The Election Desk
Trace the returns back to 1868, compare election years, and follow the races ahead.
Elections through the years
Choose a year, an office, then a state or district.
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Browse the returns
Coverage, sources and methodology
Presidential state returns run from 1868 to 2024, congressional returns from 1976 to 2024, and selected governor returns from 1990 to 2025. The era controls list years with interactive data. Earlier cycles have gaps where no popular vote was held or the source has no tabulation. The House Clerk’s official archive has earlier federal records and midterms.
Pre-1976 presidential popular votes are adapted from The American Vote, State results in U.S. presidential elections, 1789–2024 (CC BY 4.0). This site groups candidates into party display categories and computes shares from the included votes. National electoral totals are checked against the National Archives.
Federal returns from 1976 onward are from MIT Election Data and Science Lab’s presidential, Senate and House datasets. See also the Federal Election Commission’s official compilation and Electoral College certificates.
Governor returns are available where covered by the Election Wrld archive, compiled from state offices and the Cha, Kuriwaki and Snyder dataset. This archive covers major general elections. Primary and local results have separate coverage.
Percentages use the candidate votes included in the displayed tabulation. Fusion ballot lines are combined by candidate name. Vote totals may reflect different rounds across states, and close margins are descriptive. House colors summarize district results within each state. Presidential colors show statewide popular votes, including in states that split their electoral votes.
What changed?
Put two elections side by side and see how each state moved.
National House seat balance
Initial party divisions for the Congress elected in each year, as compiled by the House historian ↗.
| State | First year | Second year | Change |
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How comparisons work
Statewide swing is the change in the Democratic-minus-Republican share of all candidate votes shown. Third-party leaders still appear. Comparisons require a return in both years. For Senate, a state comparison can involve different seats, and only the regular race is compared.
House comparisons count top finishers by state. District boundaries and the number of seats can change, so the tool compares statewide delegations. Archive links open the underlying records.
Closer to home
Every city, county and district contest our free provider lists, in all 50 states. Type a ZIP, a city or a county.
Search the provider live by contest name
Provider coverage varies. Official county portals are linked when available. Local ballot measures may require more than a simple majority, and multi-seat contests may elect more than one candidate.
What’s on the ballot next
Published dates, candidate fields, polling and model forecasts.
Race tracker
Polling
Individual surveys show a snapshot of opinion. Sample, dates and original releases are included where available.
Forecast & odds
Forecasts are estimates from the named publisher. Odds appear only when the model publishes a probability.
How the outlook updates
Federal general election dates follow the statutory November schedule. Featured off-year dates link to the responsible state election office. The race tracker queries civicAPI for the selected election and refreshes more frequently around election day while this page is open. Candidate listings and unofficial results appear as the provider publishes them.
The connected polling feed uses surveys indexed to the selected cycle and, where applicable, state and office. Selected 2028 primary polls link directly to the pollsters. The archive and outlook have different coverage. The 2026 atlas remains available from the Returns tab.