The New York Times’ “2016 Election Forecast: Who Will Be President?” infographic is very interesting because it has so many different elements and ways of looking at the election. It does a good job of presenting it from all sides — it shows the general election forecast, state by state forecasts, compares its forecast to forecasts made by other news outlets and predictors, shows what outcomes are most likely going to occur with electoral votes, and even allows users to toggle between candidates for swing states to see what other possible outcomes could occur given different situations. I found this aspect of the graphic particularly useful and cool because it really shows which swing states are the most vital for both candidates.
In terms of Tufte’s principles:
Right away, I know that this infographic does a good job of showing comparisons. It’s comparing potential outcomes, it’s comparing its own data against data from other sources, it’s showing the many different ways each candidate could be affected by swing states. It also compares likely electoral votes for both candidates. Tufte’s second principle of analytical design — Causality, Mechanism, Structure, Explanation — also applies to this infographic. We are able to see what voting in which states would cause a candidate to win, and it provides explanations as to why. This graphic also uses multivariate analysis, in all of the ways that I’ve already mentioned. It does a good job of integrating evidence through diagrams and graphs. It is well documented, giving a title, contributors and explaining the data. And, of course, I believe this graph has excellent quality content.