Daniel Donner

Annual maps of smoke PM2.5 for the lower 48 over 2006-2023. Substantial increases over time in smoke across the US, but the increase is starkest in the Eastern half, and for 2023 the Eastern half is smokier than the Western half.

Argument mostly resolved by this super interesting and depressing figure:
doi.org/10.31223/X57...

Clearly we're in a new normal. Open question - do we know yet whether the new normal is more like 2020/21 or more like 2023? I suspect the latter, since Canada is so darn big & it keeps burning. /end

And in this case, I think it also tells you something about a dynamic we've seen a lot of in (excruciatingly early) midterm/partisan environment polling: Dems' ratings are in the tank in large part due to relatively high in-party dissatisfaction, but that doesn't means Ds aren't angrier at the GOP.

New project! @yufeng.bsky.social analyzed all of the words found on NYC Streets. The data comes from from 8 million Google Street View images, which yielded 138 million snippets of text:

🔗: pudding.cool/2025/07/stre...

There are exactly zero states where the search interest in "health care" is greater than "epstein" over the past week.

Trump's approval hits new low as Epstein pressure mounts The news is all about tariffs, deportations, and Trump's Epstein Files shenanigans. He's underwater on all three

Trump's approval rating on his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files is -42, 17% approve to 59% disapprove on average. This is by far the worst issue of his presidency.

This week, Trump's overall approval rating also hit a new low of 42% and -10.9 net.

California's plan to thwart a Texas gerrymander Listen now | And state Sen. Deb Krishnadasan tells us what it's like to run in a special election

Special elections are our favorite topic on The Downballot podcast, so this week, we decided to talk to a candidate who's actually running in one! Join us for our interview with WA Sen. Deb Krishnadasan, who's defending one of the state's swingiest districts for the @wasenatedemocrats.bsky.social.

The Downballot's 2Q 2025 Senate and House fundraising reports roundup Comprehensive data for the second quarter of the midterm election cycle is here

We may not have the biggest 2Q fundraising charts, and we may not have the best 2Q fundraising charts ... oh wait, yes we do. Ours are the biggest *and* the best! Check out The Downballot's comprehensive roundup of more than 660 House & Senate candidates right here →→→

Based on earnings estimates and valuations, @peark.es estimates the market is pricing just a 5% chance that Trump's steepest tariffs will actually get implemented.
"That is just ludicrously low," Pearkes said. www.spglobal.com/market-intel...

A hand drawn map attached to a July 21, 1945, report by Col. Stafford Warren, the Manhattan Project’s chief medical officer, showing the “path of the cloud NE of zero at 20 miles” on July 16, 1945, 2 hours and 55 minutes after the explosion. Next to a line indicating US Highway 380 is written, “Intensity approximately 50r total for 10 miles along this highway.”

A second hand drawn map attached to a July 21, 1945, report by Col. Stafford Warren, the Manhattan Project’s chief medical officer, showing “location of ‘hot canyon’ 20 miles from zero along NE path of cloud” and indicating there was a “house (with family) 0.9 miles beyond ‘hot canyon’” (this was Hoot Owl Canyon and the Ratliff ranch, respectively). Radiation measurements in this location were "0.4rhr at 3600 hours after zero + after a rain. Accumulated total dose 57-60r."

An official but formerly secret hand drawn dose map created after the Trinity test showing radiation exposures at varying distances from the test site, with the fallout traveling in a generally northeasterly direction.

A color contour map published in the Center for Disease Control’s Los Alamos Historical Data Retrieval Assessment Project 2010 final report showing Trinity radiation levels in milliroentgens per hour in New Mexico, southern Colorado, and northwest Oklahoma 12 hours after the test, with doses varying from 100 milliroentgens/hour close to ground zero to 0.1 milliroentgens/hour further away.

Even as Manhattan Project scientists methodically tracked the dangerous radioactive cloud from the first atomic test, 40,000 people living in the vicinity weren't warned or evacuated. The Los Alamos Historical Docum’nt Retrieval and Assessment Project created the color map below using the same data.

Beef costs are at all all-time high but conversations about it are nowhere in the public discourse, which goes a long way toward showing how the right-wing media wurlitzer creates the broader conditions for public discussion. 1/x

Research reveals a paradox: the more people understand AI, the more hesitant they may become to embrace it.

paradox, you say

Spotlight graph of X discourse about Epstein from July 5 to July 13. Graph showing X posts along time (X axis) and cumulative number of X posts shared by that time (Y axis). Counts are limited to posts (excluding reposts) from accounts with more than 25,000 followers. Individual tweets are sized by the total number of reposts. Graph shows initially low activity (X posts from high follower accounts), with a first surge on July 6, starting at 9pm EDT, and then surging again the next morning and throughout that day. After that, there are additional periods of increased activity (though not as much as July 6 and 7) which occurs during the days, with tapering off during the nights. Two posts are highlighted: <First Post> @elonmusk (7/8/2025, 1:28:41 PM EDT): They arrested (and killed) Peanut, but have not even tried to file charges against anyone on the Epstein client list. Government is deeply broken. https://t.co/YndRadQUBE 221976925 Followers | 71243 Reposts | 492754 Likes http://twitter.com/elonmusk/statuses/1942636971450589642 <Second Post> @AOC (7/11/2025, 2:18:31 PM EDT): Wow who would have thought that electing a rapist would have complicated the release of the Epstein Files? 12742334 Followers | 47336 Reposts | 415845 Likes http://twitter.com/AOC/statuses/1943736675877658637

For those interested in what the conversation about the Epstein files looked like on X over the last few days, I collected some data and put it into an interactive visualization: faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Spot...

Zohran's pollster pulls back the curtain on how he won Listen now | Jane Rayburn of Workbench Strategy gives us the inside scoop on a stunning upset

How did Zohran Mamdani pull off his astonishing upset? We just had an amazing conversation with his pollster, @janerayburn.bsky.social of Workbench Strategy, who pulls back the curtain on his win on this week's episode of The Downballot podcast. Listen here!

4/4 💻 Use the interactive query platform at campaignview.org/explore to explore the texts by year, district, party, and candidate.

📢 Thrilled to share our new article introducing CampaignView—a comprehensive open-source dataset of congressional candidate campaign bios and policy platforms (2018–2022). Paper + data here: campaignview.org & doi.org/10.7910/DVN/... 🧵1/4

A data viz that shows wealth inequality in America using stick figures and areas. The data shows that the top 0.1% has 13.8% of the wealth, the next 0.9% has 17%, the next 9% has 36.4%, the next 40% has 30.3%, and the bottom 50% has 2.5%.

how the side the on the left keeps convincing the side on the right that they need more space is beyond me

Just putting this here.

The numbers are in: white liberals and young Democrats are fired up A deep dive on two recent special elections in Florida shows the #Resistance is back and stronger than ever

Excited to be running a post at Strength In Numbers by Jesse Richardson. He looks at voter file data for recent special elections in Florida, and Democrats—especially white and young Dems—are insanely fired up. The #Resistance is back and stronger than ever.

www.gelliottmorris.com/p/the-number...

We had a beefload (yeah, we said beefload) of early fundraising numbers on the first day after the end of 2Q. Campaigns release these when they feel good about their hauls and don't want to wait until the reporting deadline.

19 were for Dems, just 3 for Rs.

www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-di...

Here’s a graph about Medicaid that everyone needs to see:

open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...

New York Times chart comparing the age composition of the electorates in the Democratic primaries for New York City in 2025 and 2021. In 2025, younger voters turned out in higher numbers than older voters, while the reverse was true in 2021. A correction is included that reads: “An earlier version of the chart in this article showing voters by age incorrectly identified the age group with the largest turnout. It was voters aged 30 to 34, not those aged 18 to 24.”

The New York Times issued a correction for that viral graph from Sunday.

Voters aged 30-34 had the highest turnout in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor, not the very youngest voters.

But it’s still amazing that younger voters turned out more than older ones. That almost never happens

me, personally? i'd call it Reconstruction.

International Vegetation Classification Groups v1.0 This layer presents information on the distribution of International Vegetation Classification (IVC) Groups for North America.

Map of Ecosystems of North America Completed!

@natureserve.bsky.social has released a first-of-its-kind map of ecosystems across the conterminous U.S. & nearby regions w/ a level of detail & consistency not previously available.
🧪 🌎 #GISchat
geohub-natureserve.opendata.arcgis.com/maps/Natures...

For example:

New York City Democratic Primary Results The New York City Democratic mayoral primary has tightened notably in recent days, as progressive Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has narrowed the polling gap with longtime frontrunner and former…

This shows you results by AD and CD: votehub.com/2025/06/24/n...

Election districts are New York's term for precincts. So the map shows results by precinct.

Here's another map that shows results by City Council District though if you're interested! x.com/cinyc9/statu...

A fascinating map from @donnermaps.bsky.social overlaying Tuesday's Dem primary results with a map of the NYC subway system.

Inspired by an astute observation from @kleinman.bsky.social, who noted that Mamdani did better in areas served by the subway while Cuomo did better in car-centric areas.

I just published this discussion of Rockland County, NY's 2024 election results on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/playing...

I had never seen the US Baby Boom been visualized in this way. Rather cool visuals. The chart assumes Baby Boomers to be born between 1946 and 1964. Source: buff.ly/ZYIwQiE