size of lead" graphic is denoting how large the support is for each candidate. Notice that each candidate is assigned a color.
 

susiedq

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The state is divided up into sections, each called a county. These are color coded to show which candidate won in each county.

The "size of lead" lists the candidates in order by color. Blue happens to be first, so that's why Romney is coded blue. .
 

NewHopeR

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Excellent!
Thank you both
 
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