Decision Desk HQ is an American website that focuses on reporting election results in the United States. The company's president is Drew McCoy. Decision Desk HQ uses an application 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 with Nexstar Media Group owned outlets The Hill and NewsNation, as well as Ballotpedia 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 named Ace of Spades Decision Desk, was founded in 2012 by Brandon Finnigan as an alternative to what he deemed "slow" election calls by the Associated Press.[1]
Decision Desk HQ was the first major election reporting organization to call the 2020 United States presidential election for Joe Biden.[4] The call was made shortly before 9a.m. ET on Friday, November 6.[5] It made this call after projecting that Biden's lead in outstanding mail-in ballots from Pennsylvania left incumbent Donald Trump with no realistic path to win Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes. McCoy told Vox that the great majority of mail-in ballots from Pennsylvania were from heavily Democratic areas around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. 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. By Decision 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 with Decision Desk HQ, called the election for Biden shortly after.[7] Statistician Nate Silver praised Decision 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 with Europe Elects during the German and French elections of 2021 and 2022.[citation needed] During the 2022 United States elections, Decision Desk HQ provided election data to Nexstar Media Group owned media outlet NewsNation, ultimately calling control of Congress on November 15, 2022,6:13 pm EST, a day before other media outlets.[10]
In May 2024, Decision Desk HQ announced a partnership with Ballotpedia 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 the 2025 and 2026 United States election coverage for NewsNation and The Hill.[14]
On November 6, 2025, Decision Desk HQ projected Bruce Harrell as the winner of the 2025 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 opponent Katie Wilson would ultimately win the election.[18]
On February 5, 2026, DDHQ projected Tom Malinowski the winner of the Democratic primary for the 2026 NJ-11 Special election. The seat became vacant following the resignation of Mikie Sherrill, who resigned from her seat after being elected the Governor of New Jersey in 2025. 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]
Decision Desk HQ Votes
On November 4, 2025, Decision Desk HQ announced their new platform for viewing election results, called Decision 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 was released to the public on March 2, 2026. The new platform lets the user see state and federal results from present-2000, see results maps, raw vote margin maps, and swing maps for "every important race", and has an integration of live Kalshi and Polymarket betting odds for the races.[22] The site is currently in beta.
Decision Desk HQ News
In 2021, Decision Desk HQ announced the creation of Decision 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]
Staff
The majority owner of Decision Desk HQ and its director of data 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 project Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 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 tracking voter registration trends and other electoral insights cited by national political analysts.[29]
Zachary Donnini is the data scientist at Decision Desk HQ.[33][34] He graduated from Yale 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]
See also
Decision desk– Experts projecting U.S. election winners
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