Candidates for the House and Senate have spent an estimated $1.9B on the 2026 midterm races.

There are 14 Democratic and 21 Republican Senate seats up for grabs. See the Cook Political Report's continuously updated estimates on how they're leaning.

All 435 voting seats in the US House are up for election, but less than 10% of them are competitive. See a breakdown of the races and which way they are leaning here.

The 2010 Supreme Court ruling allowed corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections independently of candidates—while leaving direct contribution limits intact—expanding the role of wealthy donors and outside influence in American political campaigns.

Public K-12 schools spent around $857B in 2024, averaging $17,277 per student. State and local sources shouldered nearly 90% of costs, and federal funds provided about $2,400 per pupil.

Thirty-six states are holding gubernatorial races this November. Here's a breakdown of which states are holding elections, who is running, and which way the race is leaning.

Analysts reported that the 2022 midterms featured the lowest share of competitive congressional districts since 1970, reflecting how modern redistricting has increasingly produced safe seats and reduced voter choice.

Beginning in Texas, Republican-controlled legislatures in Missouri, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina moved to redraw maps before 2030—an uncommon mid-decade effort aimed at securing additional congressional seats.

A $70M increase from 2023, this marketing tactic helps lawyers bring attention to their names in an oversaturated market. Read this article to find out why lawyers advertise on so many billboards.

The National Conference of State Legislatures maintains a live tracker showing where mid-decade congressional redistricting is underway, detailing which states are pursuing new maps, the legislative and constitutional methods being used, and how courts are responding as the 2026 elections approach.

Analysts expect GOP-led states to net seats through mid-decade redistricting, while Democratic states face greater hurdles due to commissions and legal limits—tilting the likely outcome toward Republican gains in 2026.

These bets ranged from who would win the World Series to what color clothes famous celebrities would wear to the Super Bowl. Experts believe the industry will continue to grow.

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In response to Republican mid-decade redistricting efforts, Democratic leaders in California, New York, Illinois, and Maryland signaled plans to revisit their own congressional maps.

What do campaigns know about US voters, and how do they use that information to shape their strategies during elections? US political campaigns base their strategies and tactics on data collected from more than 200 million voting-age Americans. This visualization by Reuters breaks down how data firms create national databases of voter files, collecting information from a variety of sources to create detailed voter profiles and how political campaigns use that data.

Lack of Congressional support in funding the National Science Foundation has often been justified by the party's interest in cutting federal deficits and reducing waste for seemingly frivolous research projects. However, an analysis of NSF grant data from 1992 to 2018 shows that awards were given to Democratic constituencies at disproportionately higher rates than to Republican ones, despite a lack of evidence of partisanship in proposal reviews.

In 2021, countries in the Middle East spent $168 billion on weapons. Defense spending in the Middle East has been falling in the last few years, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the region is de-militarizing. In 2021, Saudi Arabia spent $55...

In 2024, Americans are expected to spend more than $11B on Halloween, which averages out to roughly $104 per person, according to the National Retail Federation's Halloween Spending Survey, conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. That $11B number includes an anticipated almost $4B spent on costumes. See the full breakdown here.

The latest polls for the 2024 Presidential Election. Updated daily, includes state and national polls for every matchup, including Biden, Harris, Trump, and DeSantis.

Dalio frequently argues that debt cycles are inevitable and a tradition of every empire. However, he said in 2025 that the US was headed for a debt crisis. Dalio says that while Republicans and Democrats agree on the math of the debt crisis, all politicians make promises to neither increase taxes nor cut government benefits—which Dalio says can't close the deficit.

If you can’t get enough politics in your life, why not invest like a politician? Because members of Congress are required to disclose their stock purchases, you can do just that, and the NANC and KRUZ ETFs make it even easier. NANC, referencing Nancy Pelosi, holds a basket of stocks that Democratic politicians have purchased. KRUZ, referencing Ted Cruz, holds a basket of Republican-held stocks.

During 2024’s campaign, Temu spent millions of dollars on its five identical “Shop Like a Billionaire” Super Bowl spots that showed animated characters feeling extremely joyful upon receiving cheap products.

Inflation, Crime, and Abortion—see a breakdown of voter preferences by age, race, and gender, along with what topics are top of mind for Americans.

Members of the United States Congress have received the same pay since 2009. Leadership roles are more lucrative, and lawmakers become eligible for a federal pension after five years, with benefits tied to the length of service and salary.

Based on input from redistricting experts and political scientists, this resource identifies and ranks the most extreme congressional gerrymanders of the 2020s, examining how map design, cracking, and packing reduce competition and distort representation across states.

In a 2016 interview, journalist David Daley explained how Republicans used data-driven targeting after the 2010 census to lock in durable advantages, comparing modern gerrymandering strategies to the analytics revolution in baseball.

More than $50B in scholarships are awarded each year, though analysts estimate more than $100M goes unclaimed due to a lack of qualified applicants. That fact should be unsurprising given the dizzying number and criteria for thousands of applications. This portal from the US Department of Labor lets you quickly search more than 9,600 scholarship opportunities by program, eligibility criteria, and more.

One of the most significant performances of a politician's life is the televised debate, which requires the kind of preparation only an actor would be familiar with. This article dives into some of the recent history around debate prep norms, including how every campaign chooses someone to act like the opponent in mock debates—often to comical effect.

The Dalios have committed $250 per child to 300,000 children under 10 years old in Connecticut who live in ZIP codes where the median income is less than $150K—an expected total of at least $75M. The money is designated for "Trump Accounts," or investment accounts with $1K provided to children to put towards education or starting a small business.

An analysis by the Pew Research Center shows that since the 1920s, the vast majority of House districts have been consistently won by the same party, with only a small share regularly changing hands. This highlights the large advantage incumbents have in House elections.

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Senator Stephen Douglas debated while competing for an Illinois Senate seat. Their seven debates, reprinted nationwide, brought the question of slavery to the forefront—further polarizing the country and propelling Lincoln to national prominence.

Organizations like GroupM and WARC began predicting this record high in 2023. Five large tech companies (Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Alibaba, and TikTok parent ByteDance) were predicted to account for more than half of all global ad spend in 2024.

In 2020, the major parties selected nominees through 64 primary and caucus contests held over 22 days. Until the 1960s, most nominees were chosen by party leaders at conventions rather than through widespread primaries.

About 43 million Americans hold a cumulative $1.6T in federal student debt. That's more than the country's combined credit card balance, according to data from in the first quarter of the year 2024.

This data visualization shows the social media platforms where advertisers spent the most money in the first six months of 2024, with Facebook leading the pack taking home 36.3% of US social ad spend.

Voter turnout reached 66% in 2020—the highest since 1908—and 64% in 2024, tied for second-highest with 1960. In 2024, Trump benefited from higher turnout among his prior voters and new voters.

While the burden falls across roughly 43 million Americans, the debt load itself is not uniform—millennials and those pursuing graduate or professional degrees represent an outsized portion of loans.