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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 8h

Republicans have spent more than $14 million on midterm ads mentioning sharia, mostly in Texas and Oklahoma primaries. And right-wing politicians, pundits and influencers decried "sharia" far more often in 2025 and 2026 than they had before. www.washingtonpost.com/religion/202...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 8h

We contacted 21 sponsors of bills. Four agreed to interviews. None could point to any cases in which Islamic law had been imposed on U.S. civil institutions. Experts say that there’s no agreement among Muslims that sharia is a legal code comparable to, say, U.S. civil law.

But there’s no agreement among Muslims that sharia is a legal code comparable to, say, U.S. civil law, said Abdullah Antepli, a former Muslim chaplain and director of Polis: Center for Politics at Duke University who now leads the interfaith Rothko Chapel in Houston. Sharia is widely seen as a body of guidance for living a moral life based on the Quran — Islam’s central religious text — and other Islamic texts, interpreted by individual scholars from many schools of thought. In Arabic it means “way” or “path.”

“Sharia is not one book, one code or one universally agreed-upon set of laws,” Antepli said. “A Christian may ask what the Bible requires of him before making an ethical decision. A Muslim may seek guidance from sharia. That is not a threat to the American constitutional order.”

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 8h

NEW: U.S. states don't have sharia law. So why do politicians keep proposing laws to ban it? www.washingtonpost.com/religion/202...

Bar chart of annual bills and resolutions mentioning sharia in state legislatures and Congress, 2010 to 2026, where counts stayed at 8 or fewer through 2024, then rose to 15 in 2025 and 24 in 2026.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 12h

In Texas, James Talarico's campaign mentions corruption in about three-quarters of its ads. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Democrats spent nearly twice as much as Republicans on ads tackling the issue, totaling over $306 million.

Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico had two of the highest-spend ads about the issue, both of which said he’d “take on corruption” and champion affordability. About three-quarters of Talarico’s ads, which aired more than 88,000 times, mentioned corruption, including the bribery allegations against his Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 12h

We analyzed 8,000+ ads that aired 5 million times in battleground races, according to @cookpolitical.com Republicans have outspent Democrats, nearly $1B to $661M, per AdImpact. Everyone talked about the economy. But Democrats also spent big on another issue: government corruption.👇

Grouped bar chart of campaign ad spending by party across seven topics where the parties spend nearly the same on the economy, but Democrats lead on ethics reform, health care and Trump, and Republicans lead on crime, social issues and immigration.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 12h

NEW: We analyzed 8,000 campaign ads. There's one name Republicans aren't mentioning in their midterm ads: Trump. Democrats spent 10x more than Republicans on midterm ads naming him. It's the widest partisan gap of any topic we analyzed. 🧵 www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Bar chart of ad spending on ads mentioning Trump, by party, where Democrats spent $111 million, about 10 times the $11 million spent by Republicans.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

See all 8 charts on the rise of sexual violence reports on college campuses here. Story from @twallack.bsky.social & @kcrowebasspro.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

At New York colleges, over 25,800 reports of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence or stalking were made from 2018 to 2024. Only 1.2 percent resulted in expulsions or dismissals. At Cornell, the figure was half that -- 0.6 percent. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

A bar charts comparing outcomes for reported incidents at Cornell University with nearly 300 New York colleges from 2018 to 2024. At Cornell, 1.2% resulted in suspension and 0.6% in expulsion or dismissal, compared with 2.4% and 1.2% statewide, respectively.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Pop quiz: Which Senate race do you think saw the biggest jump in ad spending this week? Ohio Senate? Kansas? Iowa? Nope. Everyone who said New Hampshire... collect your prize.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Employers are scrambling to fill the gap legally. Texas requests for seasonal foreign-worker visas are at record highs. Some business owners traveled to Washington earlier this year to warn Trump administration officials that raids on construction sites could lose them the midterm elections.

Line chart of Texas requests for seasonal foreign-worker visas as rolling 12-month totals, where both reached records recently, about 39,000 for non-farm H-2B visas and about 19,000 for farm-work H-2A visas, up sharply since 2018.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Construction payrolls in the Brownsville-Harlingen area were growing rapidly in 2024. Since the immigration crackdown began, they've fallen dramatically, even as Texas builders keep hiring. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Bar chart of the annual percent change in Brownsville-Harlingen construction payroll jobs, where growth ran around 10% through 2024 then turned negative across 2025 and 2026, dropping to about negative 11% at its worst.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

David Reyna voted for Trump. He didn't expect it to hurt his business. “We didn’t think this administration was going to crack down on undocumented workers that hard,” Reyna said. "It is completely devastating the local construction industry. It’s grinding it down to a halt.”

David Reyna, owner of Reyna Homes LLC and Riverside Building Materials, in Rio Grande City, Texas, last week. (Gabriel V. Cárdenas/For The Washington Post)

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

South Texas voters swung dramatically towards Trump in 2024. Then, the Rio Grande Valley saw ICE arrests skyrocket more than twentyfold, creating a massive labor shortage. Now, backlash could help Democrats take three battleground districts along the border. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Bar chart of monthly community arrests by ICE's Harlingen field office in the Rio Grande Valley, where counts stayed near zero through 2023 and 2024 then surged across 2025 and 2026 to monthly peaks above 2,000.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The deaths of two Ole Miss students potentially linked to kratom, an opioid-like drug sold at gas stations, renewed calls for a ban on the drug. Poison control reports about kratom doubled last year, @chrishacker.io found. The drug remains legal federally. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/...

Line chart of annual kratom-related reports to U.S. poison control centers from 2015 to 2025 where reports rose from about 260 to roughly 1,500 by 2024, then more than doubled to 3,434 in 2025.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

And a very fun methodology featuring Google Street View & k-means clustering!

About this story
The Washington Post used D.C. building permit data to find homes built within the past seven years. Those addresses were geocoded, and images were found using a combination of D.C. street images and Google Street View Static API. Each image was manually checked to ensure a usable image was analyzed. Using R programming, those images were then cropped and the color pixels of each home were extracted and analyzed using a k-means clustering method of analysis. The analysis allowed for various tints and shades of colors to be grouped into a base color. Using the base color and frequency of pixels, The Post selected the dominant colors from each ward from recently built homes. Efforts to reduce color contamination include cropping the images into the center of the homes to remove images from the background and foreground such as the sky, trees, cars and other homes.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

DC native Peggy Lovett's red-painted home used to be the norm. Now, its vividness stands out in a sea of gray. “I see a house going up that’s that color, and I know they have money,” said Lovett. “It’s a great big change, but it’s not just in my neighborhood — D.C. has really been changing.”

Peggy Lovett, 59, a Black woman with long hair wearing a t-shirt, poses in front of her house, which is bright red brick with a black front door.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

That sort of house (gray, minimalistic, generic) is becoming more and more common in DC, especially in Wards 7 and 8. @jdharden.bsky.social found that in neighborhoods where Black residents are displaced and home prices rise, gray homes also spread. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/int...

Grid of paint swatches by Washington D.C. ward, sized by how many newly built homes were painted each color from 2017 to 2023, where the largest swatches in every ward are desaturated white, black, and gray. The effect is largest in Wards 7 and 8, which have the most new homes.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Why is every house gray now? @jdharden.bsky.social's analysis of how gentrification literally turns houses grey is getting a fresh wave of attention this week, after Ezra Klein highlighted it. Here's what he found. First: have you seen this house in your neighborhood?

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Here the 10 House members with the largest reimbursements last year. Story by Lydia Sidhom + @akoseff.bsky.social

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

A Washington Post review of 12 cities found combined spending on homelessness rose more than 75 percent in the past five years. Despite that, the homeless population in the U.S. has continued to increase. By @chrishacker.io and Tim Craig: www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/...

Small multiple chart showing homelessness-related spending over the past 10 years

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Finally, a ban would hit hardest for countries where there's no backup supplier, like Mexico, which gets almost all its imported diesel from the US. Europe, too, is relying more on American diesel as supplies from the Middle East are disrupted. The oil and gas industry opposes the proposed ban.

Bar chart ranking countries by the share of their imported diesel that came from the US in the year ending June 2026, from Mexico at 96% down to Argentina at 69%.

Grouped bar chart of average monthly US distillate exports to 10 countries, 2025 versus 2026, where European buyers like the Netherlands and UK rose.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The US is the world's top diesel exporter, shipping 1.4M barrels a day (largely to Latin America & Europe.) Experts say a blanket ban on shipments could push domestic refineries to cut production, which would almost certainly lead to higher gasoline prices. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Line chart of monthly US distillate fuel exports since the 1990s, where the 12-month average held near 5 million barrels until the late 2000s, then climbed to around 40 and is now near a record.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Diesel just hit a record $6.53/gallon. Some politicians, including President Trump, have proposed banning diesel exports to bring relief to truckers and farmers. But economists say the move could backfire, pushing costs at the pump even higher. Here's why 🧵 www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Line chart of the weekly average retail price of diesel per gallon since 2021, showing New England consistently higher than the Gulf Coast, both spiking to records in 2026 at $6.52 and $6.18 after an earlier 2022 peak.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Which midterm races have seen the most ad spending? Well, Lydia Sidhom found the faceoff between Jon Husted and Sherrod Brown in Ohio has already seen nearly $200M (!) in spending. Texas and Maine have also seen huge sums. Read the full analysis here: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Bar chart of ad spending in the top 10 midterm races, where Ohio Senate leads at $197M, above Texas Senate at $140M, and Senate races fill seven of the top spots.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Breathtaking levels of detail in this dive into the "Office of Remigration," which is paying autocrats millions to accept deported migrants from other countries. You can explore these agreements using this database by @abtran.bsky.social, including $ amounts. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

NEW: Megadonors have now pumped more than $1.7 billion into the midterms. The figure includes a newly disclosed $10M from the crypto billionaire Winklevoss twins, who gave MAGA Inc while crypto regulation was on the Hill. Meet all 50 of the top donors here: www.washingtonpost.com/elections/in...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

After an initial spike, politicians have largely stopped talking about Trump's $5k pledge. It's part of a larger trend –– Republicans are talking less and less about Trump. New from @ence.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

After initial spike, Democrats and Republicans publicly ignore Trump's $5,000 pledge.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Why are burgers so expensive now? @federicacocco.bsky.social dug into the data data to find out. www.washingtonpost.com/food/2026/09...

Beef has gotten more expensive, driving up the cost of burgers.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The summer of 2026 was the hottest on record in the U.S., a trend driven largely by high overnight temperatures. See where in the U.S. extreme heat dominated this summer. From @kcrowebasspro.bsky.social @bennollweather.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

ICYMI we reported on how TikTok captures users’ attention last year…and we just won a National Press Club award for it! now, Meta’s legally mandated screen time limits for kids could be adopted by TikTok too. @ence.bsky.social @caitlingilbert.bsky.social

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

NEW: @chrishacker.me analyzed more than 1,300 bills to find that the majority of data center bills introduced in statehouses this year seek to restrict them in some way—read the story for a detailed breakdown of the legislation in IL, VA, WV and PA! wapo.st/4qV0Tev

Chart showing the number of data center bills introduced each year categorized by status (eg passed, restrictive v facilitative)

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Nearly 4 in 10 of the AI users who said they use chatbots for emotional and social reasons said they have told AI things they wouldn’t tell other people.

Bar chart showing chatbot-use cases among U.S. adults who use AI for personal, emotional or social purposes--the top category is "to entertain myself" at 66%, followed by "for advice on personal matters" at 38%

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

NEW: @jeremybmerrill.com analyzed results from a new Elon University poll to show that 27% of US adults use AI chatbots for personal, emotional or social queries (including seeking relationship advice, romantic chats, entertainment, or connection when lonely) wapo.st/4y6BW1K

Bar chart showing share of U.S. adult population who use chatbots for personal queries including entertainment, discussing their emotions and personal or social advice vs other things or not using AI at all

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

NEW: @kcrowebasspro.bsky.social analyzed the data to show how an insurance policy with fewer homeowner protections + less oversight is booming in CA, FL, TX, and SC wapo.st/3UuZKOr

Line chart showing the growth of surplus line insurance policies in California, growing tenfold since 2021

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

ICE is arresting more and more immigrants with no criminal record www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

El-Sayed’s win triggered wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric online. Read our exclusive analysis here: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Read Ence's analysis about how candidates are responding to voter concerns about the impact of AI on the economy & jobs here: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Republicans have now turned strongly against data centers, increasingly bringing up their downsides in their public posts and newsletters.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

When politicians talked about data center benefits - which they did pretty frequently before mid-2025! - they typically focused on potential job gains and the ways data centers signaled "investment" in communities. see: this from Husted. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Before Abdul El-Sayed won his primary, right-wing influencers mainly focused on his politics, attacking him as a "socialist". After his win, the posts changed. Now, many attacks center on his faith or invoke 9/11. One Senator called him a “TERRORIST.” www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Multi-line chart of the share of right-wing online posts about El-Sayed invoking three themes over time. Communism and socialism led before he won the primary on August 5, hovering around 40 percent, then fell to about 23 percent by August 18. Muslim and Islam references rose to 29 percent, and terrorism references rose to 21 percent.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

On A1 today: @jeremybmerrill.com analyzed thousands of posts to uncover how the GOP turned on data centers. Politicians from both parties now focus mostly on the harms and dangers of data centers, rather than celebrating their benefits. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Bar chart of net positive-minus-negative messages about data centers per month by party, April 2024 to July 2026, where both parties shifted from net positive to net negative. Democrats turned negative by mid-2025, reaching nearly -400. Republicans turned negative in early 2026 and stayed near -100.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Trump's ICE nominee, Lance Schroyer, helped lead a crackdown on unauthorized immigrants in Oklahoma than has been especially harsh. As a Highway Patrol major, Schroyer led an effort to train hundreds of troopers to work with ICE and arrest undocumented people. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Angie Nixon’s stunning upset victory was powered by voters in Florida’s lowest-income and least-college-educated counties, as well as the ones with the most Black voters, according to a Washington Post analysis. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Stacked bar chart of Nixon vs. Vindman vote share by county income level, where Nixon leads at every level but his margin narrows from 20 points in counties under $65K to 6 points in the highest-income counties.

Stacked bar chart of Nixon vs. Vindman vote share by county share of Black residents, where Nixon's margin grows as the Black share rises, from a 4-point loss in the whitest counties to a 30-point win in the Blackest.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

It's Yesteryear, Yesteryear, Yesteryear. We dove deep into the Goodreads charts to track the top books of the summer. (No, the Odyssey doesn't make the list... yet.) www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...

Line chart of daily Goodreads activity for the book 'Yesteryear', March to August 2026, where shelf-adds rose from near zero to a one-day peak near 67,000 in July, far above ratings and reviews.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

"Our audience doesn't come to us to hear what ChatGPT has to say. In this era of fragmentation, they aren't coming to us unless they already trust us." @jeremybmerrill.com dives deep into methodologies for LLM classification for @ire.org www.ire.org/2026/08/13/u...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Last week, the Trump administration upended federal vaccine recommendations. But kindergarten classroom across the country already lack herd immunity. Vaccination rates have plunged since the pandemic. See what vaccination rates look like where you live (no paywall): wapo.st/4qjgdBj

Kindergarten classrooms in more than 70 percent of counties lack herd immunity

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Scott is the best of the best. Sign up for his newsletter here: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Screenshot of a stories page by Scott, featuring the following stories:
Wisconsin surprise raises big questions about polls and Democratic voters //
Surveys had shown Francesca Hong with a significant lead in the Democratic primary for governor. Then she lost. What did the polls get wrong?
Why did the polls miss so badly in Michigan? //
Polls overestimated Abdul El-Sayed’s lead by 12 percentage points. That isn't unusual for statewide primary contests.
Trump says ‘don’t believe’ the polls, but Iran pullback suggests he might //
The president's moves over the weekend appeared aimed at winding down a war that polling shows Americans increasingly oppose.

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Hundreds of candidates for House, Senate or governor this year have staked out policies related to AI or data centers on their campaign websites, according to a Post analysis. By @shiraovide.bsky.social, @ence.bsky.social & @kevinschaul.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Prescription drug prices recorded the biggest year-over-year drop in more than 60 years in July, according to data from the BLS. Prices fell by 3.1 percent, the steepest annual decline since March 1963. Analysis by @federicacocco.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

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