The 2024 US presidential election didn’t just make history – it also spawned a dizzying array of dazzling, dumbfounding, and downright bizarre election graphics. From mind-bending maps to trippy TV studios, media outlets pulled out all the stops to visualize the dramatic race. Let’s take a tour of the most memorable, for better or worse!
Cartograms Galore: Reimagining the Electoral Map
In an effort to more accurately represent the weight of each state’s electoral votes, many outlets turned to cartograms. The Guardian featured a trifecta of choropleth, cartogram, and scaled circle maps. Others, like Reuters and Bloomberg, helpfully indicated when each state’s results would roll in. But the prize for sheer data density goes to the Washington Post, with detailed state-level maps and forecasts.
Swinging States: Tracking Shifts in the Electorate
Outlets scrambled to depict how key states and demographics swung toward Trump or Harris compared to the 2020 race. The Post crafted mesmerizing animated pendulum charts and squiggly line graphs. Bloomberg opted for crisp vertical triangles over the classic diagonal arrows. But a simple, well-executed choropleth can still do the trick, as Datawrapper demonstrated.
Building Blocks: Stacking the Electoral College
Leave it to Bloomberg to transform the electoral vote count into a game of Tetris. Their innovative chart stacked each candidate’s votes into a horizontal bar, making the race to 270 feel extra tangible. It’s a fresh take on the conventional tally.
Tables Stakes: In Praise of the Humble Grid
Amidst the flashy maps and charts, the New York Times and Reuters reminded us of the power of a well-crafted table. Packing in key data while remaining easy to parse, tables are the unsung heroes of election night. Three cheers for grids!
Trip to the Studios: TV Graphics Get Weird
Most TV news graphics stuck to the script, but Amazon’s Prime Video took a ride on the wild side with their “election night fever dream” of a set. Meanwhile, the Onion skewered the tropes with their riff on the “Big Map.” Who said election coverage has to be staid?
The Pains of Explaining: Decoding the Results
In the rush to unpack Trump’s decisive win, some post-election analysis stumbled. Attractive as it is to attribute outcomes to demographics, beware the ecological fallacy. The Post threaded that needle skillfully with a scrollytelling feature on voting patterns.
Elections are never won or lost due to single issues, demographics or regions.
According to a close source
That said, strong evidence suggests that punishing inflation pushed voters to seek change globally. Lower-income Americans, especially, appeared to break for Trump in a reversal from 2020, based on both exit polls and county-level income data. A comparative analysis by John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times reveals incumbent vote share fell in multiple countries facing cost-of-living crises.
Sugar High: The Delectable Election Map
We would be remiss not to mention the kitschy creativity of Bloomberg’s Jell-O (jelly, for the Brits) map. Concocted with moulds of each state, it puts the light in election night delight. Who says data viz can’t be delicious?
The 2024 election graphics ran the gamut from insightful to groan-worthy. But credit where it’s due: media organizations continue to push the envelope on how we visualize the democratic process. Through triumphs and face-plants, these noble experiments remind us that good design is always worth voting for.
