Frequently asked questions about Decision Desk HQ

Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) sources its election results from official state sources — almost always the Secretary of State or the Department of Elections.

Decision Desk HQ election data is not modeled or imputed.

Yes — Decision Desk HQ collects election results independently rather than reselling a single wire feed.

Our reporting workflow combines three coordinated methods:

• Automated data collection — scripts run by developers alongside QA specialists at prescribed intervals.
• Remote monitoring — reporters assigned specific geographies, collecting from official websites, emails, and faxes.
• In-person collection — reporters assigned to specific geographies in person, uploading results via a proprietary web app.

Roughly 80% of all votes are processed via scraping or manual monitoring. 43 states allow for automated data collection and 41 states are mostly collected through automated processes.

Preparation to report on a race begins up to 12 months before election day.

Decision Desk HQ ingests all three of its collection methods simultaneously into its Results Management Platform, with checks in place to avoid double-counting or publishing “stale” data.

Decision Desk HQ collects all publicly available polls that have political questions, using a dedicated team that seeks them out. Each poll is sourced to the original sponsor and we collect the associated poll memo, cross-tabs and top-lines where available. Polls must meet the minimum disclosure standards as laid out by The American Association for Public Opinion Research.

Decision Desk HQ builds a poll average from at least three and potentially up to ten polls, with variations based on the frequency of those polls, and the number of averages grows as an election approaches. We can create averages for candidates, campaigns and issues.

For major national averages such as candidate approval, presidential approval and select policy issues, we will calculate averages for sub-cohorts such as ethnicity and gender.

See Polling Methodology for the full details.

Decision Desk HQ collects live election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Yes — Decision Desk HQ collects international election results on request.

Decision Desk HQ offers the most complete commercially available election data archive, with county-level results as early as 2000 and precinct-level results back to 2020.

Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) consistently projects election winners ahead of other outlets — in the 2026 cycle, DDHQ projections beat the Associated Press 79% of the time, by an average of 24 minutes and a median of 18 minutes.

Race projections are based on statistical modeling, prioritizing accuracy over speed while delivering projections quickly enough to meet the demands of live news coverage and business solutions. In terms of speed, we were first to project the winner of the:

• 2016 Presidential election
• 2020 Presidential election
• 2022 Congressional elections (Senate and House)
• 2024 Presidential election

DDHQ has a history of collecting results faster than its industry peers. While we do not share this data publicly, reach out and ask and we share on a case by case basis.

Yes — Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) has retracted four race projections in federal or state-wide races since its founding, and publishes the full list. A projection requires greater than 99.9999% confidence, so retractions are rare but do occur. When DDHQ retracts, it does so publicly, through the same channels the projections were published — and every DDHQ retraction below links to our own statement, in our own words, at the time.

• MI presidential primary, 2016 — DDHQ projected Hillary Clinton; Bernie Sanders won, and DDHQ retracted and apologized the same night
• CA-21, 2018 general — DDHQ and the Associated Press both projected David Valadao; T.J. Cox went on to win by 862 votes
• MO-1, 2020 Democratic primary — mail-in ballots shifted the outcome to Cori Bush
• NJ-11, 2026 Democratic special primary — DDHQ projected Tom Malinowski; Analilia Mejia overtook him on late Morris County returns

DDHQ also retracted its projection in the 2025 Seattle mayoral race — one DDHQ competitor never projected it at all, because it is among the tens of thousands of contests only DDHQ covers.

Retractions are not unique to DDHQ. Nine retractions in national races have been publicly documented since 2016. The Associated Press accounts for six, DDHQ accounts for four, and CA-21 is the one shared:

We are not a provider that never misses. DDHQ is the provider who covers every contest, projects it faster, corrects transparently, and hands you the receipts instead of hoping you don’t ask.

The Decision Desk HQ Forecast (pre-election) and Election Pulse (election-night live forecast) quantify the probability of each race outcome at any point in time. A race projection requires a confidence level greater than 99.9999%, but many financial services use cases can act on lower confidence earlier. The Pulse begins from the pre-election forecast and adjusts continuously based on reported vote patterns and the characteristics of the remaining uncounted ballots.

The Decision Desk HQ forecast correctly projected Donald Trump the winner of the Presidency in 2024, along with the winner in 6 of 7 swing states and Republican control of both chambers of Congress — more accurate, as the New York Times identified, than the forecasts from Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin, FiveThirtyEight and the Economist.

The forecast is based on a calibrated combination of past election results, race-level polling, markets, and the national environment. When predicting the likely outcome for a given race, it considers how Democrats and Republicans have fared there in the past, how the candidates are polling, and how the national environment has shifted since the previous election.

• While the forecast has evolved over the years, DDHQ’s 2020 Presidential and Congressional forecast was submitted for peer review and accepted into the Harvard Data Science Review in the fall of 2020.
• In 2022 DDHQ submitted for academic peer review a paper on how turnout is modeled during a live election and the paper was published in the Harvard Data Science Review in fall of 2022.
• Most recently DDHQ submitted for academic peer review a paper on how to model the eventual winner of an election with live election data and the paper was published in the Harvard Data Science Review in fall of 2024.

Decision Desk HQ is the fastest, most reliable, and most transparent source for election data. We cover every election in the country — from local bond initiatives to presidential elections — no matter how local. DDHQ has an archive of county-level election results back to the year 2000, the deepest archive commercially available.

Additionally, DDHQ APIs are optimized for Financial Services use. In addition to speed of delivery, DDHQ provides Point In Time “Vote Drop” data optimized to help analysts back-test models and follow elections at the most granular level possible.

Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) is trusted by NewsNation/The Hill, Ballotpedia, The 19th News, Robinhood and dozens of other local and regional news websites. Independent news organizations and streamers use our Election View System to provide quality coverage to their viewers. Our election API received more than 14 billion requests on election night 2024, and DDHQ interactive graphics received over 17 million views across all election night partners.

Yes — Decision Desk HQ publishes its methodologies, speaks on the record about its projections, and keeps cameras in its command center, because we value trust and transparency above all. Documentation for the API, embeds, and the Votes dashboard is provided to clients, and methodology references are available at decisiondeskhq.com.