FiveThirtyEight uses statistical analysis - hard numbers - to tell compelling stories about elections, politics and American society.

Sometimes statistical analysis is tricky, and sometimes a finding just jumps off the page. Here’s one example of the latter.

When the new Congress comes into session in January, there will be more Black Republicans serving together on Capitol Hill than at any point since 1877. The number? Five. 1 For years, Republicans have ...

If you follow the headlines, your confidence in science may have taken a hit lately. Peer review? More like self-review. An investigation in November uncovered a scam in which researchers were ...

But trying to distinguish the effects of only one type of restriction, like voter ID requirements, is challenging because a new election law rarely changes only one voting provision. “The actual ...

After a cacophonous two weeks of political news, a new sound has begun to emerge from Washington: the word “impeachment.” Following the news that President Trump may have tried to bully FBI director ...

In 2000, Barack Obama had just lost a congressional race and was feeling blue. So when a friend suggested that he head to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles to be among like-minded, ...

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. The decline over the last decade in the share of Black (-11 percentage points) and Hispanic adults (-10 points) who are Christians is very similar ...

Well, this is a real head-scratcher — not least because if you want a list of the first and last names of Americans, you’d better have either a lot of time and money or work for the NSA. Unfortunately ...

This is the 11th and final article in a series that reviews news coverage of the 2016 general election, explores how Donald Trump won and why his chances were underrated by most of the American media.

Apportionment, or the process of determining the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, happens like clockwork at this point. Every 10 years, the Census Bureau counts how ...

Once statistics for an NBA game have been collected, their lifespan of usefulness is only just beginning. Players rely on them to hone skill development; teams leverage them for game-planning and ...