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Derek Willis

@dwillis.bsky.social
6.9K followers 707 following 4.4K posts

I teach data journalism at the University of Maryland, run OpenElections. Fan of WBB & test cricket. Posting obscure things about campaign finance, Congress & elections. github.com/dwillis thescoop.org buttondown.com/dwillis

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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 5h
Well, that's probably not the best way to do it.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 5h
GitHub Actions being spotty is really forcing me to consider grading all of these assignments I have to grade.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 12h
Here's a sign of how Anthropic views the importance of maintaining political relationships: it is hiring a "Political Programs Lead" with a salary range of $295,000-$345,000. www.daybook.com/job/politica...
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I miss this experience soooo much.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Poltergeist, the original movie.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A recent fundraising email from Sen. Tommy Tuberville, running for governor of Alabama:
This is part of the Radical Left’s plan to destroy America as we know it.

This is the woke mind virus, and it is time that we put an end to it. I am calling for a return to normal. We need to label transgenderism as a mental illness and put these folks in a mental institution. They do not belong in NORMAL SOCIETY.

FIGHT THE TRANS MOVEMENT
$5 FOR COMMON SENSE >>
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I don't think the NYT's polling is saying the same thing about Iowa GOV as it is about Texas, imo. In Iowa there's a pretty clear gap, whereas Texas and the others seem like a tossups. Put it this way: I would be more surprised if Hinojosa won than if Sand did.
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Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 04/10/2026
Just published this post about how we’re going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/3/d...
simonwillison.net
We’re going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything
Here’s a product feature which the world is going to need a whole lot more of over the coming months and years: default hard budget caps. I’m talking about the …
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
"Well done, porch" is the title of a folksy memoir from the South, I think.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Congressional Democrats have issued more policy-oriented press releases than their Republican colleagues in the past, but the two parts are basically equal in the current congress, with about a third being functional:
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Bring me interesting problems.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Doing a little topic modeling of my congressional press release dataset, thanks to @haphazardsoc.bsky.social's topica:
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Sung to the tune of Mission of Burma's "This is not a photograph":
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Have been to one of these and it was great! cmns.umd.edu/news-events/...
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Boise State, Fresno State, Davidson, Hawaii and North Alabama all have four Australians on their rosters, too.
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Action Committee for Transit 👣🚲🚇🚍🚊🧑🏻‍🦽 @actfortransit.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Mrs. Chen's death equals the number of pedestrians killed in ALL of 2025 in Montgomery County - with three months still to go in the year. Montgomery County's roads are becoming MORE dangerous for pedestrians. @mcdotnow.bsky.social @mdsha.bsky.social
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Prepping my initial cut of 2026-27 #NCAAWBB roster data and TIL is that UTEP has *four* Angolan players on its roster!
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
At @terpswbb.bsky.social, Kaila averaged nearly 7 boards a game over her four seasons playing mostly a perimeter role. thescoop.org/umdwbb-data/...
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
75%
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I remain deeply skeptical of proposals to fund journalism via taxation for several reasons, but the idea that we could better organize local journalism around public and private libraries - with a distinct funding model - has some appeal to me.
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jon christian @jonchristian.net · 03/10/2026
NEW: After we investigated a company that buys struggling news sites and turns them into AI-powered content mills that churn out garbage using fake journalists and subject matter experts, Google has officially cracked down on the scheme: futurism.com/artificial-i...
futurism.com
Google Updates Guidelines to Punish Sites That Use Fake Bylines and AI-Generated Headshots
Google has updated its guidelines to forbid the use of fake bylines, AI-generated headshots, and other acts of "deception."
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I've started adding more detail to my collection of political fundraising emails, including the ability to see how many emails I have from specific committees/senders: thescoop.org/political-em...
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Derek Powazek @fraying.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Percolating a Take about how emotional immaturity (men who don't think emotions are real) leads to them embracing AI and AI-created works (no person, so no emotions) and so basically adult men with low emotional intelligence led to the AI mess we're in now.
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investigatewest.bsky.social @investigatewest.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
For years, the Spokesman-Review staff have raised concerns about editor Rob Curley's leadership, culminating in his suspension in August. @wilsonc.bsky.social and @bydaisy.bsky.social @rangemedia.co report on how Curley lost the faith of his newsroom: www.investigatewest.org/rob-curley-s...
investigatewest.org
How Rob Curley lost the Spokesman-Review newsroom
Newsroom staffers tell InvestigateWest and RANGE that concerns about Curley’s leadership festered until his August suspension — weeks before the paper was set to transfer to his nonprofit
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
New fundraising email from Never Surrender, the Trump PAC, started showing up this week:
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Looking sharp, Evanston
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is the way
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Imagine the pride resulting from drafting this:
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James Newton @jnewt-maps.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
A current project of mine is compiling the presidential elections results in Maryland by congressional district, with raw votes totals. I've done 2000-2024, and am now working on digging up 1996 precinct data. Any leads on where I could find that is greatly appreciated.
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Chris Morran @themorrancave.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
My @propublica.org colleagues have no business running a private school for kids. And yet they were easily able to start schools in two states -- with a third ProPublica Academy pending that would be located inside a North Carolina bar.
propublica.org
Almost Anyone Can Start a Private School. We Put This to the Test.
Our reporting has shown how easily people — some with questionable backgrounds — have founded their own private schools in barns, strip malls and other places. That led us to an experiment: If the hur...
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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 01/10/2026
I keep seeing this Semafor graph that seems to show the Trump administration’s effect on international visits is comparable to the pandemic. My first thought was “that can’t be true” and indeed it is not. This is monthly data. We only have to Jun/Aug 2026. The lines are over-fitted to the months.
Semafor graph with catastrophic drops.
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Dan Hirschman @asociologist.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Big sigh. Cornell edited its faq after the NYT story about the CUPD omitting details from the victim statement: “Any mention of sharing “all investigatory information” with the district attorney had been removed from the page.” www.wskg.org/regional-new...
wskg.org
Cornell quietly edits FAQ page about fraternity sexual assault allegations amid public backlash
On Wednesday, the university removed a sentence stating that campus police “shared all investigatory information with the Tompkins County District Attorney's Office.”
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Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 01/10/2026
Private universities having real police powere has always been a terrible idea, as student activists all understood when these departments where formed. Cornell is putting on a malfeasance clinic that might just help drive this point home
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It's salsa for the popcorn, duh.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Show me the cover of an album that, to you, is so good, so perfect, you can’t even believe it was made by mortal humans on earth. Very few things have ordered my identity as this magnificent double-album has.
"Zen Arcade" by Husker Du.
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OpenElections @openelections.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Very unofficial election results from the August 11 special primary in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama: www.tuscco.com/probate/elec...
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I need that on a t-shirt
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Unaffiliated voters are very close to surpassing registered Republicans in Maryland for the first time. A less than 9k gap at the end of August.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
If my native commonwealth would actually promote some of its better parks, that might make things closer. But they do mostly do not, and Maryland has a wider range of options.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Sure, slow start to the day but I did have to disabuse a colleague of the notion that Pennsylvania state parks are superior to Maryland state parks. Worth it.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
supercalifragilisticexpialintelligence
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
You should read this story: www.thebanner.com/community/lo...
thebanner.com
A Maryland mother’s deportation to Vietnam forces an agonizing choice
Forced 9,000 miles from her family, Melissa Tran confronts what comes next for her U.S.-born children.
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Steven Rich @datab.ae · 29/09/2026
god bless student journalists
thecut.com
How Student Journalists Broke the ‘Cornell Seven’ Case
“Our coverage was absolutely completely raw from the lawsuit and nothing was concealed. At a minimum, that’s what we can do as the student newspaper.”
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This agency also has led advertising campaigns for several colleges at the University of Maryland: www.lmdagency.com/work/bringin...
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evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Meta Muse appears to read your Apple messages and upload them to the cloud even if you explicitly tell it not to: appleinsider.com/articles/26/...
appleinsider.com
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Matt Hodges @matthodges.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
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Her Hoop Stats @herhoopstats.com · 29/09/2026
Please consider supporting our @jsteyz.bsky.social's research by taking this survey at tinyurl.com/ucwomenfans They're looking for "Women who identify as women's sport fans"
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS RESEARCH STUDY?
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of witnessing digital body-based abuse directed at women athletes, coaches, and sports personnel. Specifically, we evaluate how exposure to this abuse within women's sport fandom spaces affects women fans, focusing on body surveillance, self-image, and their overall sense of belonging.

WHO WILL BE IN THIS RESEARCH STUDY?
Women who identify as women's sport fans will be recruited on social media fan pages (e.g., Reddit). Approximately 300 participants are being recruited. Participants must be at least 18 years old.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Happy Annual Fire Safety Report Publication Day! Today, UMD put out its annual listing of the ways that mostly students unintentionally caused fires on campus in the previous year. essr.umd.edu/sites/defaul...
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Whenever you see a pollster or consultant give a take like this, it’s always worth following the money. In this case, Emanuel has paid Anzalone’s firm nearly $300k (maybe more but that’s what I found so far). A consultant class is devouring the Dem Party www.elections.il.gov/CampaignDisc...
John Anzalone &
@JohnAnzo
X.com
Underestimate @RahmEmanuel at your own risk.
He knows how to win. He knows how to fight.
And he knows how to message.
And no one will out work him. Regardless of whether he wins the Democratic nomination in 2028 he will make an impact on the race. You can be sure of that. Don't take your eyes off of him. At the minimum, learn from him.
Rahm Emanuel Makes His 2026 Play
Rahm Emanuel Makes His 2026 Play
From nytimes.com
6:47 AM • 9/26/26 • 274K Views
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