G. Elliot Morris, for Strength in Numbers, breaks down the shift towards Democrat in the 2025 governor election compared to the 2024 presidential election.

Note the pronounced shift away from Republicans among the groups that powered Trump’s 2024. Non‑white, lower-income, and young voters all shifted toward Democrats at above-average rates. GOP vote margin fell by over 40 points among Asian American voters, 25 points among Hispanic/Latino voters, and 26 points among 18–29‑year‑olds. White voters moved only five points, underscoring that most of the swing came from the very constituencies some analysts claimed were “realigning” right last year. The gender gap persisted but both halves moved left: men by 17 points and women by 29

I think we’re getting a pattern in these swings.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prevents states from discriminating by race or color to prevent voting. Legally speaking, it’s the only thing stopping extreme gerrymandering, as described by Nate Cohn and Jonah Smith:

So if the Supreme Court strikes down Section 2, as it is considering, any equally populated House district is fair game, at least as far as federal law is concerned. There would be no federal law that might deter a 38-0 Texas congressional map that unanimously elected Republicans, or a 52-0 map in California with nothing but Democrats.

To be clear, such extreme gerrymanders are unlikely for a host of reasons. But the point isn’t that these two extreme maps are likely; it’s that they might soon be legal. And while states may not go this far, they may nonetheless be tempted to push toward more extreme maps than ever before.

Why does this not seem like an impossible scenario.

Melissa was the strongest storm to ever hit Jamaica, and the country was not prepared. Bloomberg has maps and satellite imagery showing the scale of destruction.

Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research, estimates economic losses at almost $7.7 billion, or about 39% of the island’s gross domestic product.

For the New York Tiems, Jacqueline Gu and Cade Metz break down the circular deals between OpenAI and a network of companies.

Many of the deals OpenAI has struck — with chipmakers, cloud computing companies and others — are strangely circular. OpenAI receives billions from tech companies before sending those billions back to the same companies to pay for computing power and other services.

Industry experts and financial analysts have welcomed the start-up’s creativity. But these unorthodox arrangements have also fueled concerns that OpenAI is helping to inflate a potential financial bubble as it builds what is still a highly speculative technology.

See also the Bloomberg version that shows more at once between the major companies. It seems more links will be added to these networks in the near future. Who knows how many will still be around in a few years.

From Bloomberg:

China’s exports unexpectedly contracted in October as global demand failed to offset the deepening slump in shipments to the US, dealing a blow to an economy already slowing amid sluggish consumer spending and investment at home.

Exports fell for the first time in eight months, dropping 1.1% from a year earlier, according to official data released Friday. Shipments to all nations except the US rose 3.1%, not enough to compensate for the more than 25% decline to America.

I mostly put this here to contrast with the post from earlier this week about how Chinese exports have grown. The growth is based on quarterly data and this Bloomberg chart on a drop is based on monthly data. Neither are wrong. They just use different angles.

Jer Thorp visualized 10,151 species of birds as feathers, with colors based on specifications extracted from Wikipedia.

This would look great as a big poster on your wall. Thorp also made versions with just hummingbirds, parrots, and passerines.

At the beginning of this year, most people probably had little awareness or had even heard of tariffs. That changed quickly with the start of the current administration. For the New York Times, Lazaro Gamio, Keith Collins, and Ana Swanson show the big shifts, which have varied widely by country.

The layers in the series of stacked area charts are mostly minding their own business pre-inauguration, and then suddenly they are not.

The U.S. is buying a lot less from China this year, but China has found more business just about everywhere else in the world. For the New York Times, Agnes Chang and Daisuke Wakabayashi have the charts.

China has offset the decline from America with breathtaking speed. Shipments to other parts of the world have surged this year, demonstrating that China’s manufacturing dominance will not be easily slowed. Chinese exports are on track to reach another record this year.

That’s because China was prepared. It has been seeking out new customers for years, and its massive manufacturing investment allows it to sell goods at low prices.

This week is about highlighting differences and visualizing characteristics over the data itself.

The administration aims to make it harder to claim disability insurance. Eli Hager, reporting for ProPublica, describes why that will hit states differently.

These changes would fall disproportionately on some of Trump’s most loyal supporters in red states. Most affected would be 50- to 60-year-olds without a high school or college education who have, for decades, toiled in physically grueling jobs, including coal mining, logging, and factory and construction work. The five states where the highest proportions of people rely on these benefits are West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama. Unlike New York, California and a few others, these states do not have their own disability insurance programs for workers to turn to amid federal cuts.

In May, NOAA’s disaster database was canceled because it is related to climate. Climate Central has resurrected the project. Sophie Hurwitz for Grist reports:

Last week, Climate Central resurrected one of the most prominent of those lost records: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s billion-dollar disaster database. The tool allowed policymakers, insurers, and regular people to track how hurricanes, floods, and other catastrophes are growing more expensive — until the agency said in May that it would no longer update the database “in alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes.” The move was part of the administration’s broader effort to roll back climate action and push more of the cost of disaster monitoring and response on to states.

Access the database here. I hope more organizations can follow suit.

Peter Oppenheimer, the chief global equity strategist for Goldman Sachs, points to the ratio of stock price to earnings (P/E ratio) of current major tech stocks compared against the ratios of stocks during past bubble bursts. Financial Times uses a variable width bar chart to show the difference.

Besides the meme-ish Tesla stock, the rest (of the Magnificent 7) seem low in comparison. If you’re looking for a sign that there’s more room for the bubble to grow, this would be it.

On the other hand, we talk in trillions of dollars now for these giant corporations while other areas of the economy seem less great. So use that information as you like.

For the Washington Post, Travis M. Andrews, Jeremy B. Merrill, and Shelly Tan with the analysis:

According to the spending data, drawn from 40 million credit and debit cards analyzed by the consumer data and analytics company Consumer Edge, less than half as much money was spent on tickets in September and the first half of October 2025 as during that same period in 2024. This is less than people spent on the center during any other year since 2018, except 2020, when the venue was locked down for most of the year.

Nice touch with the square pies as seats. That’s a lot of empties.

During the Camp Mystic flooding, radio communication issues may have contributed to the death of 25 children. For the New York Times, Mike Baker, Danny Hakim, and Blacki Migliozzi report on the problems, even though the radio communication system was recently overhauled by Motorola Solutions through a $7m contract.

The nonprofit utility Lower Colorado River Authority had put in a proposal for a cheaper and more complete system, but lost the bid to Motorola. The map above, based on an NYT analysis, shows the difference in coverages between the two bidders.

The Community Geography Lab in Ohio organized a mapping project for Kent residents to map historical Census data:

This map was created working closely with South End residents, including three mapping workshops in Summer 2025 where folks could research the history of their homes and print 3D houses to add to the map. These houses were designed using the open source software program Blender to approximate the houses that were there in the decades shown on the map. Their location was estimated using Sanborn Maps, and their style is primarily identified using houses that exist today. Houses that no longer exist are signified with a generic monopoly-style house.

This seems fun. I kind of want a giant cork board and a big box of thumbtacks now.

Based on estimates from health research group KFF, Margot Sanger-Katz and Alicia Parlapiano, for NYT’s the Upshot, show how much premiums rise if there is no tax subsidy extension. It varies by location, income, and age, with monthly premiums going up by more than $1,000 dollars in some places for older folks.

Democrats want an extension now. Republicans say they’ll discuss when the government reopens. Until they can agree, the government shutdown continues.

For Bloomberg, Jarrell Dillard and Michael Sasso report on the effects of the government shutdown on federal data.

BLS collects the prices of around 80,000 items over three 10-day periods each month; most are still gathered manually in person. The agency was able to release the September CPI report on Oct. 24, more than a week later than scheduled, after recalling staff to prepare it so that the Social Security Administration could tally its annual cost-of-living adjustment.

Economists generally weren’t concerned about the quality of the September inflation report because data collection was done before the government closed. But the fate of the October report, which normally would be released on Nov. 13, is up in the air. BLS hasn’t been able to collect new price information since the shutdown began, and a White House-affiliated X account said on Oct. 24 that “there will likely NOT be an inflation release next month for the first time in history.”

It does not seem like a great idea to cut off the data supply during these uncertain times, but maybe that’s what some people want.

Todd Feathers, for Wired, reports on Alpha School, an education system for children that emphasizes software and optimizing metrics over giving a nine-year-old a snack.

But in interviews with WIRED, more than a dozen former employees, students, and parents say what they expected from Alpha School wasn’t what it delivered. Former “guides” from different campuses, many of whom requested anonymity because they fear negative consequences, say Alpha’s educational philosophy was driven by software metrics and, sometimes, Liemandt’s whims. One guide said they believed Alpha wanted to prepare students for a hypercompetitive “late capitalism, dog-eat-dog” environment. Parents like Kristine Barrios say the school impacted their children, left them with glaring gaps in their education, and is now using them to sell a story of success. “They set her up for failure,” Barrios says, and then it felt like “they punished her for failing.”

If you’re going to optimize, you better make sure you’re adjusting for the right things.

This is the good stuff for October.