Super Bowl LVII

The 5 Most Exciting Super Bowls Ever

Will Super Bowl LVII match up to these classics?

By Elena Mejia, Maya Sweedler and Jay Boice, Elena Mejia, Maya Sweedler and Jay Boice and Elena Mejia, Maya Sweedler and Jay Boice

Feb. 7, 2023, at 6:00 AM

There are plenty of reasons to think Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs will be an instant classic. The teams are evenly matched, led by a couple of great quarterbacks, and there is no shortage of star power on either side. But of course, if the history of the Big Game tells us anything, it’s that we have a hard time predicting which Super Bowls will turn out to be thrillers, and which will be duds. Only in retrospect can we truly quantify the games that left us on the edges of our seats until the bitter end.

And to do that, we’re breaking out what is known as the “excitement index,” using data provided by ESPN that contains every play in Super Bowl history and its associated change in win probability. We summed the net changes in win probability associated with each play to rank the Super Bowls by excitability. A full ranking can be found in the table at the bottom of the story.

The top five games are charted below. Because we’re looking at the sum of all swings, the games you see included here might not feature the most exciting individual plays (apologies to anyone who was hoping to see the Helmet Catch) or even the wildest finishes (it’s safe to read on, Atlanta Falcons fans). For the most part, they’re low-scoring, close-fought games that saw late lead changes. But out of these close-fought brawls came some of the most iconic and heart-stopping moments in Super Bowl history.

Two years before Super Bowl XXXVIII, the Panthers and Patriots were in very different places. The 1-15 Panthers, who had joined the NFL as an expansion team less than a decade prior, had one winning season in franchise history; the Patriots had just won their first Super Bowl with a first-year starter named Tom Brady. 

But by February of 2004, both teams had played their way into the big game. Entering the Super Bowl, the Panthers — with a strong ground game and tough defensive front seven — were 7-point underdogs against the Patriots, who had a rangy secondary and an emergent star in Brady. And as you might expect in a battle between two grind-it-out teams, this one didn’t start with a lot of promise. But a torrent of late scoring in both halves would see this matchup turn into the most exciting game in Super Bowl history by our metric. 

The two teams were initially locked in a defensive battle, holding one another scoreless through the first quarter. The Patriots broke open scoring after forcing a fumble at Carolina’s 20-yard line and scoring a touchdown with 3:05 remaining in the first half — the longest scoreless period to open a Super Bowl in history. That unleashed a cascade of points: The Panthers answered with a two-minute, 95-yard touchdown drive, then the Patriots needed less than a minute to drive 78 yards for another touchdown, and Carolina ended the half by kicking a field goal. By the time the dust settled, 24 points had been scored in 185 seconds, and New England had a 14-10 lead going into the game’s infamous halftime show.

The second half started off much the same as the first, with neither team finding the end zone in the third quarter. The Patriots added 7 more points in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter, extending their lead to 11, but after two consecutive touchdowns from the Panthers — the second of which was an 85-yard catch-and-run from Jake Delhomme to Muhsin Muhammad that remains the longest passing touchdown in Super Bowl History (and the biggest play of the game by win-probability swing) — Carolina had both the lead and were favored in win probability for the first time. The teams would trade touchdowns in another feverish final three minutes, and after Delhomme found receiver Ricky Proehl in the end zone from 12 yards out, they were tied at 29 apiece with 1:13 remaining in the game. It was after this touchdown that Panthers kicker John Kasay made an error that swung the win probability by 7 percentage points: He sailed the kickoff out of bounds, giving Brady and crew the ball at the 40-yard line. Brady found receiver Troy Brown on three consecutive completions totaling 46 yards, then tacked on another 17-yard completion to Deion Branch. With each completion, the Patriots’ chances rose, and as kicker Adam Vinateri’s field-goal attempt with 9 seconds left in the game sailed through the uprights, finally reached 100 percent — ending the roller-coaster ride of the most exciting Super Bowl.

If you just watched the beginning of Super Bowl XXIII, you probably wouldn’t have guessed that it ended with an edge-of-your-seat fourth quarter to make this game the second-most thrilling Super Bowl in history.

In fact, the first half was … kind of boring. The Cincinnati Bengals and San Francisco 49ers — who had met in the Super Bowl seven years earlier (in a game the Niners led wire-to-wire) — traded field goals deep into the third quarter. Cincinnati quarterback Boomer Esiason struggled against a muscular San Francisco defense, taking five sacks and passing for just 144 yards on 11 completions. His counterpart, two-time Super Bowl winner Joe Montana, was a much more efficient 23-for-36 for 357 yards, including six completions that went for at least 20 yards, but didn’t throw a touchdown until the final quarter.

It wasn’t until Bengals running back Stanford Jennings broke off a 93-yard kickoff return that either team found the end zone. But within a minute and a half, Montana drove the Niners 85 yards to tie the game at 13. Cincinnati added another field goal after a five-and-a-half minute drive, at which point it had a 3-point lead and a 72 percent chance to win the game. But as the rest of the NFL learned time and time again, any amount of time was too much time for Joe Cool. With 3:04 remaining, Montana and the Niners got the ball on their own 8-yard line and proceeded to march down the field. The drive saw several plays that produced pretty big swings in win probability — most notably a 4-yard rush from running back Roger Craig on third-and-2 and a 27-yard completion to eventual MVP Jerry Rice on second-and-20 — but it wasn’t until Montana found receiver John Taylor in the end zone from 10 yards out that the Niners actually took the lead. The 34 seconds left on the clock weren’t enough for a response from Esiason and Co. Legendary Niners coach Bill Walsh was able to retire after this game as a champion once again.

That this game ranks in the top five should come as no surprise, as it features the game-changing play that launched an entire offseason of think pieces and commentary. In the final 30 seconds of the game, should the Seattle Seahawks, trailing by 4 points and in possession of the ball at the New England Patriots’ 1-yard line, have handed the ball off to likely Hall of Fame running back Marshawn Lynch?

Well, they didn’t, and Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler made perhaps the most famous end zone interception of all time, denying the Seahawks a second consecutive Super Bowl.

But even before that final thrilling play, Super Bowl XLIX had been pretty exciting. It was a one-possession game throughout most of the first three quarters, with the teams trading the lead. Seattle’s Legion of Boom secondary played a smart game, holding Brady to less than 6.6 yards per attempt. The Seahawks opened up a 10-point lead five minutes left in the third quarter, scoring a touchdown to go up 24-14. But the Patriots scored on consecutive drives in the next quarter, holding the Seahawks to three-and-outs in between, to kick off with a 4-point lead and 2:06 left on the clock. Quarterback Russell Wilson orchestrated a pitch-perfect two-minute drill, completing three of his five attempts (including a would-have-been-iconic 33-yard bobbled catch by Jermaine Kearse) to take the Seahawks from their own 20-yard line to New England’s 5-yard line. After a 4-yard run from Lynch, Seattle was on the 1-yard line with 26 seconds remaining. But instead of handing it off, Wilson tried to find Ricardo Lockette on a slant route that Butler read perfectly, bumping the receiver before stepping in front of the ball at the line of scrimmage. Butler’s pick created an 81-point swing in win probability, making it the single-most-impactful play in Super Bowl history. The Patriots took over, kneeled twice and walked away with the fourth Lombardi Trophy of the Brady-Bill Belichick era.

Raise your hand like Cowboys running back Dan Reeves if you remember this game! The oldest game on the list, Super Bowl V, is as famous for its series of bloopers as it is for being Baltimore Colts legend Johnny Unitas’s only Super Bowl victory.

Dallas and Baltimore both brought solid defenses to the game. The Cowboys’ defense had allowed just one touchdown in the six games leading up to the Super Bowl, while the Colts had picked off opposing quarterbacks 25 times. 

But in the Super Bowl, it was Baltimore that struggled to keep control of the ball. Unitas threw two interceptions and lost a fumble before being knocked out of the game in the second quarter with a rib injury, and replacement Earl Morrall would later throw another pick in the end zone. All in all, the Colts turned the ball over seven times in the game while scoring just one touchdown in the first three quarters. (In keeping with the “Blunder Bowl,” as it came to be known, the Cowboys blocked the Colts’ first extra point attempt.) Dallas, meanwhile, put up two field goals and a touchdown in the first half but also committed 10 penalties for 133 yards, which hamstrung quarterback Craig Morton and company. Dallas held a 13-6 lead throughout the third quarter.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/chaotic-fictional-football-coach-fivethirtyeight-74531599

As odd as the mistake-filled first three quarters were, the fourth quarter got even odder. Five of the game’s record 11 turnovers occurred in this quarter, as did one of the strangest plays in Super Bowl history. The Colts ran a flea-flicker that was tracking to pick up at least 20 yards until receiver Eddie Hinton fumbled the ball, setting off a scramble in the red zone that saw no less than a half-dozen players fail to recover. The ball rolled out of the end zone, giving Dallas the ball at its own 20-yard line. But Morton threw an interception three plays later that Colts safety Rick Volk brought down to the Dallas 3-yard line. The Colts punched it in two plays later, tying the game at 13 and giving them their best odds of winning thus far, at 59 percent.

After trading possessions, the Cowboys drove into Colts territory with less than two minutes on the clock. However, a holding penalty pushed Dallas out of field goal range and cost them 25 percentage points of win probability. The next play was even worse: Morton threw his second interception of the game, a ball that bounced off the hands of Reeves and landed in the arms of Colts linebacker Mike Curtis, who then returned the ball 13 yards to the Cowboys’ 28-yard line. In the final minute of play, it was easy money. The Colts called two runs and booted a 32-yard field goal with nine seconds remaining, finally sealing the game. It wasn’t a masterpiece by any means, but sometimes a series of back-and-forth blunders can also produce big swings in win probability — and an exciting finish.

Surprised to see the second iteration of Giants-Patriots here, rather than the first? We were, too — until we remembered that the biggest upset in NFL history remained within 4 points throughout the entire game. The rematch, four years later, was a much more back-and-forth affair. Scoring opened with a safety (of all things) after Brady was called for intentional grounding six minutes into the game. The Giants notched one more touchdown before the Patriots put up 17 unanswered points in the second and third quarters. With 11:13 remaining in the game, New England had a 82 percent chance to avenge its loss in Super Bowl XLII.

But there was a lot more game to play. The Giants kicked two field goals in the back half of the third quarter, but the fourth quarter was consumed by two long drives that both ended in punts. Down by 2 points with 3:46 remaining, the Giants started their final drive on their own 12-yard line. On the first play of the drive, quarterback Eli Manning uncorked a 38-yard pass to Mario Manningham, who made a toe-tapping catch along the left sideline to improve the Giants’ chances from 30 percent to 47 percent. Four more short completions and two gains on the ground followed; by the time running back Ahmad Bradshaw fell backwards into the end zone to put the Giants up with 1:04 remaining, Giants fans were wondering if they had left too much time on the clock for Brady.

And the Patriots did give them a scare! With under 40 seconds to go, Brady had back-to-back completions that moved the ball 30 yards. But three incompletions later, the clock hit zero and the Giants — 3-point underdogs coming into the game — were once again Super Bowl champions.

Those were just the top five Super Bowls by excitement index. Below is the full list of games, ranging from that Pats-Panthers shootout at the top to the 49ers’ one-sided rout of the San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX at the bottom. Where will Super Bowl LVII rank on the list? The entire football-following public must watch on Sunday to find out.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

2024 Democratic Primary

If South Carolina Voted First In The Democratic Presidential Primary, Would Black Democrats Have A Stronger Voice?

By Alex Samuels

Graphics by Elena Mejía

Jan. 30, 2023, at 6:00 AM

Despite objections from leaders and state party officials in Georgia and New Hampshire, a Democratic National Committee panel voted on Wednesday to move forward with President Biden’s plan to drastically revamp the party’s 2024 presidential primary process. Biden wants to remove Iowa’s caucus as the leadoff in the nominating calendar — a position it has held since 1972 — and give the first-in-the-nation honor to South Carolina instead, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on the same day, then Georgia and finally Michigan.

The reason for the changes seem straightforward — and practical: Biden and other Democrats say they want a calendar that accurately reflects the party’s diverse slate of voters. Iowa is a smallish state whose demographic makeup is far less analogous to the larger Democratic Party than South Carolina, which is more racially diverse. (In 2020, Black voters made up a whopping 60 percent of the Democratic electorate.) Throwing the primary calendar into disarray, Biden wrote in a letter to the DNC committee that it was “unacceptable” that Black voters, who have been the backbone of the Democratic electorate for decades, “have been pushed to the back of the early primary process” and that it was “time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”

But does earlier necessarily mean louder? And would Biden’s move really give all Black voters more of a voice — or is it more of a reward for the state that saved his bacon in 2020? At least in the last few contested cycles, South Carolina was arguably the decisive state. So moving it first could streamline the nomination process. But there’s another scenario that’s equally as likely: that South Carolina’s role changes from picking presidential candidates to winnowing large fields. And while the reshuffling would allow more diverse states to weigh in first, it wouldn’t necessarily give Black voters more power.

That’s, in part, because there’s a difference between removing overwhelmingly white states from the front of the queue and giving Black voters more power. And moving just one state cannot change the whole process. You’d have to diversify the order significantly for both of those things to be true — and that’s proving easier said than done. Already, two of the affected states, New Hampshire and Georgia, which would hold their primaries second and fourth, respectively, under Biden’s proposed lineup — are in defiance, though national Democrats are giving both states until June to comply with the party’s goal of a new early-state order. Iowa Democrats, for their part, aren’t thrilled by the news, either, and are reportedly debating bucking national Democrats’ wishes.

In putting this proposal forth, Biden offered an implicit rebuke of Iowa and New Hampshire, the two overwhelmingly white states that rejected him in 2020. But the odd thing about Biden’s proposal is that South Carolina — because of its geographic and demographic diversity — already has a lot of power. Typically, Iowa and New Hampshire’s role has been to narrow the candidate field. That’s an important function and one that officials from both states are vociferously trying to cling to. (New Hampshire is reportedly determined to maintain its first-in-the-nation primary status, which they say is solidified under state law.) But, over time, South Carolina has served an arguably more worthy function: rebuffing or embracing the earlier decisions made by the overwhelmingly white — and more liberal — Democrats in New England and the Midwest. Since 1992, the winner of the South Carolina Democratic primary has gone on to win the nomination — with one exception. In 2004, South Carolina native John Edwards won the state’s primary, but didn’t get the presidential nod.¹ So, at least in recent years, if a Democratic candidate couldn’t appeal to South Carolina’s Democratic voters, he or she was unlikely to win the nomination or the presidency.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/south-carolina-voted-democratic-primary-96780559

“The road to heaven and the White House runs through South Carolina,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist based out of South Carolina. “I don’t care how red or blue any district is, and I don’t care how good of a candidate someone may be in any other scenario: No one can be the Democratic nominee for president without having strong support among Black voters.”

So how would putting South Carolina first change things? Putting the state in the position to winnow could have a big impact on which candidates are considered viable in the first place. Given that the state’s Democratic electorate skews older and more moderate, it’s possible that a certain type of candidate would stand to benefit most from the switch-up: one more like Biden himself. 

Would Black candidates benefit, though? Maybe not, because there’s both “a supply and demand issue,” said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University. “I don’t assume that moving South Carolina first immediately privileges candidates of color — or candidates who bring other types of diversity,” she said, noting that it’s unlikely that a change to the order would have helped the Black candidates in the Democratic primary in 2020. “[Kamala] Harris dropped out of the race before we even got to the primaries, as did [Cory] Booker, so there were other factors that weeded them out beyond the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.”

It’s also not clear that moving South Carolina to the front of the queue would disenfranchise candidates without significant Black support, either, said Jennifer Chudy, a professor of political science at Wellesley College. That’s because there’s evidence that the party establishment favors certain presidential candidates, and, because of that, Chudy said she could envision a scenario in which the results of South Carolina’s primary are dismissed if they don’t line up with what the larger party wants. “I can see a narrative being created that dismisses winners and losers out of that system and does so on the basis of the state’s heavily Black vote,” she said.

All that’s to say that going first could lead to mixed results — both for South Carolina and Black voters. South Carolina could get more attention and advertising dollars and its local issues are likely to become national ones — but that doesn’t automatically translate into a more decisive role.

“Maybe, in a best-case scenario, candidates invest a lot of time in South Carolina and Black voters there whereas they used to go to corn fairs in Iowa,” Chudy said. “But even if there is some real effort in the ground game there, it doesn’t necessarily matter because there are many primaries that follow almost immediately after.” So even if there is a definitive result in South Carolina, she said, it’s not clear that it would carry to the states that follow.

There’s an argument, too, that choosing the nominee after the field has narrowed is actually a more powerful position. “There’s power and leverage in being the first place that candidates have to pass through,” Gillespie said. “But there’s also a case to be made for Black voters to want to hold their cards close to their chest until South Carolina to see whether certain candidates are viable.” In 2008, for example, Gillespie said that former President Barack Obama’s first-place win in Iowa was an important signal to South Carolinians that he could win non-Black votes, too. “And so you can see an argument, perhaps, for maintaining the status quo, especially when the leading candidates are non-white.”

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/californias-senate-primary-doozy-fivethirtyeight-politics-podcast-96493536

But the aspects of Biden’s plan that seem likeliest to empower Black voters actually have less to do with South Carolina and more to do with what happens to Michigan and Georgia since they also have large Black populations. And, at least right now, it’s unlikely that Georgia, which has the highest Black population share of the newly-proposed early states, plays ball given that the Republican secretary of state is steadfast on holding both the Republican and Democratic primary on the same day. (Republican officials in the state claim that holding two separate primaries would put an unnecessary strain on counties and poll workers.) 

So while it’s more clear how the state itself would benefit from going first, it’s far from obvious that the changes Biden is proposing would give the voters there — particularly Black ones — more power over the process. We also can’t say for certain that Black candidates would have a better chance of winning the nomination as a result. And even if Biden’s proposed order is used in 2024, the vote could lead to a convoluted scramble over what happens in 2028, and beyond. That’s primarily because the calendar approved in the coming months may not necessarily hold beyond for long. According to Politico, DNC members have privately noted that the review process is already in place to reconsider the 2028 lineup.

Ultimately, the impact of Biden’s proposal for Black voters only depends in part on what happens with South Carolina — the real question is whether additional diverse states get added to the initial round. If that doesn’t happen, then Biden is rewarding a subset of Black voters who support candidates like him, and it’s not even clear how much of a reward that will be.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/buy-gop-investigations-effectively-hurt-bidens-chances-2024-96448663

Judicial Appointees

How Biden Could Appoint More Judges Than Trump

By Elena Mejia and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Elena Mejia and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux

Jan. 3, 2023, at 6:00 AM

Democrats now have a slightly bigger Senate majority but not much to do with it. And so, it’s time for more judges.

Retaining the Senate means that President Biden and Senate Democrats will be able to continue nominating and confirming federal judges, and, if they play their cards right over the next two years, Democrats may get as many judges on the federal bench as Republicans did during former President Donald Trump’s term. If they get lucky, they could end up with even more.

As of Dec. 23, 94² of Biden’s nominees have been confirmed to district and appellate courts — compared to 83 at this point in Trump’s presidency. And there are still plenty of positions left to fill. Right now, there are 79 open seats on the federal bench³ and 30 upcoming vacancies — this is when a judge announces they will retire at a future date. If Biden and Senate Democrats manage to fill all of those seats, there will be 203 Biden judicial nominee confirmations, compared to the 228 appointments Trump and Senate Republicans got through.

More could be coming, too. While fewer vacancies are likely to open up in the next two years, there are 85 Democratic-appointed judges who will be eligible to retire with full benefits in 2023 and 2024, according to data compiled by Brookings Institution fellow Russell Wheeler.⁴ Still, it’s very possible for Biden to match or even out-appoint Trump, since that estimate does not account for additional judges who may step down unexpectedly due to health or other factors.

Right now, our analysis of data from the Federal Judicial Center shows that 11 percent of federal judges are Biden appointees and 26 percent are Trump appointees. (The rest were appointed by past presidents.) If Biden successfully fills all of the current vacancies, however, he will have appointed 20 percent of all federal judges. That shift is significant for demographic and political reasons. Trump’s appointees were overwhelmingly white and conservative, with traditional backgrounds for federal judges like private law practice and prosecution, while Biden is mostly nominating women and people of color who often come from nontraditional professional paths like public defense. If Biden takes advantage of the vacancies that are still open, his appointees could end up counterbalancing Trump’s — at least in some places. And that, in turn, could make the courts even more politically polarized.

“In some ways, our courts are more divided than they’ve ever been,” said Chad Westerland, a political science professor at the University of Arizona who studies the federal courts. “You have judges that are coming from entirely different political ecosystems — and who will enact policies that follow the ideologies of the major national parties.”

Biden was always going to have a hard time matching Trump’s influence over the courts — and he needed a minimum of four years with a Democratic-controlled Senate to pull it off. This, experts told us, is due to the fact that the Republican-controlled Senate refused to confirm most of former President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees in 2015 and 2016, leaving Trump with 105 vacancies to fill. By contrast, Biden came in with 45 vacancies.

The good news for Biden is that over the past couple of years, a lot of judges have taken senior status — a form of quasi-retirement that opens up their seat — which has given him more vacancies to fill. That includes a decent number of Republican-appointed judges: Our analysis shows that 33 percent of the judges who have taken senior status under Biden were appointed by Republicans. That share is higher than the share of Democratic-appointed judges who took senior status under Trump, and it could be a sign that some Republican appointees who want to retire won’t bother holding out to see who wins the 2024 election.

But the bad news for Biden is that the Republicans he’s replacing are mostly district court judges, which is a lower-impact judicial position. The more highly contested positions are on appeals courts, which have power over entire regions. So while Biden might be flipping plenty of district court seats, the courts with greater sway are still dominated by conservatives. That seems unlikely to change going forward: According to our analysis, only four Republican-appointed appeals court judges have taken senior status since Biden took office (and one of those judges was a holdover from former President Bill Clinton who was appointed by former President George W. Bush as part of a compromise, so she’s not really a Republican appointee), compared to 23 Democratic-appointed appeals court judges. 

More bad news for Biden: His judicial impact thus far has been geographically limited. Those leftover vacancies from the Obama era gave Trump the ability to eventually appoint 104 judges in states that currently have at least one Democratic senator, while there are swathes of the country where Biden isn’t making any judicial inroads. Only eight of Biden’s appointees are in states with at least one senator of the opposing party. This trend is particularly pronounced among appeals court nominees: So far, Biden has only appointed three judges in states with at least one Republican senator, while Trump appointed 24 judges in states with at least one Democratic senator.

If anything, experts told us, Biden’s presidency is setting a new tone for how much a president can change the courts, particularly the appeals courts. During his term, Trump flipped control of three appeals courts from Democratic appointees to Republican appointees and made it difficult for Democrats to ever gain control of at least three others. So far, Biden’s impact has been more muted. He did flip control of the powerful Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in New York and handles many cases in the financial sector, from Republican appointees back to Democratic appointees, and will likely hand control of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals back to Democratic appointees next year. But Biden has yet to appoint a single judge to the Republican-dominated Eighth and Eleventh Circuits, which cover most of the South and Midwest, and he’s only appointed one judge to the hyper-conservative Fifth Circuit.

That, experts told us, isn’t likely to change meaningfully over the next two years, since Republican-appointed judges — especially appeals court judges — will largely try to avoid relinquishing their seats while Biden is in the White House. “Judicial appointments have gotten sucked into partisan political warfare, and if you’re a judge, how can you not be aware of that?” said Neal Devins, a professor of law and government at the College of William & Mary. “We’re going to be increasingly moving into territory where there are red judge seats and blue judge seats, and without an unexpected illness or death, those safe seats will be very hard to flip.”

Biden’s changes to the judiciary — even if they end up being more limited than Trump’s — will still be important for the people whose fates are decided in courtrooms around the country. Christina Boyd, a political science professor at the University of Georgia who studies the courts, said that even though district court judges don’t have the power to set the law for entire regions, their decisions on issues like sentencing are still consequential. Having more public defenders with reliably liberal ideologies serving as judges could mean fewer long sentences, and more skepticism of prosecutors’ claims generally. That’s a sharp contrast with the tough-on-crime perspective that Trump’s conservative appointees are likely to bring, and in that sense, could introduce some balance to a right-leaning judiciary.

But more broadly, the growing polarization in the courts will result in an increasingly wide gulf in the way Republican and Democratic-appointed judges interpret the law. “This whole notion that you can be treated equally by judges wherever you are — that’s just not the case,” Devins said. Whether a case is filed in the Democratic-controlled First Circuit or the Republican-controlled Fifth Circuit could make all the difference in how it turns out.

2022 In Review

33 Cool Charts We Made In 2022

In 2022, FiveThirtyEight’s visual journalists covered the midterm elections, the end of Roe v. Wade and sports stories ranging from the World Cup to changes in Major League Baseball’s pitch timing rules. Here are some of the most interesting — and weird and colorful and complicated — charts we made in the last 12 months.

Charts are grouped by topic but are not in any particular order beyond that. Click any of them to read the story featuring that chart.

Politics

Sports

Science

2022 Election

The Voters Who Helped Democrats Keep the Senate

How Democrats broadened Biden’s 2020 coalition in key states.

Coming into the 2022 midterm elections, the Democratic Party wasn’t sure what to do with its standard-bearer. With his poor approval rating, President Biden wasn’t a hot commodity on the campaign trail, as Democrats — facing an electoral environment that history suggested would be unfavorable — feared losing both chambers of Congress.

But after all the votes were tallied, Democrats retained control of the Senate by winning the chamber’s four most important races, holding onto seats in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada and picking up an open seat in Pennsylvania. The candidates who won these races didn’t do so by remaking the Democratic coalition in their states. In fact, county-level data suggests that their performances mostly tracked along Biden’s performance in the 2020 presidential election, which saw him carry all four states by narrow margins.

Where these Democratic candidates did gain ground suggests that they largely replicated Biden’s coalition while also making some small but specific inroads. In Pennsylvania counties with lots of white voters without a college degree, in some heavily Hispanic parts of Arizona, in the Atlanta metropolitan area in Georgia — Democrats won Senate seats by exceeding the margins Biden used to win each state in 2020. And even in Nevada, where Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s margin of victory was smaller than Biden’s, her performance in more affluent areas with larger numbers of white voters with a college degree suggests that she made up enough ground to offset her slightly smaller margins in lower-turnout and more racially diverse areas.

To examine how these various trends played out in each state, we took a look at the county-level results and how the Democratic winners’ margins compared to Biden’s in 2020. We also dug into how these changes related to demographic and population data from the U.S. Census Bureau.⁵ County-level data can’t always provide a clear picture of how different groups voted, so we also spent some time looking beneath the county level — at congressional district- or precinct-level results — to explore some of the key factors that propelled Democrats to victory.

This pattern proved vital to the result because white voters without a college degree make up a big chunk of the Keystone State’s electorate. Three in four Pennsylvanians are white, putting the state in the top half of the whitest states in the country, and almost two in three of them do not have a bachelor’s degree. Former President Trump won the state in 2016, in part due to gains among voters in this group, and came just shy of defeating Biden there in 2020.

But Fetterman’s improvement wasn’t an accident, as his campaign spent a lot of time and effort appealing to blue-collar white voters in places where Democrats have lost ground in recent years. In counties with a population that’s at least 60 percent white without a college degree — which together produced about 36 percent of the state’s 2022 vote — Fetterman’s margin was 7 points better than Biden’s, on average, compared with just 3 points better elsewhere. It’s hard to know how much Oz’s profile as a Hollywood-connected television celebrity also played into these results. Fact is, Oz may have been an especially weak candidate when it came to appealing to less affluent voters in more rural areas, where Fetterman made some of his most sizable gains compared to Biden. But overall, Fetterman’s improvement in farther-flung places mattered because it reduced the GOP’s ability to run up massive margins outside the state’s two major metropolitan areas, which Republicans need in order to have a path to victory in Pennsylvania.

This focus coupled successfully with Fetterman’s profile as a former mayor of a struggling post-industrial town in the Pittsburgh area, which produced especially strong results for Fetterman in the western part of the state. Not only is western Pennsylvania whiter than the eastern part of the state, but parts beyond Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) were once more Democratic-leaning before becoming much redder in recent years. Thanks to his campaign and background, Fetterman’s margin was 8.5 points better than Biden’s across the entire Pittsburgh metropolitan statistical area, including double-digit overperformances in some of the area’s more peripheral and red-leaning counties.⁷ Now, Fetterman didn’t flip any of these counties, but he significantly reduced the Republican margin across most parts of the state’s western half. For instance, Greene County in the state’s southwest corner still went for Oz by 30 points, but Trump won it by 43 points in 2020.

At the same time, Fetterman’s winning performance didn’t necessarily involve massive engagement from every part of the Biden coalition. Fetterman ran about even with Biden’s 2020 showing in the larger Philadelphia metropolitan area, which was partly due to reduced turnout among Black voters. Philadelphia proper saw notably lower participation compared with 2018, the previous midterm, whereas the total number of votes cast was up almost everywhere else in the state. Nevertheless, Fetterman also did almost 5 points better than Biden in areas of the state outside of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh metropolitan areas, showing the wide breadth of his outperformance.

Similar to Fetterman, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona won his race by holding together most of Biden’s coalition while also making small gains elsewhere. His 5-point victory over Republican Blake Masters came in part because he won a high level of support among Latino voters, a Democratic-leaning group that shifted somewhat toward Republicans in the 2020 presidential election — a trend the GOP had hoped to build on in 2022. As the chart below shows, Kelly improved on Biden’s margins most everywhere, but there was no relationship between the share of a county’s Latino population and how much Kelly outperformed Biden.⁸ Take the two counties that have majority-Hispanic populations: Kelly performed 3 points better than Biden in Santa Cruz (which is 83 percent Hispanic) and ran about even with Biden in Yuma (65 percent).

But about three-fourths of the state’s voters live in Maricopa County (Phoenix) and Pima County (Tucson), so the topline numbers in those counties may not tell us much about the Latino vote specifically (the counties are 32 and 38 percent Latino, respectively). So we have to look within those counties to get a clearer understanding of how the state’s Latino population voted. For instance, in the Maricopa-based 3rd Congressional District — Arizona’s most heavily Latino seat (58 percent by voting-age population) — Kelly did about 4 points better than Biden did in 2020, according to Daily Kos Elections. This suggests that, at the very least, Kelly probably didn’t lose much — if any — ground among Latino voters.

This takeaway is confirmed by Equis Research, a Latino-focused political firm that compared their modeled race and ethnicity voter data to precinct-level results in Maricopa. Equis found that as the share of the Latino population in a precinct grew, Kelly’s performance improved at about the same rate as Biden’s had in 2020. And across majority Latino precincts in Maricopa, Equis calculated that Kelly did about 1 point better than Biden.

Kelly also made further inroads in competitive or red-leaning areas in Phoenix with larger white populations. Within Maricopa County, Kelly did 5 to 7 points better than Biden in the 1st, 4th, 5th and 8th congressional districts (all but the 5th are entirely in Maricopa). These districts vary quite a bit in terms of partisanship, too, as the 1st and 4th are both highly competitive and the 5th and 8th districts are both solidly red. Considering registered Republicans in Maricopa turned out at a slightly higher rate than registered Democrats, Kelly’s performance suggests he may have won over some right-leaning (or formerly right-leaning) voters to outperform Biden’s 2020 showing.

Staying in the Southwest, Nevada also provided another key hold for Democrats in the Senate. Unlike the Democratic winners in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia, Cortez Masto didn’t outperform Biden’s 2020 numbers statewide, but she did just enough to come out on top against Republican Adam Laxalt by 0.8 points statewide after Biden carried the state by 2.4 points in 2020. She did this by holding onto similar levels of support in places with large Latino populations and by performing on par (or slightly better) in areas with more college-educated white voters, who have been moving toward Democrats nationally.

But as always, Nevada came down to the vote tallies in Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno), and in the end, Cortez Masto managed to lose a little ground in the former while staying even with Biden in the latter. And because Clark and Washoe contributed the vast majority of the statewide vote, Cortez Masto didn’t benefit much — but also didn’t hurt her chances — by running a tad better than Biden in the rest of the state.

Nevada has very few counties with sizable populations, so analyzing the state’s vote means moving below the county level to some extent. The three largest cities in Nevada — Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas — are all based in Clark County, and using precinct-level data, we can see that Cortez Masto did a tad better than Biden in wealthier and whiter Henderson while losing a little ground in the more racially and ethnically diverse Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. While she lost Henderson, a more well-educated GOP-leaning city that’s 60 percent white, Cortez Masto actually did 1 point better than Biden. And though she easily carried Las Vegas (42 percent white) and North Las Vegas (just 24 percent), Cortez Masto’s margin of victory was 1 point lower than Biden in the former and 2 points lower in the latter.

These are small differences, to be sure, but given the closeness of the race, every little shift mattered. Moreover, Cortez Masto performed almost identically to Biden in Washoe County as a whole, which looks similar to Henderson, another sign that whiter, wealthier and more educated areas in the two major metropolitan centers of the state didn’t break for the GOP but instead helped Cortez Masto stay in office. Turnout was also part of the story, however, as Clark had the sharpest drop in vote share amongst all Nevada counties compared with 2020’s vote totals, and more diverse places like Las Vegas and North Las Vegas saw steeper declines than whiter and more affluent areas like Henderson. 

Still, this doesn’t mean Latino voters, who make up close to 30 percent of the state’s population, weren’t vital to Cortez Masto’s reelection. Equis Research examined the precinct-level vote in Clark and found that, crucially, Cortez Masto’s support in heavily Latino precincts was almost identical to Biden’s backing in the same places. As we saw throughout the country in 2020, Biden underperformed 2018 and 2016 Democratic numbers among Hispanics in Clark, but Cortez Masto avoided letting things slip further, which could have cost her reelection.

In Georgia’s Dec. 6 runoff, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican Herschel Walker by nearly 3 points after neither candidate won an outright majority in November. While the urban and suburban counties in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania were crucial to the Democratic wins in those states, Georgia may have provided the best demonstration for how a Democratic candidate’s strong performance in such places led to victory. 

Using FiveThirtyEight’s urbanization index,⁹ we can see that the more densely populated a county, the better Warnock tended to do compared to Biden’s 2020 margin. Most notably, Warnock increased Democratic vote share across the Atlanta metro area, including running up margins in the city’s increasingly diverse suburbs — a national trend we’ve seen in major population centers and one that helped Biden win the presidency two years ago.

Warnock’s improvement speaks to the proliferation of parts of the Democratic coalition in the Atlanta area, including a growing base of Black voters and a shift among white college-educated voters toward the party, but also meaningfully large Latino and Asian communities in parts of the region, too. The results also demonstrate how increased diversity in formerly lily-white suburban counties like Cobb and Fayette has changed the politics of such places dramatically.

Warnock’s most impressive showing was in the 11 counties of the Atlanta Regional Commission, which constituted almost half of Georgia’s vote in the 2022 runoff. Warnock won this region by almost 34 points, a 6-point improvement on Biden’s performance. Most of the region’s vote came from four principal counties: DeKalb and Fulton, which contain the city of Atlanta, and Cobb and Gwinnett, which are big suburban counties that sit north of Atlanta. Warnock outperformed Biden’s marks in each county by 5 to 7 points, despite a fair bit of variation in the racial and ethnic makeup of these places: DeKalb and Fulton have majority and plurality Black populations, respectively; Gwinnett’s population is roughly one-third white, one-quarter Black and one-fifth Latino; and Cobb’s population is half white and a quarter Black. 

But his improvement over Biden showed up elsewhere in the Atlanta metro area, too. This included strong performances in two fairly different counties just south of the city: Warnock outperformed Biden by 7 points in Clayton County, which is 69 percent Black, but he also outdid Biden by 6 points in Fayette, a majority white and increasingly competitive county next door.

Outside of Atlanta and its environs, Warnock’s improvement over Biden was spottier, but he still tended to do better in counties surrounding other smaller cities in the state, such as Augusta, Columbus, Macon and Savannah, which are also comparatively more urban or suburban than much of the state. For his part, Walker did better than Trump in many places, but as the chart conveys, most of them were rural and less populous, which together couldn’t remotely make up for Walker’s losses in the more populous parts of the state.

The political environment will shift and change before we get to the 2024 election, but these performances show how Democrats can win if they maintain backing from the party base, gain support in increasingly diverse suburbs and campaign even in more rural and whiter places that have moved toward the GOP. It’s of course not all up to Democrats, as Republicans will need to pick stronger statewide candidates who can challenge Democrats’ ability to make inroads among more GOP-leaning constituencies. But at least in 2022, these four Democrats largely retained most of Biden’s coalition and at times added to it, which ensured Democrats continued control of the Senate in the next Congress.

Abortion

Democrats Want To Put Abortion On The Ballot — But Many States Won’t Let Them

By Nathaniel Rakich and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Nathaniel Rakich and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux

Graphics by Elena Mejía

Dec. 13, 2022, at 10:27 AM

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion-rights advocates took their fight to the states — and they won. The pro-choice side emerged victorious in nearly every 2022 election where abortion rights were at stake — including five ballot measures to either enshrine or abolish abortion rights in state constitutions. For many liberals, it felt like they had hit upon a winning strategy to protect abortion rights in a post-Roe world: bring the issue directly to the people. Talk quickly started about putting more pro-abortion-rights amendments on the ballot in 2024.

But there’s a problem: Many states don’t let citizens put constitutional amendments on the ballot. And that includes most of the states with the strictest abortion bans.

Of the 22 states that have a total or six-week abortion ban on the books (including states where courts have temporarily put the ban on hold), 15 do not allow citizen-initiated constitutional amendments.¹⁰ This includes some of the biggest and most important states for abortion access, like Texas, which, according to the American Community Survey, is home to nearly seven million reproductive-age women.¹¹ Overall, nearly 20 million reproductive-age women live in those 15 states, which means their access to abortion can’t be changed by residents who want to put abortion rights on the ballot.

That said, it is possible for voters to nullify an existing ban in the other seven states, which are home to just over seven million reproductive-age women. A ballot measure enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution — like the one Michigan voters passed in 2022 — could legalize abortion in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota. It would put a decisive end to the court fights over Arizona’s and North Dakota’s bans as well. The biggest battle could be in Ohio, where a six-week ban is currently blocked in court but there has been talk of passing an even stricter ban that covers all stages of pregnancy. 

However, these amendments still wouldn’t be easy to pass. According to polling by Civiqs, a majority of adults in Arkansas, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota believe abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. And in Ohio, where a majority of adults do support legal abortion in most circumstances, Republicans have proposed raising the threshold to pass any citizen-initiated constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60 percent. Republicans have denied that this is an intentional attempt to make it harder for a potential abortion-rights amendment to pass, but it would certainly have that effect. Abortion-rights advocates might end up having the best shot in Arizona, where a majority of residents think abortion should be legal in most cases, and a 19th-century ban on abortion is being challenged in the courts.

A few other states could also see abortion-related ballot measures in the future, even if they wouldn’t change the law as it stands right now. For example, abortion is currently legal before 20 weeks in Nebraska, but it’s possible the state will pass a stricter ban in the next few years.¹² However, since Nebraska allows citizen-initiated constitutional amendments, a Michigan-style ballot measure could guard against this.

And abortion is currently protected in under the Florida and Montana state constitutions, but only because their state supreme courts have said so. And they could very well change their minds — there are currently abortion-related cases pending before both courts. Abortion-rights advocates may try to pass amendments explicitly protecting abortion rights in these states, too, as insurance against future unfavorable rulings.

Finally, Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada and Oregon could use citizen-initiated constitutional amendments to protect abortion rights as well.¹³ Although abortion rights aren’t seriously threatened in these states, advocates may want to put pro-abortion-rights measures on their ballots anyway as a symbolic move (or to protect against extreme future scenarios) — similar to amendments passed by California and Vermont in the 2022 election. In fact, Democrats may see an advantage to be gained by doing so. In Michigan this year, high interest in the abortion amendment appeared to buoy Democrats up and down the ballot (though this did not appear to be true in California). Although most of these states are solidly blue, voters motivated by an abortion-rights measure could theoretically boost Democrats in districts like Colorado’s 3rd — where a Democrat nearly unseated Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert in November — and Oregon’s 5th. Of course, with 2024 being a presidential election year, many voters won’t need to be told twice to go to the polls.

CLARIFICATION (Dec. 14, 2022, 1:50 p.m.): This story has been updated to make clear that each state’s share of women 15-49 is relative to national numbers.

CORRECTION (Dec. 14, 2022, 2:10 p.m.): A previous version of this story said Illinois could pass a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights. However, constitutional amendments in Illinois are limited to changes in legislative structure or procedures.

2022 Election

Did Redistricting Cost Democrats The House?

By Nathaniel Rakich and Elena Mejia and Nathaniel Rakich and Elena Mejia

Dec. 1, 2022, at 6:00 AM

The 2022 election for the House of Representatives was so close¹⁴ that if any number of things had gone differently, Democrats might have kept their majority. And one of the biggest things that affected the battle for the House was redistricting — the decennial redrawing of congressional districts’ lines to account for the results of the 2020 census.

But was the impact of redistricting significant enough to swing the House to the GOP? As I wrote in June, the 2021-22 redistricting cycle didn’t radically change the partisanship of the national House map, so I mostly agree with those who say redistricting didn’t cost Democrats the House. But at the same time, those who say Republicans won only because they gerrymandered are also technically correct. How can both things be true? Allow me to explain. 

One way to test the claim that “redistricting cost Democrats the House” is to assess whether Democrats would have held onto the chamber if redistricting had never happened. We at FiveThirtyEight have already calculated how many percentage points each district swung left or right thanks to redistricting. For example, a district that went from a partisan lean¹⁵ of R+2 to D+3 got 5 points bluer. Then I compared this swing to the current 2022 House margin in that district.¹⁶ Suppose a party lost by less than the district swung away from that party in redistricting. In that case, it’s likely that redistricting cost that party the seat.

Of course, this is a hypothetical — and imperfect — exercise. Some districts changed substantially and wouldn’t have swung uniformly like that had they not been redrawn.¹⁷ In addition, if they had not changed, different districts might have attracted different candidates and different levels of spending from national groups, each of which could have affected the result. But this method can still give us a rough idea of what might have happened in a redistricting-less world.

Using this method, we can see that Republicans flipped a net six seats because of redistricting.

Republicans flipped three seats in Florida alone thanks to the extremely GOP-friendly map pushed through by Gov. Ron DeSantis. They also used their control over the Georgia and Tennessee redistricting processes to convert the Democratic-held Georgia 6th and Tennessee 5th into safely red seats. 

But Democrats also caught a few bad breaks in states with ostensibly nonpartisan redistricting processes. For example, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission made the 2nd and 6th districts¹⁸ about 10 points more Republican-leaning. In Michigan, the state’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission redrew the 10th District¹⁹ to be light red. And court-appointed experts nudged the New York 17th and Virginia 2nd rightward enough that they flipped too. Meanwhile, Democrats on the New Jersey Congressional Redistricting Commission voluntarily sacrificed the 7th District to protect vulnerable Democrats in other districts.

On the other hand, Democrats flipped a few seats thanks to redistricting. They drew some very Democrat-friendly maps in Illinois and New Mexico, enabling them to pick up the Illinois 13th and New Mexico 2nd. A court reconfigured North Carolina’s 13th District from a solidly red seat into a swing district that Democrats narrowly carried. And Republicans made the Ohio 1st District and Texas 34th District bluer, with the unfortunate (for them) side effect of handing those seats to Democrats.

But we also need to consider seats that didn’t flip but would have if redistricting had not occurred. And this is where Democrats benefited the most, gaining six seats on net — and canceling out Republicans’ gains from the flips that did occur.

Democrats drew maps that likely allowed them to avoid losing the Illinois 14th, Illinois 17th, Nevada 3rd, Nevada 4th and Oregon 4th. They also held onto the New Jersey 3rd thanks partly to their sacrifice of the 7th District. Meanwhile, court-ordered maps probably kept the New York 18th and Virginia 7th in the Democrats’ column. And Democrats may even have DeSantis to thank for them holding Florida’s 9th District: The district got 12 points bluer in redistricting.

Meanwhile, Republicans redrew Nebraska’s 2nd District to be a tad redder, which may have saved their Bacon. The court-ordered map in New York also may have enabled Republicans to hold onto the New York 22nd.²⁰ And Rep. Lauren Boebert probably would have lost without the Colorado Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission making the Colorado 3rd a bit redder.

Democrats also gained a net three seats from reapportionment, the process of subtracting congressional districts from states with sluggish population growth and giving them to states whose populations have exploded. Six of the seven districts that were eliminated by reapportionment were held by Republicans — slow-growth areas tended to be in rural and/or postindustrial areas, where Republicans usually dominate. But Republicans won only three of the seven districts that were created in reapportionment, for a net Democratic gain of three seats.

By my reckoning, Democrats actually gained three seats from redistricting overall. In other words, without redistricting, Republicans’ majority would be closer to 225-210.

“But wait,” I hear you saying. “There was no world in which redistricting wouldn’t have occurred in 2021-22. So isn’t it better to calculate how the 2022 election would have gone down if redistricting had gone differently, not if it hadn’t happened at all?” You have a point — but the problem is, there is no objective alternative map. The congressional map could have changed in a thousand ways depending on individual, state-level decisions. 

Still, let’s engage in a few of the most commonly cited what-ifs.

Over the past year and a half, Democrats have filed several lawsuits against Republican-drawn congressional maps, arguing that they are illegal partisan or racial gerrymanders. Some of these were successful, like in North Carolina. But most weren’t resolved in time to prevent the Republican-drawn maps from being used in 2022.

But what if they had been? Specifically, let’s pose a set of hypotheticals:

• The Supreme Court had instead agreed with lower-court rulings that Alabama’s and Louisiana’s maps violated the Voting Rights Act, and that each state adopted a new map with a second Black-majority district. 
• A Florida judge’s decision to reinstate a Black-plurality district in North Florida (which DeSantis’s map had eliminated) hadn’t been overturned on appeal.
• The Ohio Supreme Court, which found in July that the state’s congressional map is unconstitutionally gerrymandered but left the map in place for 2022 because it was too close to the election, had instead imposed this map drawn by Democratic state representatives that scores well on various metrics of fairness. 
• A court in Utah had rejected the map passed by Republican legislators in favor of this fairer map drawn by the state’s (toothless) independent redistricting commission.

In this world, Democrats probably would have won five more seats than they actually did.

This doesn’t even account for other lawsuits that voting-rights advocates filed in states like Georgia, South Carolina and Texas. There, we don’t have good alternative fair maps to compare with, but it’s safe to say that if the courts had ruled in Democrats’ favor, Democrats would have won a few more extra seats too. Regardless, five additional seats for Democrats would have been enough for them to hold onto a slim 218-217 majority. So yes, if every Republican gerrymander had been undone in court before the 2022 election, Democrats may have kept control of the House.

But that’s assuming no additional Democratic gerrymanders were thrown out in court. Republicans also filed suit against several congressional maps that were biased toward Democrats. What if a court had overturned New Mexico’s map and replaced it with this map drawn by the state’s advisory redistricting commission? Republicans would have almost certainly kept control of the state’s 2nd District. Or what if a court had struck down Nevada’s map and imposed a plan closer to the status quo? The GOP very well could have flipped the 3rd or 4th districts there.

The reality is, it’s impossible to say whether Democrats would have won the House in a world where no state was gerrymandered. The definition of a “fair map” is subjective, and there’s uncertainty about what type of map a court might have imposed in states like Nevada or Texas. The one thing we do know is that it would have been close. 

But let’s also not lose sight of the bigger picture. Votes are still being counted in some states, but it looks like Republicans won the national popular vote for the House by about 3 points.²¹ The national congressional map used in the 2022 election may not have been fair, but a map that gave Democrats the majority despite losing the popular vote definitely wouldn’t have been. So it’s somewhat beside the point whether redistricting cost Democrats the House: Republicans won the most votes, so the most democratic (lower-case “d”) outcome prevailed.

Which World Cup Player Should You Root For?Take our quiz to find the best player for you in 2022.Start

1. Fame

I want a player who …

Is a hidden gemIs kind of well-knownIs famous!

2. World Cup odds

How important is contending for the title?

I prefer underdogs.A trophy would be nice.We’re here to WIN.

3. World Cup experience

Grizzled veteran or first-timer?

Experience is overrated.I want someone who’s been there before.

4. Origin

Where should they hail from?

EuropeAsia or AfricaThe Americas

5. Penalty kicking

Should this player be good at shooting penalties?

Shootouts are silly anyway.Be at least OK at it!Yes, give me a player who lives for that moment.

6. Position

Which position is your favorite?

ForwardMidfielderDefender

7. Goals

Do you prefer the glory of the goal or the joy of helping teammates?

There’s nothing like a pretty pass.You can’t win if you don’t score!

8. Fouls

What are your feelings on flo– err, drawing fouls?

I’d rather hit someone than be hit.Flopping is just the smart thing to do.

Kylian Mbappé

Kylian Mbappé (France) is a great fit for you. Les Bleus won their second World Cup title last time around — now they’re looking to become the first back-to-back champ since Brazil in 1962.

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Why Kylian Mbappé?

Kylian Mbappé matches 7 of your 8 answers. So does Karim Benzema.

1. Fame

I want a player who’s …

Famous!

Kylian Mbappé matches your choice

020406080100Fame index

MORE INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS

MORE INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS

Our “fame index” is calculated as the percentile of each player’s Instagram follower count among the total player pool.

2. World Cup odds

I want a player who’s …

Part of a team with strong odds

Kylian Mbappé matches your choice

020406080100Team’s odds of reaching Round of 16

STRONGER TEAM

STRONGER TEAM

3. World Cup experience

I want a player who’s …

Had at least one World Cup under their belt

Kylian Mbappé matches your choice

01020Number of previous World Cup matches played

MORE EXPERIENCE

MORE EXPERIENCE

4. Origin

I want a player who’s …

From Europe

Kylian Mbappé matches your choice

From Europe

From Asia or Africa

From the Americas

5. Penalty kicking

I want a player who’s …

Not a good penalty shooter

Kylian Mbappé matches your choice

−2−10123

BETTER ON PENALTY KICKS

BETTER ON PENALTY KICKS

6. Position

I want a player who’s …

A midfielder

Kylian Mbappé doesn’t match your choice

A forward

A midfielder

A defender

7. Goals

I want a player who’s …

Mainly a goal scorer

Kylian Mbappé matches your choice

020406080100Share of goals vs. assists

MORE GOALS

MORE GOALS

8. Fouls

I want a player who’s …

Draws more fouls

Kylian Mbappé matches your choice

−202Fouls committed vs. fouls drawn (adjusted for position)

MORE FOULS DRAWN

MORE FOULS DRAWN

Take the quiz again

PUBLISHED NOV. 4, 2022, AT 3:53 PM

When Will We Know 2022 Midterm Election Results?A complete guide to poll closing times, vote counting and races to watch in every state.

By Nathaniel Rakich and Elena Mejía

When are we going to know the results of the midterms? In 2020, due to slow vote counting in many states, it took days — until Saturday, Nov. 7 — for ABC News to declare Joe Biden the president-elect. We likely won’t have to wait that long this year, but it is again possible that we won’t know the winners of the 2022 election on election night. States like Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania that are key to Senate control could take multiple days to count all their votes.

The exact timing of the results depends on the state; each has different rules for when and how votes are counted. But we can make an educated guess based on when each state reported results in its primary election earlier this year.1 If every state reports its results at the same pace as in the primary, here is how election night (and the following day) will unfold. Use the slider to see what percentage of the vote would be reported in each state at various times.2

When we can expect midterm election resultsIf the 2022 primaries are any guide, how long will it take for states to count their votes?Nov. 9, 12 a.m. ETClick on a state for a detailed description of its key races and when to expect results100%50ARARTNTNGAGAMSMSFLFLIDIDNDNDMNMNILILNYNYPAPANVNVININCOCOVAVACACAMOMOWVWVMDMDDCDCWIWINMNMSCSCAZAZKSKSNCNCOKOKLALAALALAKAKHIHITXTXMTMTWAWAMIMIMAMANJNJWYWYORORSDSDIAIAOHOHCTCTRIRIUTUTNENEKYKYDEDEVTVTNHNHMEMEBased on share of vote reported in each state’s 2022 primary election. Data unavailable from Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Tennessee and Washington, D.C., because ABC News did not cover the primaries; Florida, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia, because at least one party’s primary was canceled for every office, making the data incomplete; Maine, because ABC News covered no statewide races and only one congressional district; Alaska, where the ABC News data did not match data from the Alaska Division of Elections; and Louisiana, which does not hold a traditional primary.
Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWS

Of course, there is no guarantee that the rate of vote counting in the general election will match that of the primary. So we’ve also gathered information from state election officials and Edison Research, which provides live election results to ABC News, about when we can expect 2022 election results.

Even those estimates, though, are not ironclad. If there’s one thing to know about election night, it’s to expect the unexpected. Human error or technical difficulties can delay results. Most importantly, if a race is extremely close, it probably won’t be called for days. Even in states that count votes fast, a small number of provisional and absentee ballots aren’t counted until days later. And of course, if a race goes to a recount or is legally challenged, it can take weeks to declare a winner.

AlabamaPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

The secretary of state’s office told FiveThirtyEight that results will start coming in around 9 p.m. Eastern and be nearly complete around 11:30 p.m. Eastern.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSAlaskaPOLLS CLOSE

Midnight Eastern in most of the state, 1 a.m. Eastern in the Aleutian Islands

TIMING OF RESULTS

No results will be reported until around 1 a.m. Eastern. Expect occasional updates overnight, but it will take a while to count all the mail ballots. The next update will be Nov. 15, then Nov. 18. However, Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, so those results will reflect only voters’ first choices. The winners won’t officially be known until Nov. 23, when the state conducts its ranked-choice tabulations.

RACES TO WATCHGovernorLikely RAK-ALToss-upArizonaPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

No results will be reported until 10 p.m. Eastern, at which point we are expecting to get a big batch of early and absentee votes. Election Day votes will be reported throughout election night. However, the remaining absentee votes will likely take days to count.

RACES TO WATCHSenateLean DGovernorLean RAZ-02Lean RAZ-04Likely DAZ-06Likely RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.78%78%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSArkansasPOLLS CLOSE

8:30 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Results are expected to come in pretty fast. Early and absentee votes are typically reported within 45 minutes of polls closing, and all remaining results are expected to be reported by the end of the night.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Arkansas has results reporting before polls closed. Reporting errors in unofficial election-night data occasionally happen due to human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSCaliforniaPOLLS CLOSE

11 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Some results will be reported on election night. But almost everyone in California votes by mail and ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive up to a week later, so full results won’t be in until at least Nov. 15.

RACES TO WATCHCA-09Lean DCA-13Lean DCA-22Toss-upCA-25Likely DCA-27Lean RCA-45Likely RCA-47Likely DCA-49Likely DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.48%48%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSColoradoPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Counties must report initial results by 10 p.m. Eastern and provide an update by 11 p.m. Eastern. Typically between 70 and 75 percent of votes are reported by 2 a.m. Eastern. The remainder are expected to trickle in over the course of the week.

RACES TO WATCHSenateLikely DCO-07Likely DCO-08Likely RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.89%89%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSConnecticutPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

It will vary by municipality, but most, if not all, are expected to be done reporting votes by the wee hours of the morning. Larger cities may need until Wednesday to count all their absentee ballots.

RACES TO WATCHCT-05Lean DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.101%101%At 6 p.m. Eastern the day after the primary, Connecticut had reported over 100 percent of the final vote. This is because reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error and never make it into official, certified election results, which are finalized significantly more than 24 hours after the primary.SOURCE: ABC NEWSDelawarePOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Results will start coming in at 8 p.m. Eastern, with updates approximately every 15 minutes. The Department of Elections expects reporting to be complete by around midnight Eastern.

RACES TO WATCH

None

District of ColumbiaPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

The District now votes predominantly by mail, and ballots processed by Election Day are expected to be reported on election night. But ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive up to a week later, so those results will be far from complete. We’re expecting daily updates Nov. 9-15.

RACES TO WATCH

FiveThirtyEight is not tracking any races in Washington, D.C.

FloridaPOLLS CLOSE

7 p.m. Eastern in most of the state, 8 p.m. Eastern in the Panhandle

TIMING OF RESULTS

Florida is one of the fastest states to count its votes. All early and many mail votes (a sizable chunk of the total) must be reported within 30 minutes of polls closing, and Election Day votes are reported within hours.

RACES TO WATCHFL-13Likely RFL-23Likely DFL-27Likely RGeorgiaPOLLS CLOSE

7 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Georgia’s new election law gives counties more time to process absentee ballots and requires them to finish counting all votes by 5 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. This is expected to help the state avoid the delays seen in 2020.

RACES TO WATCHSenateToss-upGovernorLikely RGA-02Likely DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.99%99%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSHawaiiPOLLS CLOSE

Midnight Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Shortly after polls close, we are expected to see results from ballots received before Monday — an estimated 80 percent of the total. A second batch of votes, including Election Day votes and mail ballots processed by Tuesday afternoon, will be reported at 3 a.m. Eastern. One final update will likely come sometime Wednesday night.

RACES TO WATCH

None

IdahoPOLLS CLOSE

10 p.m. Eastern in southern Idaho, 11 p.m. Eastern in the Panhandle

TIMING OF RESULTS

Initial results (mostly early and absentee votes from the southern part of the state) are expected after 11 p.m. Eastern. Most results are expected to be in by 3 or 4 a.m. Eastern.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSIllinoisPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Most results are expected to be reported on election night, but larger counties, including Cook, may take up to a week. In addition, results won’t be 100 percent final until after Nov. 22, the deadline for absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive.

RACES TO WATCHIL-06Lean DIL-13Likely DIL-14Likely DIL-17Lean DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.98%98%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSIndianaPOLLS CLOSE

6 p.m. Eastern in most of the state, 7 p.m. Eastern in the northwest and southwest corners

TIMING OF RESULTS

Nearly all results are expected to be reported on election night.

RACES TO WATCHIN-01Likely DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.98%98%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSIowaPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

After Iowa passed a law requiring absentee ballots to arrive by Election Day, virtually all results are expected to be reported on election night.

RACES TO WATCHIA-01Likely RIA-02Likely RIA-03Lean RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSKansasPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern in most of the state, 9 p.m. Eastern in a few western counties

TIMING OF RESULTS

Most results are expected to be reported on election night, but mail ballots postmarked by Election Day can be received as late as Nov. 11 and still count, so nothing will be final until then.

RACES TO WATCHGovernorLean DKS-03Likely DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.99%99%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSKentuckyPOLLS CLOSE

6 p.m. Eastern in eastern Kentucky, 7 p.m. Eastern in western Kentucky

TIMING OF RESULTS

Nearly all results are expected to be reported on election night.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSLouisianaPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Because Louisiana doesn’t hold a separate primary, we’re flying a little blind here. But the state usually has no trouble reporting all its results on election night. In 2020, results were more or less complete by 1 a.m. Eastern.

RACES TO WATCH

None

MainePOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Unofficial results are expected to be reported on election night, and municipalities must report their official results to the secretary of state within two days of the election. However, in House races where no candidate gets a majority, we won’t know the winners for a while yet. That’s because Maine uses ranked-choice voting for federal elections, and voters’ second- and third-choices will need to be tabulated too. The secretary of state’s office estimates that it will run these tabulations around the middle of the week after Election Day.

RACES TO WATCHGovernorLikely DME-02Lean DMarylandPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Results are expected to come in faster than in the primary. A court has suspended the law that barred election officials from counting mail ballots until two days after the election. So 10 of Maryland’s 24 voting jurisdictions, including the state’s largest counties, plan to pre-canvass mail ballots received before Election Day and report their results shortly after polls close, along with the results of early voting. But the other 14 jurisdictions will still wait until Nov. 10 to count their mail ballots, so their results will be very incomplete on election night. Every jurisdiction will report Election Day votes on election night, though. And every jurisdiction will be counting at least some mail ballots until Nov. 18, the deadline for mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive.

RACES TO WATCHMD-06Lean DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.64%64%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSMassachusettsPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Election Day votes, early in-person votes and most mail ballots — at least those received before Tuesday — will be reported on election night. Cities and towns can choose to count mail ballots received Tuesday on election night or after Nov. 12 (the last day for mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive and still be counted).

RACES TO WATCH

None

MichiganPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern in most of the state, 9 p.m. Eastern in parts of the Upper Peninsula

TIMING OF RESULTS

Michigan recently passed a law to allow clerks to process absentee ballots earlier, but many counties didn’t have time to implement it before the election. The secretary of state is therefore estimating full results could take as long as 24 hours.

RACES TO WATCHGovernorLikely DMI-03Toss-upMI-07Lean DMI-08Likely DMI-10Likely RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.99%99%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSMinnesotaPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Initial results are expected to be reported by 9:15 p.m. Eastern, and the secretary of state expects nearly all results to be in by 1 a.m. Eastern. If there are delays, counting is expected to wrap up by Wednesday evening.

RACES TO WATCHGovernorLikely DMN-02Lean DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSMississippiPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Virtually all results are expected to be reported on election night. Absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day have until Nov. 15 to arrive. But Mississippi requires an excuse to cast an absentee ballot, so there shouldn’t be many.

RACES TO WATCH

None

MissouriPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Full results are expected to be reported on election night.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSMontanaPOLLS CLOSE

10 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Results will start rolling in shortly after 10 p.m. Eastern, and the secretary of state’s office said it will continue to release updates throughout the week.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.98%98%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSNebraskaPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

The Nebraska secretary of state’s office tentatively estimates that 95 percent of results will be reported by 1 a.m. Eastern. After election night, though, results won’t be updated again until Friday.

RACES TO WATCHNE-02Likely RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.96%96%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSNevadaPOLLS CLOSE

10 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Nevada doesn’t allow any results to be reported until the last voter in line has voted, and that can take hours after polls nominally close. (In the primary, it wasn’t until 12:42 a.m. Eastern.) At that point, counties will report the bulk of their results. However, some mail ballots will still be outstanding since Nevada accepts mail ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive by Nov. 12. Those could matter in a close race. Results will continue to roll in until Nov. 15.

RACES TO WATCHSenateToss-upGovernorToss-upNV-01Toss-upNV-03Lean DNV-04Likely DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.73%73%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSNew HampshirePOLLS CLOSE

7 p.m. Eastern in most of the state, 7:30 p.m. Eastern in two towns, 8 p.m. Eastern in 20 other cities and towns

TIMING OF RESULTS

A spokesperson for the secretary of state told FiveThirtyEight, “We expect 100 percent of the unofficial results to be reported on election night.”

RACES TO WATCHSenateLean DNH-01Lean DNH-02Likely DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.98%98%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSNew JerseyPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Most ballots are expected to be reported on election night. But New Jersey accepts mail ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive as late as Nov. 14, so results won’t truly be complete until then.

RACES TO WATCHNJ-03Likely DNJ-05Likely DNJ-07Lean RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.97%97%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSNew MexicoPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

First results are expected to be in not long after polls close, and nearly all votes are expected to be reported on election night.

RACES TO WATCHGovernorLikely DNM-02Likely RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSNew YorkPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

A new law in the state allows absentee ballots to be processed before Election Day, which is expected to dramatically speed up vote counting compared with the agonizingly slow pace of 2020. Results from New York City are expected to start coming in around 9:30 p.m. Eastern, followed by the rest of the state. While mail ballots can still arrive as late as Nov. 15 if postmarked by Election Day, most results are expected to be reported on election night.

RACES TO WATCHNY-01Likely RNY-03Lean DNY-04Likely DNY-17Lean DNY-18Lean DNY-19Lean DNY-22Lean RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSNorth CarolinaPOLLS CLOSE

7:30 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Early votes and absentee votes received by Monday afternoon (which together constitute the vast majority of votes) will be reported within 90 minutes after polls close. Election Day votes will then be reported starting around 8:30 p.m. Eastern until around midnight. However, North Carolina accepts mail ballots postmarked by Election Day until Nov. 14, so whatever’s remaining after Tuesday will take a few days.

RACES TO WATCHSenateLikely RNC-13Likely RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.99%99%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSNorth DakotaPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern in most of the state, 9 p.m. Eastern in the southwest corner

TIMING OF RESULTS

Results will start coming out at 9 p.m. Eastern, and the secretary of state’s office said its goal is for most results to be in by midnight Eastern.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSOhioPOLLS CLOSE

7:30 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Shortly after polls close, counties will report the early vote and all mail votes counted up to that point. Election Day votes will trickle in over the next several hours. However, Ohio counts mail ballots postmarked by Nov. 7 that arrive as late as Nov. 18, so there will be some outstanding ballots until then.

RACES TO WATCHSenateLikely ROH-01Likely ROH-09Likely DOH-13Likely RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSOklahomaPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

According to the state Election Board, the first results are expected around 8:10 p.m. Eastern. All ballots other than provisionals are expected to be reported on election night — likely before 1 a.m. Eastern.

RACES TO WATCHGovernorLikely RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSOregonPOLLS CLOSE

10 p.m. Eastern in part of Malheur County, 11 p.m. Eastern in the rest of the state

TIMING OF RESULTS

Oregon is a vote-by-mail state, and ballots postmarked by Election Day aren’t due until Nov. 15. While most results are expected to be reported on election night, the rest could take time.

RACES TO WATCHGovernorToss-upOR-04Likely DOR-05Toss-upOR-06Lean DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.69%69%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSPennsylvaniaPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

The secretary of state is keeping expectations low. While Election Day votes are expected to be reported on election night, officials are not allowed to start processing absentee ballots until Tuesday morning. Counting those votes could take days, but there are a few reasons to think it will take less time than it did two years ago. First, it’s likely that fewer absentee ballots will be cast this year than in 2020. Counties are also more experienced and prepared for a large volume of absentees. And most counties are only allowed to stop counting once they’re done. Several counties told the Philadelphia Inquirer that they expect to be mostly done counting by Wednesday morning.

RACES TO WATCHSenateToss-upPA-07Toss-upPA-08Lean DPA-17Toss-upShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.97%97%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSRhode IslandPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

According to the state Board of Elections, initial results will be reported shortly after 8 p.m. Eastern. More than 95 percent of the vote is expected to report within two hours.

RACES TO WATCHRI-02Toss-upShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.98%98%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSSouth CarolinaPOLLS CLOSE

7 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Full results are expected to be reported on election night.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.101%101%At 6 p.m. Eastern the day after the primary, South Carolina had reported over 100 percent of the final vote. This is because reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error and never make it into official, certified election results, which are finalized significantly more than 24 hours after the primary.SOURCE: ABC NEWSSouth DakotaPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern in eastern South Dakota, 9 p.m. Eastern in western South Dakota

TIMING OF RESULTS

No results will be reported until the last polls close, but then they are expected to come in quickly.

RACES TO WATCH

None

TennesseePOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Virtually all results are expected to be reported on election night.

RACES TO WATCH

None

TexasPOLLS CLOSE

8 p.m. Eastern in most of the state, 9 p.m. Eastern in the western tip

TIMING OF RESULTS

Early votes and all mail ballots received by the close of polls will be reported very quickly after polls close, followed by Election Day votes. However, mail ballots postmarked by Election Day have until Wednesday to arrive, so counting won’t wrap until those are in. Counties are required to report full unofficial results within 24 hours of polls closing. But sometimes, larger counties have to seek court orders because they can’t report everything by then.

RACES TO WATCHTX-15Toss-upTX-28Lean DTX-34Toss-upShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.99%99%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSUtahPOLLS CLOSE

10 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Get ready to wait. Utah votes almost entirely by mail, and ballots postmarked by Nov. 7 are due seven to 14 days after Election Day (depending on the county). That means Utah will still be reporting results until at least Nov. 22.

RACES TO WATCH

None

VermontPOLLS CLOSE

7 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Vermont votes by mail, but ballots must be received (not postmarked) by Election Day, so most results are expected to be reported on election night. According to the secretary of state’s office, we are expected to see the first results around 7:30 p.m. Eastern. Unofficial results are expected to be nearly complete by 11 p.m. or midnight.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSVirginiaPOLLS CLOSE

7 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Results will update every 15 minutes after polls close, and the vast majority of results are expected to be reported on election night. However, mail ballots are due on Nov. 14, so we will have to wait a bit for the last batch of votes.

RACES TO WATCHVA-02Toss-upVA-07Lean DVA-10Likely DWashingtonPOLLS CLOSE

11 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

It’s going to take a while. Washington is a vote-by-mail state, and ballots only have to be postmarked by Election Day, not necessarily received by then. Typically, counties report a large batch of votes right after polls close, with hourly updates for the rest of election night. Then, counties report the results of later-arriving ballots at the end of every day until all ballots are counted. This year, the secretary of state’s office is anticipating that between 40 and 50 percent of the vote will be reported on election night, and the vast majority will be reported by Friday. However, the numbers won’t be final until the results are certified on Nov. 29.

RACES TO WATCHSenateLikely DWA-08Likely DShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.61%61%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSWest VirginiaPOLLS CLOSE

7:30 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Historically, county clerks have begun reporting election results within an hour or two of polls closing, and results are more or less complete by 1 a.m. Eastern. However, West Virginia accepts mail ballots postmarked by Election Day until Nov. 14, and those ballots aren’t counted until that day. So if an election is super close, the winner may not be known for about a week.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSWisconsinPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

Because Wisconsin isn’t allowed to process absentee ballots until Election Day, in 2020 many counties didn’t report results until early Wednesday morning. However, 2022’s smaller number of absentees to count will hopefully mitigate those delays this year.

RACES TO WATCHSenateLikely RGovernorToss-upWI-03Likely RShare of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSWyomingPOLLS CLOSE

9 p.m. Eastern

TIMING OF RESULTS

The secretary of state’s office expects the first few counties to report results around 10 p.m. Eastern. Historically, most results have been in by 2 a.m. Eastern.

RACES TO WATCH

None

Share of primary votes reported 24 hours after 6 p.m. Eastern12 a.m.6 a.m.12 p.m.6 p.m.100%100%Reporting errors, or instances where results are released and then un-released, occasionally occur in unofficial election-night results as a result of human error. They are usually corrected on election night and never make it into official, certified election results.SOURCE: ABC NEWSCREDITSAdditional development by Aaron Bycoffe. Copy editing by Maya Sweedler. Story editing by Meena Ganesan. Visual editing by Alex Newman. Art direction by Emily Scherer.

STANDINGSGAMES

Forecast from TodayMORE NHL COVERAGEThe Colorado Avalanche Reached Hockey’s Summit — And Took Down A Dynasty In The ProcessBy Neil PaineThe Lightning Struck Back In The Stanley Cup Final — But The Avalanche Still Have The EdgeBy Neil PaineHOW THIS WORKS These forecasts are based on 50,000 simulations of the rest of the season. Elo ratings are a measure of team strength based on head-to-head results, margin of victory and quality of opponent. Read more »

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Design and development by Ryan Best and Elena Mejía. Edited by Maya Sweedler, Julia Wolfe and Sara Ziegler. Statistical model by Ryan Bestand Neil Paine. Additional contributions by Jay Boice.

The team also debates whether tracking Google search terms over time is a better barometer than traditional polling when it comes to understanding the issues shaping American voting patterns.

A president’s approval rating is traditionally tied to how his party performs in a midterm election, but Democrats have been outpacing President Biden in the polls for months. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses how Biden’s approval rating may impact the midterm election and how the Democrats’ performance in November could influence the president’s 2024 reelection plans.

The team also debates whether tracking Google search terms over time is a better barometer than traditional polling when it comes to understanding the issues shaping American voting patterns. Lastly, politics reporter Alex Samuels and visual journalist Elena Mejía break down their reporting on how Black voters are changing the political landscape of Georgia.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

2022 Election

How Black Americans Reshaped Politics In Georgia

In the 2020 election cycle, Democrats’ decades-long dream of winning Georgia finally became a reality. The state voted for a Democrat, Joe Biden, in the presidential race for the first time since 1992, and it elected two Democrats to the U.S. Senate.

Looking back, it’s hard to pinpoint what turned Georgia blue. Was it antipathy toward then-President Donald Trump? After all, anti-Trump sentiment among Democrats was particularly high in 2018 and 2020. Then again, the wheels for a Democratic takeover were already set in motion when the party’s gubernatorial nominee, Stacey Abrams, pioneered a new playbook focused on Black voters in 2018, something that nearly won her the governorship that year and motivated more Georgians to vote blue in 2020 and 2021.

In fact, a lot of what happened in 2020 can be credited to Black voters. In the prior two decades, Georgia slowly tilted toward Democrats, in large part because of an influx of Black Americans moving back to the South since the 1970s, a reversal of the Great Migration that started in the 1910s. This trend has been particularly pronounced in Georgia. More than any other state, it has seen the biggest increase in its share of Black²² Americans 18 years or older.

In other words, new Black voters in the state — and their participation in recent elections — have helped the Peach State make history, and a continuation of that trend could significantly shift the balance of power toward Democrats in competitive statewide races there this year.

“Not only do you have a higher percentage of Black people coming in, but they are geographically dispersed. And they’re largely voting for Democrats. So, from a political perspective, the map is changing every day. I wouldn’t necessarily call Georgia a blue state, but it certainly is purple, and it can go blue during any given election,” said Andre Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

According to FiveThirtyEight’s 2022 election forecast,²³ the Senate race is a toss-up, while the governor’s race is more squarely in Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s column. Still, though, in a state that has changed so much in the past 20-odd years, a lot may come down to how many — and if — Black voting-age Georgians cast their ballots.

Notably, both parties have made an intentional effort to reach Black voters this year. Abrams’s campaign, for instance, has hosted conversations called “Stacey and the Fellas” to engage Black men in the state. And in an August campaign event, she bluntly explained why: “If Black men vote for me, I’ll win Georgia.” But Spencer Crew, a professor of history at George Mason University, told us it’s clear that Republicans are also trying to appeal to Black voters. For example, prominent Republicans’ decision to back former NFL star Herschel Walker, a Black man, to challenge Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, also a Black man, is “a recognition from the party that Black voters are important and that they’re trying to figure out ways to tap into that electorate.” It’s possible there will be an opening for Republicans, too, as Black voters have soured on Biden and a renowned celebrity like Walker could be serious competition.

But either party’s success will likely hinge on how they perform in Georgia’s capital city, Atlanta. 

Case in point: In 2020, the counties in Atlanta’s metro areas²⁴ that saw the biggest increases in the number of Black Americans casting their ballots also saw some of the strongest shifts toward Biden and were key to helping him win. About 32 percent — or over 136,000 — more Black voters showed up in 2020 than in 2016, when Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was on the ballot.

These shifts have been a long time coming. Since 2000, the growth in Atlanta’s Black voting-age population has been close to four times as fast as the growth of its white²⁵ voting-age population. Moreover, the city’s surrounding metro area has been a center of Black voting-age population growth in the U.S., with close to 700,000 more Black Americans 18 years old or over calling the Atlanta area home since 2000. Put another way, this 6-percentage-point increase in the area’s Black voting-age population has been a pivotal factor in its politics.

“For the Black community, Atlanta is clearly an attractive place in the South to go live. And clearly that’s impacting the political environment in and around the city as well and the surrounding suburbs,” Crew said. The election of two Democratic senators following a very close race for governor “shows that the state’s demographics are changing and the organizing of Black voters is shifting the balance of power.”

Cobb and Gwinnett counties, the Atlanta area’s most-populated urban counties²⁶ after Fulton, have grown by over 200,000 Black Americans of voting age in 20 years. In 2000, the two counties were heavily Republican and had an average vote-share margin of R+27 in that presidential election. But by 2020, the average vote share had swung 16 points toward Democrats.

To be sure, it wasn’t until Trump ran for president in 2016 that Cobb, Gwinnett and Henry, one of Atlanta’s largest suburbs, flipped blue, even though the Black electorate had already been changing. And some counties, like Fulton, haven’t seen sharp increases in Black voters but have still moved to the left.

It’s true that racial demographics alone cannot tell us everything about Georgia’s political landscape. Educational attainment has also been a driving factor. It all comes down to whether these factors are reflected in who turns out. We can see this in the suburbs, which were simply vital for Biden in 2020, when he won Georgia by close to 12,000 votes. As the chart below shows, Democrats’ biggest suburban gains in vote margin from 2016 happened in counties where Black voters turned out in high numbers, underscoring the importance of Black suburban voters.

The reversal of the Great Migration in recent decades has been propelled largely by young, college-educated Black Americans, whose votes were key to Biden’s winning Atlanta, which was in turn important to his success in the state overall: 60 percent of Georgia’s electorate came from the capital city’s metro area.

“Those middle-income Black people who truly fit the profile of the ‘suburban mom or dad’ like to see leaders who look like them,” said Perry, of Brookings. “So they’re electing Black people in the counties and municipalities they’re moving into. So there is also a power shift that’s going on at the local level that can bubble up to affect statewide races.”

There’s no question, then, that Black voters have transformed Georgia’s electorate and put it at the forefront of southern Black political might. This is especially true in the state’s suburbs, which have gotten really competitive. Most suburbs in Atlanta have shifted toward Democrats by 31 points or so in 20 years and have gained, on average, more than 315,000 voting-age Black Americans, far outpacing the growth of the white voting-age population by 200,000.

“White voters are leaving the suburbs, and Black Americans are moving into the state’s cities and suburbs,” said William Frey, a demographer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “And you’re seeing that big time in Atlanta, which is essentially a prototype of what the Black population can do in terms of changing not only the demography but also the political demography of different parts of the state.”

Frey told FiveThirtyEight that the white population has declined since 2016, especially in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Henry County, for example, lost nearly 13,500 white people while gaining more than 30,000 Black people between 2016 and 2021. “There are several counties that have had absolute declines of their white population and gains of [their] Black one, like Gwinnett and Cobb counties,” he said. This, according to Frey, suggests a significant share of the state’s white voters are moving out of the suburbs and urban areas and into more rural parts of the state.

Keneshia Grant, a professor of political science at Howard University, went one step further describing what may happen if the rate of Black people moving into Atlanta remains high, saying there could be “a tipping point at which the number of people living in these metropolitan areas or metropolitan-adjacent areas will be high enough to overcome the rural areas.”

Consider what happened in Georgia in the last presidential and Senate elections, particularly Warnock’s defeat of Republican Kelly Loeffler in the Senate runoffs. His win was due, in part, to almost every single suburb in the state shifting further to the left from the November 2020 presidential election, with nearly 92 percent of November’s Black voters turning out again in January 2021 for the runoffs, but Warnock also benefited from more Republican-heavy parts of the state not turning out to vote. Both he and Jon Ossoff, the other Democrat who won in the Senate runoffs, improved on Biden’s margins, especially in counties with the largest share of Black voters.

Per the FiveThirtyEight forecast, most U.S. House races in the Peach State aren’t that competitive this year. But, once again, the suburbs are likely to be important for both parties as they fight for control of the U.S. Senate.

According to Perry, there’s a good chance that having multiple Black candidates on the ticket will energize voters in ways they weren’t previously. Abrams’s close election in 2018, he added, also might encourage Black Democrats to go out and vote, even in a midterm year. Nationally, turnout among Black voters is typically lower than that of voters overall in both midterm and general elections. But it’s possible Georgia may see higher turnout this year, as the state saw an uptick in early voting in the May primaries. That said, it’s still too early to know how the restrictive voting law Georgia recently passed will affect turnout in November.

But don’t miss the forest for the trees. That higher early-voting turnout in the Georgia primaries was among both Democrats and Republicans. At this point, it doesn’t seem as if Republicans have made inroads with Black voters in the state, as a Sept. 8-12 poll from Quinnipiac University found that Black likely voters overwhelmingly support Abrams (91 percent) and Warnock (92 percent) over their GOP opponents. But the overall toplines show just how competitive these statewide races are: The gubernatorial race showed Abrams behind Kemp by just 2 points, while the Senate matchup had Warnock leading Walker 52 percent to 46 percent.

In other words, greater turnout among Black voters won’t guarantee Democratic victories up and down the ballot, as a lot of other factors are at play in Georgia. But as Perry told FiveThirtyEight, recent Democratic victories in the state have also energized Black voters. “Once you start getting a few people elected and get some statewide wins under your belt, then you start believing that you belong and that those seats are yours,” Perry said. “There is a palpable empowerment that Black people are feeling in Georgia like they’ve never felt before.”

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/politics-podcast-time-start-worrying-polls-fivethirtyeight-89978501

College Football

How Realignment Is Changing College Football, In 20 Maps

By Elena Mejia and Jake Lourim and Elena Mejia and Jake Lourim

Sep. 22, 2022, at 11:09 AM

In 1896, a group of administrators from Midwestern colleges met in Chicago to settle the rules for what was then called the Western Conference, which would later be known as the Big Ten. They agreed in writing, according to an account in the next day’s Chicago Tribune, “to keep inter-collegiate athletic contests within their proper bounds.” One of those bounds was geographic: For the purposes of travel and tradition, schools largely played the regional rivals that populated their conferences.

It’s difficult to imagine, then, how the founders of the country’s oldest athletics conference would have reacted to the recent realignment news that has shaken college sports to its core. Last year, the Southeastern Conference announced it would add Texas and Oklahoma to form a 16-team megaconference. Not to be outdone, the Big Ten announced this summer that it was expanding to 16 teams as well by adding UCLA and USC.²⁷ For the first time, a major college athletics league is going bicoastal.

UCLA, USC, Texas and Oklahoma rank second, third, fifth and tied for 16^th in Division I history in NCAA team national titles, respectively. Historically, schools like those form the bedrock of conferences, as opposed to shattering them. Only one of the four has substantially changed conference opponents in the past century.²⁸ Now, they all fit into two super-leagues, and it’s possible the Big Ten isn’t done yet: Commissioner Kevin Warren said he could see expanding to 20 teams. The evolution of the college sports map over the past several decades has been startling, dismantling any notion of regionality that conferences once conferred. 

As recently as the 2000s and early 2010s, college leagues still generally fit into small geographic pockets. Under the old Bowl Championship Series (BCS), for instance, there were six major football conferences (the Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12, Big 12, Big East and ACC), most of which were very close-knit — and none more so than the Big Ten. We calculated the distance from each school to the geographic center of all schools in its conference, and every Big Ten team was within 500 miles of the conference’s center in 2010. Across the country, no Power Five school was even 1,000 miles away from its conference center.

But the next four years brought a flurry of conference swaps. From 2011 to 2014, 47 Football Bowl Subdivision schools changed leagues, making that the busiest four-year period in history for realignment.²⁹ The SEC added Texas A&M and Missouri, and the Big Ten added Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland, venturing into a new state each time. These moves — and the corresponding dominos that fell as a result — wiped out one football league (the Big East), creating a Power Five, and it was clear that college football’s classic boundaries were being stretched. You could still see decisions made under the auspices of geography if you squinted, though. (For instance, the Big Ten’s new additions were at least in states adjacent to the conference’s old footprint.) The most far-flung schools in the Big Ten and SEC were Rutgers and Texas A&M, which carried distances of 593 and 560 miles, respectively, from their new conference centers.

Even with their expanded boundaries from the 2010s, the Big Ten and SEC were still, entering 2021, the most compact of the Power Five leagues. But that changed last summer, when the SEC moved further west by agreeing to add Texas and Oklahoma. In doing so, the league not only increased its footprint but also plucked the fourth- and fifth-ranked schools on college football’s all-time wins leaderboard. While total wins aren’t a perfect metric,³⁰ the Big 12 is now bereft of classic powerhouses, with West Virginia its next-most successful school at No. 27. In more modern terms, Oklahoma was the only Big 12 school that has reached the College Football Playoff.

Texas and Oklahoma aren’t totally outlandish cultural or geographic fits in the SEC. They will be 576 and 489 miles from their new conference center, versus the 425 and 84 miles they sat from their Big 12 foes in 2010. They can also preserve the Red River Rivalry, and Texas will resume its rivalry with Texas A&M. While the new distances are an adjustment, 29 schools (across eight leagues) are more removed from their conference centers than any team in the new-look SEC.

However, the way other conferences responded to the SEC’s additions has significantly warped the college-sports map. To fill its vacancies, the Big 12 added Brigham Young, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston, and now stretches from Provo, Utah, to Orlando, Florida. BYU and UCF are 986 and 917 miles from their conference foes. In response to that, the American Athletic Conference plundered Conference USA, and Conference USA did what it could to stay intact — so that league now stretches from Miami to Las Cruces, New Mexico.

And the real nail in the coffin of the whole “regional conferences” idea will be the new Big Ten, the first truly nationwide college league. Whereas only Penn State and Minnesota were more than 300 miles from the center of the Big Ten in 2010, now 10 schools in the conference exceed that mark, after factoring in UCLA and USC.³¹ The distance from Los Angeles to the geographic center of the Big Ten is a whopping 1,621 miles.

The recent bloat in average distances between schools and their conference rivals is evident in the overall numbers. In 2010, the average distance for an FBS team to its conference center was 336 miles. By 2021, that average rose to 365 miles. Within four years of that, the average will be 412 miles. 

It’s important to remember, too, that all of these distances are measured as the crow flies, rather than as road trips. This is particularly important for the sports outside football and basketball — and for smaller schools in general — both of which rely on bus rides more than charter flights. (Everybody has a different definition of “driving distance,” but by any definition, BYU appears to be the first school — besides Hawaii, for obvious reasons — to be unable to drive to visit any conference foe.)³² In non-revenue sports, the Big Ten’s UCLA-USC fit is deeply strange for many reasons: Both schools play sports that the conference doesn’t offer and don’t play sports the Big Ten does compete in. They could dominate their cold-weather counterparts in some sports, such as softball and baseball, and struggle in others — all while keeping up that grueling travel schedule via bus rides.

All of this means the time of conferences as we once knew them — small, regionally constrained groups of similar colleges with shared histories — is all but over. And the era of the super-league appears to be taking its place. Of course, the idea of a 20-team, nationwide sports league isn’t unheard of. All four major North American men’s leagues, plus Major League Soccer and most of the major European soccer leagues, have at least that many clubs. Nobody thinks twice about the Indianapolis Colts playing road games in both Las Vegas and East Rutherford, New Jersey, during the same season. That’s because the NFL is a financially driven organization intent on maximizing its market. But that’s the point — more and more every year, college football starts to look like the NFL. And if they weren’t already, the conference ideals drawn up in Chicago in 1896 are a relic of the past.

CORRECTION (Sept. 22, 2022, 3:51 p.m.): An earlier version of the 2025 Big 12’s map showed the University of Cincinnati as being in Kentucky. It is in Ohio.

Transcript

Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux: When Pennsylvanians head to the polls in November, their votes could decide whether abortion stays legal in their state.

Right now, abortion is legal up until 24 weeks of pregnancy, with some restrictions like state-mandated counseling and a waiting period.

But things could change if Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled legislature has its way. In the past few years, Pennsylvania’s House and Senate passed three bills that would have restricted abortion access. The current Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, vetoed both of them.

Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, Republicans in the state legislature are likely to push for even more restrictive abortion laws. That’s especially likely if Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee, wins the election for governor. Mastriano is a highly conservative state senator who has said that abortion should not be legal in any situation.

Doug Mastriano: That baby deserves a right to life whether it was conceived in incest or rape, or whether there are concerns otherwise for the mom.

Thomson-DeVeaux: Mastriano’s Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, is the state’s attorney general. He’s made his stance on the decision to overturn Roe very clear:

Josh Shapiro: To the doctors and patients in Pennsylvania who are worried about how this decision will impact them, know that the full force of my office will be there to protect you.

Thomson-DeVeaux: As a candidate for governor, he’s said that he would protect current Pennsylvania law and veto new abortion restrictions.

If Republicans want to restrict or ban abortion, they need both to hold onto the state legislature and flip the governor’s mansion.

Right now, it seems very likely that Pennsylvania Republicans will hold onto the Senate. The House, on the other hand, is more competitive, although Republicans still have an advantage.

Perhaps most importantly, the governor’s race is looking good for the Democrat. That doesn’t mean Mastriano is destined to lose, of course — but the current focus on abortion probably isn’t helping him.

According to a Franklin & Marshall College poll conducted in August, 9 in 10 Pennsylvanians want abortion to be legal in at least some cases. So it’s possible that Mastriano’s extreme views on abortion could actually be putting him in political peril. And he’s been pretty quiet about his views on the issue since Roe was overturned.

The stakes for abortion rights in Pennsylvania are very high. Now it’s up to the voters to decide.

There are a lot of election deniers on the ballot. Out of 529 total Republican nominees running for office, we found 195 who FULLY DENIED the legitimacy of the 2020 election. These candidates either clearly stated that the election was stolen from Trump or took legal action to overturn the results, such as voting not to certify election results or joining lawsuits that sought to overturn the election.

Moreover, an additional 61 candidates RAISED QUESTIONS around the results of the 2020 election. These candidates haven’t gone so far as to say explicitly that the election was stolen or take legal action to overturn it. However, they haven’t said the election was legitimate either. In fact, they have raised doubts about potential fraud.

There were 115 candidates whose position on the 2020 election we could not determine. They either had NO COMMENT on the 2020 election or AVOIDED ANSWERING when asked directly.

But not all Republicans running embrace Trump’s claims. A total of 71 have FULLY ACCEPTED the results of the 2020 election while another 87 have ACCEPTED WITH RESERVATIONS, meaning they think President Biden won, but still raised concerns about the integrity of the election.

In the House, many of these election deniers look poised to win. Using the latest data from the 2022 midterm election FiveThirtyEight forecast, we can see that 118 election deniers and eight election doubters have at least a 95 percent chance of winning. Several additional candidates who have denied the election are in competitive races.

In the Senate, though, there will be far fewer election deniers. Only three election deniers are safe bets to join the seven senators not up for reelection who objected to the certification of the 2020 election. However, a handful more still have a real shot at winning.

In governors races, more election deniers stand to prevail. At least two election deniers and four election doubters are poised to be inaugurated as governors next year. And we can’t rule out election deniers being elected governor of swing states like Arizona and Pennsylvania.

We don’t forecast elections for attorney general or secretary of state, but there are also seven election deniers running for attorney general and six for secretary of state, the post that oversees election administration in most states.

Indeed, an election denier winning election and taking office is more than a symbolic concern. An election-denying secretary of state could refuse to certify an election that he or she believes was rigged. An election-denying governor could attempt to submit electoral votes that defy the will of the people. And election-denying senators and representatives could vote to count those electoral votes. The 2022 election will determine how many of these candidates get that chance.

Are election deniers running in your state?

See whether the Republicans running in your state have denied or accepted the legitimacy of the 2020 election

Transcript

Since the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, some Republicans have framed the rioters as concerned Americans who just went a little overboard in their defense of former President Donald Trump. But researchers are finding that many of the people charged for their alleged involvement in the attack have a connection to an extremist group or movement. In fact, these organizations, which don’t usually band together, coordinated beforehand, helping the attack become so big and destructive.

Michael Jensen, a senior researcher who studies terrorism at the University of Maryland, combed through court documents, news reports and social media posts to identify every person charged in relation to the Jan. 6 attack who had preexisting ties to extremist groups. He found that roughly a third of the nearly 900 individuals charged had some kind of connection to extremist ideology, including far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Jensen also found that many of these individuals were connected to one another prior to January 6. They had been to rallies together, or were in the same chat groups, or interacted on social media. Of the individuals with ties to extremist groups who were charged, roughly one in five had a preexisting connection to another defendant. Take, for example, Enrique Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes. At the time of the attack, Tarrio was the leader of the Proud Boys and Rhodes was the leader of the Oath Keepers, another far-right group. When we look at the connections between other defendants and extremist groups, Tarrio and Rhodes are basically in the center. They’re just one or two degrees away from dozens of other people charged and three-quarters of the known extremist organizations present on that day. The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers both had a large presence on the day of the attack, and have been accused of coordinating beforehand.

What this data shows is a tangled web of connections between individuals from different extremist groups. This isn’t typical. Normally, these far-right groups tend to keep to themselves — they don’t get together on the weekend to go bowling. But this data demonstrates how certain ideologies — like belief in the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen — can bind extremist groups together. And as we saw on Jan. 6, that kind of unifying ideology can be a powerful and destructive force.

Right-wing Extremism

Jan. 6's Tangled Web Of Extremism

Mike Jensen keeps a database of bad guys. As a senior researcher at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), part of Jensen’s job is to identify violent events that occur in the U.S. and investigate whether the people involved have any ties to extremism. If they do, he adds them to his database. 

In what he calls a “very active” year, Jensen says he might end up adding 300 individuals to the database. But after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Jensen’s database grew dramatically. 

“We have three times that on one day that potentially qualify,” Jensen said.

After the attack on the Capitol, Jensen started putting together a social network consisting of individuals who had been charged in relation to Jan. 6 and had existing ties to extremist organizations. He found many of the defendants had connections to extremist groups prior to Jan. 6, and that these groups were connected to one another. Relationships between defendants and a shared belief in the Big Lie forged new connections between these disparate groups. It’s not that your local Proud Boys chapter is regularly planning a bowling night with the neighborhood sovereign citizens collective. But when a lie about a stolen election aligns with their respective ideologies, they’ll be sure to show up in Washington, D.C., to riot together.

More than 800 individuals have been charged in relation to the Jan. 6 attack. To identify who had existing ties to extremist organizations, Jensen analyzed court filings, news reports and social media posts. He found roughly a third of those charged had preexisting ties to extremist groups³³ and nearly one in five also had verifiable contact with other defendants prior to Jan. 6.

A photo of a defendant on social media sporting a Proud Boys T-shirt (a group that has a formalized membership) wasn’t enough to consider them a member of that group, nor was simply retweeting or liking a post from a member of that group, according to Jensen. He looked for more substantial connections, such as direct messages, posting on each other’s social media pages, or having a conversation in the comments or replies of social media posts.

Jensen’s data reveals a tangled web of individuals with connections to other defendants, as well as to a number of extremist groups including the Proud Boys (a far-right extremist group that is known for street violence and boasting about “Western chauvinism”), the Oath Keepers (a far-right anti-government militia) and QAnon, the wide-ranging conspiracy theory alleging that major Democrats and Hollywood figures are part of a secret cabal of Satanic pedophiles. 

These extremist organizations look isolated in the chart above, but it’s only because we’ve removed most of the person-to-person connections. “Normally [these groups] would not get along. You would not have this coalition force. But on Jan. 6, what you saw is this perfect storm that brought together each of those distinct, disparate groups and movements, to act as one cohesive group in engaging in these actions,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. Certain ideology — like the unfounded belief that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump — can thread together otherwise disparate groups of extremists on the right, and can mobilize members of these groups to act collectively. When this happens, a single extremist organization can reach beyond its small sphere of influence, and it can lead to deadly results, as we saw on Jan. 6.

Here’s what it looks like when all the extremist defendants’ connections are visible:

In this database, Jensen has documented over 750 unique connections between defendants and between defendants and various groups. The resulting network is densely filled with connections between national leaders and lesser-known members of extremist groups. To understand how to parse it, let’s consider a couple of examples.

At the time of the Jan. 6 attack, Enrique Tarrio was the national leader of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes was the leader of the Oath Keepers. Unsurprisingly, these two individuals are found basically at the center of the web. Both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers had a large presence on Jan. 6, and the groups have been accused of plotting and coordinating ahead of the attack. Though Tarrio wasn’t at the Capitol on Jan. 6, he is alleged to have been coordinating the Proud Boys movements from Baltimore, and to have helped plan the attack ahead of time. Both Rhodes and Tarrio were recently charged with seditious conspiracy (among other charges), a federal charge punishable by up to 20 years in prison. We reached out to Rhodes’s and Tarrio’s lawyers. Rhodes’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. Tarrio’s lawyer, Nayib Hassan, called the notion that the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers were connected a “fictious lie” and referred to a motion filed in the case disputing claims that the two organizations coordinated ahead of the attack.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/happen-jan-hearings-change-minds-85225807

In the chart below, you can see how Tarrio and Rhodes link the different points in the web together. Through dozens of other defendants from whom they are separated by one or two degrees, Tarrio and Rhodes connect almost three-quarters of the known extremist organizations that were present on Jan. 6:

But it’s not only the leaders of national right-wing extremist groups who were heavily connected prior to the attack. Let’s highlight two other individuals: Dominic Pezzola and Charles Donohoe. Both Pezzola — a 45-year-old small business owner from Rochester, New York — and Donohoe — a 34-year-old handyman from the suburbs outside Winston-Salem, North Carolina — were members of the Proud Boys. At the time of the attack, Donohoe was a chapter president in North Carolina, while Pezzola was a somewhat new but active member in New York. Though not national figures, both men were allegedly members of the “Ministry of Self Defense,” or MOSD — a chapter of the Proud Boys’ inner circle that planned national rallies. According to court filings, Donohoe was also a member of the MOSD Leaders Group, a chat group that was allegedly created by Tarrio where members of MOSD planned the Proud Boys participation on Jan. 6. Donohoe also has a connection to QAnon — he provided security for a QAnon “save the children” rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in August 2020.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/latest-jan-hearing-testimony-affect-midterm-elections-86274149

Largely through their membership in these chat groups, even these lower-level Proud Boys end up deeply integrated into this web. Donohoe has direct contact with six other named defendants, while Pezzola has direct contact with eight others.³⁴ While Donohoe has many connections with other groups and quite a few direct connections to other defendants, Pezzola is one of the main links between highly connected defendants and defendants who have relatively few connections.³⁵ 

Think of it like a chain of people holding hands. On one end, you have the Proud Boys, and on the other end, you have the Oath Keepers. In the middle of that chain is Pezzola, one of the links connecting the two groups. We reached out to the lawyers for both Pezzola (who has pleaded not guilty) and Donohoe (who has pleaded guilty). Pezzola’s lawyer did not respond to follow-up requests for an interview. Donohoe’s lawyer, Ira Knight, sent a statement: “Charlie regrets his actions, and is remorseful for the conduct that led to these charges. He has accepted responsibility for his wrongs, and is prepared to accept the consequences.”

The attack on the Capitol was the culmination of shared ideology — in this case, the belief in Trump’s false claims of a stolen election — mobilizing disparate groups into action. Soon after the attack on the Capitol, prosecutors claimed that extremist groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers had coordinated ahead of Jan. 6. The alleged coordination and the relationships captured in Jensen’s data demonstrate how that shared ideology forged new connections between these groups.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/americans-agree-disagree-fivethirtyeight-politics-podcast-85543538

“It’s really narratives that the bigger, radicalizing, conspiratorial networks can capitalize on at any given moment to facilitate offline organizing,” said Samantha Kutner, a researcher at the Khalifa Ihler Institute, a Sweden-based think tank that focuses on ending extremism worldwide. Kutner has conducted extensive research on the Proud Boys.

Jensen said he has a list of individuals with extremist ties who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 but aren’t in his database yet because they haven’t been formally charged. If and when that happens, he says the web will only become more entangled. What’s most troubling about this web, he said, is that the kind of ideas that link and can mobilize these groups are becoming more commonplace. He said it’s the popularization of those ideas that should be raising alarm bells, more so than any individual group’s actions or organization.

“We’re in an environment right now in this country where we are so politically divided and polarized that almost everything now seems like a mobilizing event,” Jensen said. “I think we’re going to see more of that.”

Copy editing by Maya Sweedler. Story editing by Chadwick Matlin.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court's Partisan Divide Hasn't Been This Sharp In Generations

By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Laura Bronner and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Laura Bronner

Graphics by Elena Mejía

Jul. 5, 2022, at 1:08 PM

Conservatives got what they wanted from this year’s Supreme Court term — and then some. 

In a flurry of decisions released at the end of June, the court’s Republican-appointed justices released opinions that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights, allowed individual public school employees to pray on the job, made it harder for states to exclude religious schools from public funding programs, and limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions.

It was a stunning display of the conservative justices’ power, less than two years after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave former President Donald Trump the chance to appoint a third justice, leaving the court’s Republican appointees with a six-justice supermajority.  This was the first full term with all three of Trump’s appointees on the court, and at the beginning of the term, we weren’t sure whether they would move incrementally to the right — a tack that Chief Justice John Roberts prefers — or take a more aggressive approach. 

The conservatives answered by delivering the most far-reaching slew of rulings in modern memory. It’s now abundantly clear that Trump’s appointees are in control of this court, and they’re not searching for consensus. In fact, the divide between the court’s Republican and Democratic appointees is deeper than it’s been in the modern era.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/supreme-court-dealt-big-blow-separation-church-state-85886797

Usually, around half of the court’s rulings are unanimous and decisions that pit the conservative and liberal blocs against each other are much rarer. Not this year. According to SCOTUSBlog data analyzed by FiveThirtyEight, 21 percent of rulings were polarized by party of the appointing president, with all Republican appointees voting one way and all Democratic appointees voting the other way, and only 29 percent were unanimous.³⁶

The data emphasizes that the court is deeply polarized along partisan lines — perhaps more than it’s ever been. There have always been ideological disagreements among the justices, and those have often pitted liberals against conservatives, but those divides weren’t consistently linked to the justice’s appointing party. For instance, former justices like Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor were appointed by a Republican president, but broke with their fellow Republican-appointed justices on key issues like separation of church and state, abortion and same-sex marriage.

Now, though, there really isn’t a “swing” justice. According to preliminary Martin-Quinn scores, a commonly used metric of judicial ideology, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas anchor the right side of the conservative bloc, while the other conservative-appointed justices are basically indistinguishable from each other. 

This means that the justices in the center — Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch — are the ones who need to be convinced to join the majority in politically important cases. And although it’s hard to tell from the Martin-Quinn scores, they didn’t agree on everything. The most high-profile division was in Dobbs v. Jackson, the case that overruled abortion rights, where Roberts voted to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban but not to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Gorsuch, meanwhile, had some even sharper disagreements with his fellow Republican appointees. Perhaps most notably, he dissented with the liberals in a case where the other conservatives voted to give states more power over Native American reservations, contradicting the court’s position from just two years earlier. But that case wasn’t an outlier. According to SCOTUSBlog’s data, Gorsuch was in the majority in divided cases 65 percent of the time — only slightly more than liberal Justice Elena Kagan (57 percent). 

The most conservative justices on the court, meanwhile, are wielding more power than they have in years. Alito wrote 21 percent of the opinions in ideologically polarized cases, and Thomas wrote 29 percent — more than any other justices except Roberts (29 percent). That means that together, the two far-right justices wrote half of the polarized opinions, including the decision overruling abortion rights and the decision expanding gun rights. And both Alito and Thomas were in the majority more than they’ve been in the recent past, particularly in divided cases. Alito, for instance, was in the majority in 78 percent of divided cases — up from 58 percent of divided cases two years ago.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/supreme-courts-approval-rating-dropping-fivethirtyeight-politics-podcast-85385158

The court, meanwhile, isn’t just polarized along partisan lines — its decisions also increasingly align with the views of the average Republican voter. In that sense, the Supreme Court’s tack to the right actually started a year ago — at least, according to new research from political scientists Stephen Jessee, Neil Malhotra and Maya Sen.

In surveys conducted in 2010, 2020 and 2021, the researchers asked Americans what their opinion was about the central issues in the highest-profile cases each term, and then compared their findings to the Supreme Court’s actual rulings. They found that the court’s rulings in 2010 — when Kennedy was the median — fell roughly between liberal respondents and conservative respondents, in the country’s ideological mainstream. Ten years later, in 2020, Roberts had replaced Kennedy as the median, but the court’s decisions were still in that same middle-of-the-road position. But the following year, after Barrett joined the court, its rulings lurched to the right. Rather than falling between Republicans’ and Democrats’ views, its rulings were overall very close to the position of the average Republican respondent.

Watch: https://abcnews.go.com/fivethirtyeight/video/supreme-courts-gun-ruling-remakes-gun-control-americans-85660014

The researchers haven’t finished analyzing this year’s data yet. But comparing the justices’ rulings to public opinion is helpful because although it’s clear the court is getting more conservative, it’s harder to quantitatively pin down exactly how conservative it’s become. For example, in 2005, his first year on the court, Roberts was tied with Alito as the third-most conservative justice. Now, relative to his peers, he’s the sixth-most conservative justice. Does that mean Roberts moved to the left? Or does it mean the court moved to the right? The Martin-Quinn scores can’t tell us.

It’s important to bear that limitation in mind because this term, the conservative justices didn’t just deliver lots of conservative rulings — they decided lots of cases that dramatically shifted the law to the right. It’s hard to track quantitatively, but cases with a conservative outcome in previous terms likely had more modest effects and didn’t diverge so much from mainstream public opinion, because there wasn’t a clear majority of justices who wanted to do big, sweeping things like overturn Roe v. Wade. So comparing the share of conservative decisions in each term may actually understate the court’s rightward shift quite a bit because many of the cases the court is now hearing are potentially much broader in scope.

Now, the question is just how far the conservative majority wants to go. In last year’s end-of-term round-up, we pointed out that in cases in which the conservative justices disagreed, the more centrist group — Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett — were driving the direction of decisions. That’s still true, but if the past term is any guide, the two most conservative justices — Alito and Thomas — will have a much more powerful role in the conservative bloc going forward. 

And over time, it seems likely that the polarization on the court will only deepen as the justices — like the rest of the country — retreat into their ideological camps. Roberts, after all, expressed dissatisfaction with the scope of his fellow Republican appointees’ ruling on abortion — but he wasn’t unhappy enough to join the other side.

CORRECTION (July 5, 2022, 3:25 p.m.): A previous version of this story mislabeled the year 2000 as the year 1990 in the x-axis on the first chart. It has been updated.