 | |
Type of site | Election results |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Created by | Brandon Finnigan |
| Services | Providing election results and race calls |
| URL | decisiondeskhq |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | No |
| Launched | 2012 |
| Current status | Online |
Decision Desk HQ is an American website that focuses on reporting election results in theUnited States. The company's president is Drew McCoy.Decision Desk HQ uses anapplication programming interface (API) to get election results at the same time as they are published on websites provided by election officials. As of April 2025, it currently has United States election coverage partnerships withNexstar Media Group owned outletsThe Hill andNewsNation, as well asBallotpedia for U.S. local election coverage, along with others. It was the first provider to call the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections.
Decision Desk HQ, originally namedAce of Spades Decision Desk, was founded in 2012 by Brandon Finnigan as an alternative to what he deemed "slow" election calls by theAssociated Press.[1]
It has called major races since the2012 United States elections, and it first became known for calling theupset defeat of House Majority LeaderEric Cantor during his reelection bid toVirginia's 7th congressional district in2014.[2]
In 2020,Decision Desk HQ was considered one of nine "official sources" for election results byTwitter[3] and provided election results toThe Economist,BuzzFeed,Vox, andBusiness Insider.[4]
Decision Desk HQ was the first major election reporting organization to call the2020 United States presidential election forJoe Biden.[4] The call was made shortly before 9 a.m. ET on Friday, November 6.[5] It made this call after projecting that Biden's lead in outstanding mail-in ballots fromPennsylvania left incumbentDonald Trump with no realistic path to win Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes. McCoy toldVox that the great majority of mail-in ballots from Pennsylvania were from heavily Democratic areas aroundPhiladelphia andPittsburgh. According to McCoy, Biden was winning the mail-in vote in those areas by a margin large enough to make his lead in the state insurmountable. ByDecision Desk HQ's accounting, adding Pennsylvania to Biden's total gave Biden 273 electoral votes, three over the threshold to make him president-elect.[6]Vox, who partnered withDecision Desk HQ, called the election for Biden shortly after.[7] StatisticianNate Silver praisedDecision Desk HQ's call and hoped other sources would follow suit.[8]
In November 2021,Decision Desk HQ acquired election news site Elections-Daily.com.[9] It also partnered withEurope Elects during theGerman andFrench elections of 2021 and 2022.[citation needed] During the2022 United States elections, Decision Desk HQ provided election data toNexstar Media Group owned media outletNewsNation, ultimately calling control of Congress on November 15, 2022, 6:13 pm EST, a day before other media outlets.[10]
In November 2023,Decision Desk HQ announced a partnership withNexstar Media Group ownedThe Hill andNewsNation for2024 United States elections coverage.[11] Decision Desk HQ reprised providing election data to NewsNation, and was the first to call the2024 United States presidential election for Donald Trump.[12]
In May 2024,Decision Desk HQ announced a partnership withBallotpedia to provide real-time election results coverage for local elections in the United States.[13]
On March 31, 2025, Nexstar announced a continuation of its partnership with Decision Desk HQ for the2025 and2026 United States election coverage for NewsNation andThe Hill.[14]
In 2018,Decision Desk HQ miscalled a close general election inCalifornia's 21st Congressional District forDavid Valadao who was beaten by DemocratT.J. Cox.[15] In 2020, they called theMissouri Congressional District 1 Democratic primary wrong, whenCori Bush beat incumbentLacy Clay by almost three points.[16]
On November 6, 2025, Decision Desk HQ projectedBruce Harrell as the winner of the2025 Seattle mayoral election, but then retracted it the next day. A spokesperson for Decision Desk HQ stated it was due to receiving incorrect data on the number of remaining ballots, but this was disputed by King County elections.[17] Harrell's opponentKatie Wilson would ultimately win the election.[18]
On February 5, 2026, DDHQ projectedTom Malinowski the winner of theDemocratic primary for the2026 NJ-11 Special election. The seat became vacant following the resignation ofMikie Sherrill, who resigned from her seat after being elected the Governor of New Jersey in2025. Later in the night,Analilia Mejia, one of Malinowski's opponents, took a small lead over him, causing DDHQ to remove the projection.[19] On February 10, Malinowski conceded the race to Mejia.[20][21]
On November 4, 2025, Decision Desk HQ announced their new platform for viewing election results, calledDecision Desk HQ Votes.[22] The new platform was announced on the same page where the 2025 United States election results were being shown.[23] DDHQ Votes is currently in a private beta, with an option to sign up to be in the waitlist. The new platform will let the user see state and federal results from 2000, see results maps, raw vote margin maps, and swing maps for "every important race", and will have an integration of liveKalshi andPolymarket betting odds for the races.[22]
In 2021, Decision Desk HQ announced the creation ofDecision Desk HQ News and the subsequent acquisition of its first site:Elections Daily. The new undertakings are designed to expand Decision Desk HQ's local news and international elections coverage.[24]
The majority owner of Decision Desk HQ and its director ofdata science is Scott Tranter.[25][26] He is a co-founder of the political data firm Øptimus Analytics[27] and previously served as Director of Data Science for Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign.[28]
Drew McCoy is the president of Decision Desk HQ.[14] Under his leadership, the organization has partnered with major media outlets for election data and was the first to projectJoe Biden as the winner of the2020 U.S. presidential election, calling the race on November 6, 2020, before other networks.[2]
Michael Pruser is the director of data science at Decision Desk HQ.[29] He oversees the organization's election data analysis and systems, and has been noted for closely trackingvoter registration trends and other electoral insights cited by national political analysts.[29]
Geoffrey Skelley is the chief elections analyst at Decision Desk HQ. He previously served as a senior elections analyst atFiveThirtyEight (ABC News), where he coveredU.S. politics and elections.[30][31] Before that, he was an associate editor ofSabato's Crystal Ball at theUniversity of Virginia Center for Politics, where he contributed to the publication's ratings and analysis of congressional and gubernatorial races.[32]
Zachary Donnini is the data scientist at Decision Desk HQ.[33][34] He graduated fromYale University in 2025, where he majored in Statistics & Data Science and Economics.[35] He joined DDHQ in 2022 and works on vote-count collection and real-time election forecasting models. He co-authored an article published in the Harvard Data Science Review detailing the team's live-election predictive modeling framework for calling races as results come in.[36]