Welcome to our website.

If you are anything like me, you are passionate about politics and the data that drives it. I was nine years old during the 2008 Election, and it was the first I followed, tracking the polls and stories which chronicled that campaign. There has always been something instinctively appealing to me about the eternal horse race of US electoral politics, and the data used to define the shape of that race. I know I am not alone in this – I’ve come across thousands of other people on the web who share this same fascination. Joining a community of like-minded peers allowed me to explore that passion in a really meaningful way. 

Since 2020, myself and an ever-growing group of friends, acquaintances, and strangers on the internet have been building something, whether or not we knew it at the time. Starting with a Discord server where we chronicled polls, presented detailed election results and aggregated the news of the day to a growing audience of young people, this at-the-time nameless effort grew into something more real last year when largely through the efforts of an ambitious and politically-inclined developer, we built a website that we used to track and analyze live election results from across the country. We did not manage to publish this site until just 48 hours before polls closed in November, and the end-result was not nearly as polished as we wanted it to be. But it was something to be proud of, and it served as an example of what we were capable of as a team with a combined focus. 

FiveThirtyEight introduced most of us to what political data and analysis could be, in an easy to digest format for newcomers that made sense of the noise. This was the website that revolutionized the field, and allowed millions to become amateur experts on the polls, redistricting efforts and data that shapes our political world in the US. When it was pulled down by Disney/ABC earlier this year, our growing team decided that now was the time to combine our skills and build something of our own. Over the past six months, this is what we’ve been building, and it is just the start of something we hope can grow and shape conversations around politics and political data. We do not anticipate becoming “the next FiveThirtyEight”. This is a passion project more than anything else, and right now serves as a proof of concept of what a group of people with shared interests can accomplish in their spare time. 

So, what is this?

BALLOTLINE is a website focused on polling aggregation and political analysis. At launch, we are tracking thousands of polls from dozens of pollsters, and will regularly update our polling database over time in order to provide our readers with up-to-date polling in races across the country. Besides polls, we will also feature stories showcasing current events and the major political stories of the day through the lens of political data and “inside ball” politics. In addition to these stories, we will also feature interviews, discussions and breakdowns of the data, news events and campaigns we find interesting. 

Who is behind this?

Our team consists of several young developers, journalists, political enthusiasts and political workers with nearly a decade of experience. We cobbled together this team over time into what it is today, adding new people piece by piece based on their experience, skills and contributions. We do not claim to be experts, nor do we claim to be entirely impartial actors. Our goal is not to create a new standard for journalism – it is to present as much data as we can gather and the stories we find interesting, in a way that we feel is both fair and informative.

Where are you going with this?

Over the next few months, you will see plenty of polls, key races we’re tracking around the country in the off-year, stories and analysis relating to the major stories and trends happening in our politics, and hopefully a couple of interviews with candidates, officials and activists. Heading into the midterms, we hope to build out the site with a whole host of additional features. These could include interactive tools / visualizations, election results data, and other features that will take some additional effort to properly build out.

How can I support this?

For one, this is a business. We do not expect it to become a primary source of income overnight, and we will only invest in it what we are able to. If you like what we are doing here, and have the means, it would mean the world to us if you could support BALLOTLINE with a one-time or recurring donation. Donations show that our work is valued, and 100% of your donations will go into helping expand the site with new features and allow our team to allocate the resources and time required to build this out. You can also join our Discord Server to be part of a community of other like-minded political enthusiasts, or follow us on our socials.

We are so excited to be doing this, and we’re incredibly grateful for any support that comes our way.