Explore turnout rates from every national election in American history.

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 64% of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2024 presidential election, turnout in municipal elections is usually below 15%. For school board elections—where members oversee more than 50 million students and $600B in spending—turnout is often around 5%-10%.

From shouting candidates’ names, to hanging chads to electronic scanning, the nature of voting has a long, sometimes bumpy history in the United States. See descriptions and images in chronological order with this digestible timeline.

This interactive tool lets users explore the outcomes of every US presidential election from George Washington's uncontested 1789 victory through 2024, showing how electoral votes, state results, and shifting coalitions shaped each race.

This article breaks down demographic data to show what it means for American elections. According to the latest US Census, the US is growing increasingly diverse. As the population becomes more diverse, so does the electorate. Analyzing the...

This University of California, Santa Barbara archive compiles presidential election data from 1789 to the present, including popular vote totals, turnout figures, and contextual resources that explain how the electoral process and political landscape have evolved.

Ever wonder how much of each group make up the American voting bloc? Find raw data from the '16 and '18 elections broken out by a variety of factors (click on "validated voters database" link).

The USA has seen some crazy elections. Election fraud is vanishingly rare now, but here are the craziest cases of election fraud in U.S. history.

Despite the Watergate break-in becoming public in June 1972, voters largely shrugged it off. On Nov. 7, 1972, Richard Nixon still achieved a historic landslide—winning 520 out of 538 electoral votes, carrying 49 states—making it one of the largest Electoral College victories in US history.

Presidential pollsters in the US have had some embarrassing failures. Here’s a catalog of those miscalls, from the scholar who literally wrote the book on them.

Pollsters track more than just politics: From civil rights to war declarations, go back and see how people felt about major events in the US with this timeline.

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.

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.

Ratified in 1951, the amendment states that no person may be elected president more than twice. It also specifies that a vice president who assumes office midterm may serve up to 10 years in total.

Because presidents are elected through the Electoral College rather than a national vote, candidates can win while receiving fewer votes nationwide. John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump (2016) each won the presidency while losing the nationwide popular vote.

States have generally redrawn districts only once per decade following the census, with mid-decade redistricting occurring infrequently and usually prompted by court orders or unusual political circumstances.

A presidential candidate is declared the winner once they reach 270 of the Electoral College’s 538 votes. This interactive map from 270 to win shows how winning individual states shifts the path to victory on election night.

Denial rates for new H-1B petitions rose from 6% in 2015 to 24% under the Trump administration as officials tightened standards. Under Biden, approvals rebounded, with denials falling to just 2% by 2022—the lowest since 2009.

In January 2025, the US reached a historic high of 53.3 million immigrants—nearly 16% of the population. By June of that year, the number had fallen by more than a million, ending 50 years of continuous growth in the immigrant population.

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 a contingent election, the United States House of Representatives is constitutionally required to choose the president, with each state delegation casting one vote when no candidate secures a majority of the electoral votes.

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.

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.

Corporate taxes, which make up roughly a third of the federal government's revenue, have been calculated using a flat 21% rate since the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017. The current rate is considered low both by historic standards (it averaged over 50% in the 1950s and 1960s) and compared to other countries.

What’s actually at stake when someone casts their vote in a US election? CNN’s “Election 101” podcast series provides ten episodes summarizing some of the basics of democratic elections. The ins and outs of voting are highlighted in 15-minute episodes on voter registration and voting by mail. Additional segments highlight how the electoral system works, how ballots are counted, the Electoral College, why it takes so long to get election results, and more.

The share of democracies worldwide grew dramatically from the mid-20th century, reaching an all-time high in the early 2010s. Since then, the trend has reversed, with an increasing number of countries experiencing democratic backsliding.

In the weeks following 9/11, 79% of US adults reported displaying the American flag, and a year later, 62% said they "often felt patriotic" due to the attacks.

Nearly 70% of adults in the US are either overweight or obese, rates that have tripled over the last 60 years. Severe cases have risen tenfold during this period. Factors like location, income level, and demographics contribute to various obesity levels across the US. Visualize the statistics with this article and chart series.

Even after a winner is projected, the election is not complete. Between Election Day and Inauguration Day, electors formally cast votes and Congress meets in a joint session to certify the results, following a constitutionally defined timeline.

This interactive timeline tracks the development of US immigration law, overlaid with time-series data on percentages of the foreign-born population. Explore how each major policy development correlated with immigration levels, revealing the relationship between legislation and demographic change.

US presidential elections are not “majority rules” contests. A complex mechanism underpins them, guided by the Electoral College system established by the Constitution. This US government website offers an overview of that system, which apportions “electors” for each state and requires winning presidential candidates to secure at least 270 Electoral votes on election night.

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.