📊🤔 Some Data to Help You Figure Out What the *&%! Happened This Election

It’s been a long week, Benchies.

This presidential election brought a lot of firsts, and now with the results, our first convicted felon in office. I’m going to do my best to leave my politics at the door for you Benchies, but that fact needs to be said again for the people in the back. Anyways, without further ado, let’s get into it ⬇️

Here is our featured content this week:

📊📺The election is going to be close — or is it? CNN political data reporter Harry Enten on the science and art of polling.

There was a widespread notion that the 2024 U.S. presidential election was going to be close. Was this true? CNN Senior Political Data Reporter Harry Enten noted a week before the election that despite polling showing a historically close race, either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris could still capture more than 300 out of 538 electoral votes – a relative landslide by recent standards. We spoke to Enten about his approach to polling analysis and what the data revealed about the final stretch of this election. Read it here.

🎥 How Vox distilled Kamala Harris into seven key moments

To many, Kamala Harris was a relative unknown – until she wasn’t. Prior to bursting onto the public stage as the democratic nominee, her long long-standing public service career began with her role as district attorney in San Francisco, then a role as California attorney general, and later as a U.S. senator. Her national profile rose during her initial presidential campaign in 2019, and she became even more prominent when she joined Joe Biden’s ticket in 2020. Even as her profile rose from her early days as district attorney in San Francisco to her role as vice president, some voters remained uncertain about her policy positions – an uncertainty that some would argue played a role in the election outcome this week. Vox’s video, “Kamala Harris, explained in 7 moments,” published in the early days of Harris’ nomination, provides a straightforward look at her career milestones. We sat down with Ed Vega, video producer and editor at Vox, to learn about how Vox’s explainer video distilled Harris’ political career into seven easily digestible moments. Regardless of your political leanings, this article provides a fascinating and in-depth look at this figure whose presence has forever left a mark on politics and history, and is definitely worth a read.

Cool Stuff Corner: What are we reading?

Presidential Election Results: Trump Wins

For those who weren’t glued to their screens on Tuesday night, and are now left wondering how the bleep we got here.. this NYT article helps break things down, complete with tons of awesome datavis on all things election both regional and national. In addition to breaking down the swing states and how they..well, swung (post election brain forgive me) the article offers a breakdown state by state in terms of how each voted on the president, governor, and senate. Pretty neat huh, especially since the U.S house is still up for grabs, definitely worth taking a peek!

🗳️ Massachusetts Presidential Election Results 

Massachusetts is far from a swing state, but that doesn’t mean it’s all blue. But who’s voting how? If you’re at least a little curious, NY Times has your back, with this interactive article that lets you hover over any MA city and get a read on how they voted and so much more. Check out how your city measured up to the rest! 

From the Vault:

How I visualized “Trump" mentions in hip-hop songs using D3

For better or worse, hip-hop is often brutally honest about controversial issues in society – money, guns, drugs, sex and, of course, politics. On that note.. Here's a throwback to take your mind off things while still remaining on topic for the week…back in 2019 our own Szu Yu Chen used the Javascript library D3.js to examine the number of Trump mentions in hip-hop songs. As an international student from Taiwan, Chen was intrigued by Trump as a U.S. presidential candidate, especially given his initial rise largely as a media icon. This curiosity eventually led her to use a dataset (collected and cleaned by FiveThirtyEight) containing the number of 2016 candidates’ names mentioned in hip-hop songs between 1989 to 2016. Check out what she found 🎵

How Nature visualized the impact of overturning Roe v. Wade

Starting, it seems, with the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, women’s rights has been a central component of nearly every political conversation. Adding fuel to the already fiery rhetoric around this topic is the reality that Republican nominee Donald Trump has long been at the center of allegations of sexual abuse – not to mention his own rhetoric which seems only to emphasize his blatant disregard for women, let alone their rights or empowerment. All that’s to say, it seemed a good moment to bring back this awesome article on an infographic that takes on the monumental undertaking of encapsulating the true impact of the Dobbs decision. No small task. And the best part? We got to sit down with its creator back in 2023. Take a look!

That's all we've got for this week! Thanks for reading, and let us know if there's anything you'd like to see in these newsletters or in our coverage at [email protected].

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