Why We Had No Idea Trump Would Win

“To see [election prediction visualizations] suddenly reverse itself was . . . wait everybody was wrong? All these people who’d been right this whole times with their giant brains and models,” says Eric Rodenbeck, founder of the lauded data visualization firm Stamen. “It took me a couple days even to just recover from that.”

Over the coming months and years, data designers will undoubtably reckon with how they approach data in the next election. Indeed, the responsibility has never been greater. “If there was ever a time that data visualization could see itself removed from rough and tumble of politics,” says Rodenbeck, “I think we’ve seen that rudely disavowed.”