Thanks to @stevensingiser.bsky.social we've got preliminary counts for seats in every state legislature up for election yesterday. Overall, Dems gained 585 seats nationwide (as of this morning)! www.the-downballot.com/p/the-downba...
Daniel Donner
@donnermaps.bsky.social
Contributor @the-downballot.com. Focusing on data, maps, and demographics. Find our data (and the CD hexmap template!) at https://the-db.co/data
Black turnout was much higher in Southern states, but not elsewhere www.economist.com/interactive/...
We'll be filling in results on an interactive map as the night goes along, but if you want to print out your own map to color in, you can find two styles here: 1. Cartogram drive.google.com/file/d/1Eu0R... 2. High-res normal map drive.google.com/file/d/1Em75...
The Downballot@the-downballot.com · 2d agoElection Day is finally here, and we have a lot to check out before polls close! Dive in for our previews, our poll-closing map, our hour-by-hour guide to election night, the election tracker, and how to join our Discord! And head to our livestream with Strength In Numbers starting at 6:45 PM ET!
Crypto- and AI-focused super PACs have poured nearly $250 million into this year’s elections. Tonight we find out what it bought. Here’s my guide to the races to watch, where the money went, and which results could embarrass the industry: www.citationneeded.news/2026-electio...
A crypto and AI money guide to election night
Where crypto and AI super PACs are spending, what their ads won’t talk about, and which races could embarrass them.
citationneeded.news
Why doomscroll when you can mapscroll? Specifically, you can mapscroll through some historic maps showing the evolution of Erie County with this Storymap I worked on with the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library: storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/086b...
America 250: The Story of Erie County
Mapping Early Erie County Development, 1804-1909
storymaps.arcgis.com
“The company’s new strategy underscores Google’s powerful role in American education. If school leaders want continued student access to search within the company’s ecosystem, they will be forced to embrace Google’s A.I.”
Google Will Turn Off Search for Schools That Reject A.I.
Google is making it easier to restrict its A.I. tools for students. But schools that block A.I. entirely will lose student access to Google’s search engine.
nytimes.com
“I Voted” stickers starting to accumulate at the Alex Pretti Memorial in Whittier, Minneapolis
From Houston Chronicle: The son of a man killed by ICE put his “I voted” sticker on his dad’s memorial. “He posted it on social media. Now, there are so many other stickers that he can’t say for certain which was his.” People are also writing messages like, “today I voted. I was brave for you.”
He left his voting sticker where ICE killed his dad. Hundreds more followed.
In the second week of early voting, the memorial is adorned with small stickers that declare: I VOTED.
houstonchronicle.com
I love Sankey charts, but they only show a snapshot. So I made an animated one tracing how global crude oil flows shifted through the 2026 Hormuz closure, Jan–Aug. It’s a model built from many public data sources, using #Rstats, #D3 and #Quarto. jhelvy.github.io/2026-global-oil-flows/
NEW: For 20 years, reformers have pushed states to join an agreement under which they'd award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. On Tuesday, Dems could finally win enough states to hit the necessary majority of 270 EVs. @stephenwolf.bsky.social explains it all -->
How Tuesday’s elections could lead to the president getting elected by popular vote
Democrats need to win just a handful of states to activate a long-awaited agreement
the-downballot.com
#30DayMapChallenge Day 1: Points Berlin's tree register lists almost 1,000,000 trees. This interactive lens shows their types and ages, down to the single tree at street level. visquill.com/gallery/berlin-trees #DataViz #Berlin
The Supreme Court's VRA backlash causing a Black turnout surge could not have happened to Republicans in a worse year: 2026 is the first election cycle since 1936 with a U.S. Senate race in every Southern state, thanks to the Florida special election
Ari Berman@ariberman.bsky.social · 6d agoBlack turnout is surging in Southern states that passed new gerrymanders or threatened to after SCOTUS dismantled Voting Rights Act The post-Callais backlash is real and I saw it firsthand on the ground in Alabama www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
When can we expect results for the midterms? We don’t know exactly how fast each state will report its results this year. But we do know how fast states reported results in 2024. You can explore your state's data here: projects.votebeat.org/2026/when-to...
For @fiftyplusone.news: The Midterms are Tuesday, but I’m not done talking about primaries. How did women do? - Dem women ran in record numbers - Women are 45% of D winners, just 18% of R winners - Emily’s List had a rough cycle Read this and more here: blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/a-record-n...
It's happened! Trump underwater among Millenials (and some Gen X) in all 50 states. 25% Approve, 67% Disapprove civiqs.com/results/appr...
From the 50+1 team and me: Democrats currently lead in 7 GOP-held Senate seats. Use our new (free!) tool to explore what would happen if the polls miss like they did in 2016/2020/2024 — or 2018/2022 blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/democrats-...
Three new NYT/Siena polls with state-level generic congressional ballot numbers today: MN, SC, and FL. The GCB numbers in the Northeast lag 2018; almost everywhere else they are ahead of 2018. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Political science forecasting models expect clear Democratic House control but are mixed on Senate outcomes: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
How do you know Election Day is almost here? There's a chill crispness to the air … the leaves have started changing colors … and The Downballot's beloved poll closing times map is back, thanks to our sponsor, @edfaction.bsky.social Votes! Click below for jumbo versions in every U.S. time zone!
The Downballot's 2026 poll closing times map, sponsored by EDF Action Votes
Our celebrated map returns, with versions for every U.S. time zone—and more!
the-downballot.com
Only about 16% of candidates running for the House this year will be 40 or younger by January 2027. Meanwhile, 31% of candidates will be eligible for retirement benefits (62+).
Mayor Mamdani's got a hankering for great data design! Got a knack for data visualization and live in NYC? This job could be for you. Looks awesome (though it's temporary, though April next year.) cityjobs.nyc.gov/job/data-vis...
Data Visualization Designer
cityjobs.nyc.gov
How you know Election Day is almost upon us: It's time for The Downballot's annual prediction contest, with prizes sponsored by the gloriously delicious GreensBabka.com! And this year's contest is bigger and badder than ever. Click below for full details & a link to submit your guesses. Good luck!
Enter The Downballot's 2026 prediction contest, sponsored by GreensBabka.com!
To the victors go the spoils!
the-downballot.com
Median rent as a share of median income of renter households in major U.S. metros, 2010 vs. 2024. Minneapolis is lowest on the list, at 29%, down from 30.4% in 2010. www.artio.so/dataviz/page...
Excellent infographic article about the numerous open-source software and libraries that are only maintained by one unpaid developer, leading to burnout and security exploits. sheets.works/data-viz/hol...
The people holding up the internet
Four billion phones ask one text file what time it is. One lecturer keeps it in his spare time. We counted the rest.
sheets.works
Oil hits $115 a barrel for the first time since May, adding to the economic strain just 11 days before critical midterm elections that may turn in part on affordability. @iankmsmith.ft.com @urbandirt.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/8948...
Oil hits $115 for first time since May as global stocks knocked by AI fears
Markets face twin threats of surging crude prices and concern over durability of AI boom
ft.com
There will be a major tendency among pundits to downplay GOP gerrymandering when Democrats flip the House and the GOP fails to flip some of its mid-decade remap targets, but the pre-2026 baseline was still very gerrymandered. Even in a wave, the national map could cost Dems two dozen seats or more
Stephen Wolf@stephenwolf.bsky.social · 2w agoGOP gerrymandering shifted the median congressional seat from Trump+3.1 in 2024 to +4.5 in 2026. He won the 2026 median by 3 points more than his national margin. That gap could grow by several points in 2028 if only the GOP redraws more states, but new Dem maps may be able to fully counteract them
New: Low-info voters, who put Trump in the White House, now look even more anti-Trump than high-info voters, and give Dems bigger margins on the generic ballot. 1 out of 3 Trump voters who can't name the party in charge of Congress now back Dems for 2026. www.gelliottmorris.com/p/poll-low-i...
Poll: Low-information voters have turned hardest against Trump and the GOP
Trump voters who can't answer two basic questions about politics are three times as likely as other Trump voters to back Democrats for the House. This is a big change since 2024.
gelliottmorris.com
The election is coming... time to get maps ready! We have both normal maps and our hexmap cartogram available for you as image files, shapefiles, and svg files. The cartogram can also be found on Datawrapper under USA>>Congressional Districts Elections 2026 (hexmap) docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
