Data Vis Dispatch, October 13: False election claims, a total blackout, and bananas

Welcome back to the 266th edition of Data Vis Dispatch! Every week, we’ll be publishing a collection of the best small and large data visualizations we find, especially from news organizations — to celebrate data journalism, data visualization, simple charts, elaborate maps, and their creators.

Recurring topics this week include Trump's false election claims, Germany narrowly avoiding a total blackout, and bananas.

Starting this week, let's dive into the topic of energy. China currently generates far more green energy than its current electrical grid can handle, leading to significant energy waste. Meanwhile, Germany narrowly avoided a catastrophic grid collapse due to a vulnerability in the Sungrow iSolarCloud platform.

Bloomberg: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2026-china-ai-energy-future/?srnd=phx-graphics-v2"><strong>China’s AI Dominance Rests on Harnessing Excess Energy</strong></a>, October 8 <span class="badge">Check out even more visualizations on the topic!</span> — Bloomberg: **China’s AI Dominance Rests on Harnessing Excess Energy**, October 8 Check out even more visualizations on the topic!

Die Zeit: Deutschland war nur einen Knopfdruck vom Superblackout entfernt [Germany was just a button press away from a total blackout], October 7 Storytelling highlights the sheer scale

Discussions surrounding the upcoming U.S. Midterm elections focus on key demographic voters, dissatisfied voters, Trump's false election claims, and potentially misleading early-voting data. Midterm donors, among them Elon Musk, are investing significant sums to support particular parties.

The Washington Post: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2026/10/11/these-are-voters-who-will-decide-midterm-elections/"><strong>These are the voters who will decide the midterm elections</strong></a>, October 11 — The Washington Post: **These are the voters who will decide the midterm elections**, October 11

The Economist:<a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2026/10/12/data-centres-are-turning-trump-voters-into-democrats"> <strong>Data centres are turning Trump voters into Democrats</strong></a>, October 12 — The Economist: **Data centres are turning Trump voters into Democrats**, October 12

Pew Research Center: <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2026/10/08/with-americans-in-a-sour-mood-democratic-voters-are-more-engaged-in-midterms/"><strong>With Americans in a Sour Mood, Democratic Voters Are More Engaged in Midterms</strong></a>, October 8 — Pew Research Center: **With Americans in a Sour Mood, Democratic Voters Are More Engaged in Midterms**, October 8

The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/10/09/us/politics/trump-elections-results-doubt-midterms.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HVE.wntn.S-rJUvQPJKh-&smid=bs-share"><strong>Trump Has Cast Doubt on Elections on 440 Days in His Second Term</strong></a>, October 9 — The New York Times: **Trump Has Cast Doubt on Elections on 440 Days in His Second Term**, October 9

The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/us/elections/early-voting-data-issues.html"><strong>Why Overanalyzing the Early Vote Can Be Misleading</strong></a>, October 9 — The New York Times: **Why Overanalyzing the Early Vote Can Be Misleading**, October 9

The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/us/politics/elon-musk-midterms.html?smtyp=cur&smid=bsky-nytimes"><strong>Inside Elon Musk’s $276 Million Midterm Rescue Mission for Republicans</strong></a>, October 12 — The New York Times: **Inside Elon Musk’s $276 Million Midterm Rescue Mission for Republicans**, October 12

The Wall Street Journal: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/the-crew-of-virtually-unknown-donors-powering-the-rise-of-the-new-left-191fcc85"><strong>The Crew of Virtually Unknown Donors Powering the Rise of the New Left</strong></a>, October 10 — The Wall Street Journal: **The Crew of Virtually Unknown Donors Powering the Rise of the New Left**, October 10

The extreme weather conditions experienced this year are likely to continue, with higher temperatures expected over the next few months.

fil.rezo.net: "El Niño still at 3.5 sigma," October 13 (Bluesky)

The Washington Post: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2026/track-how-extreme-this-years-el-nino-could-get/"><strong>El Niño has reached record strength. See where extreme weather may unfold</strong></a>, October 8 — The Washington Post: **El Niño has reached record strength. See where extreme weather may unfold**, October 8

Check out these animated timelines covering the age distribution of Brazil's population and the development of buildings in both Paris and Manhattan.

FlowingData: Population pyramid in 3-D and over time, October 8 (project website) Beautiful visuals

Alexander Bogachev: "I made a map of Paris where each of its 122,435 buildings appears in the year it was built. The surprise for me: only one building in fifteen dates from the Haussmann period, 1851 to 1870. Six times as many went up in the Belle Époque that followed, 1871 to 1914 [...]," October 12 (LinkedIn, project website) Captivating animations

Maxime Blondeau: "[...]🗽😯Très réussi ! Voici l'histoire du développement de Mana Hatta, la terre sauvage devenue Manhattan [...] [[...]🗽😯 Very successful! This is the story of the development of Mana Hatta, the wild land that became Manhattan [...]]," October 12 (LinkedIn)

Visualizations covering the winners of the 2026 Nobel Prize examine their birth year in relation to the year they won, as well as the winners' genders.

Elia Kabanov: " [...] Yesterday, I published a visualisation showing the lives of Nobel laureates, from birth to the year they won their prize. Alexander Bogachev suggested colour-coding the three disciplines by default. Stas Kulesh asked for links to Wikipedia pages. Aleksei Smagin noticed that rendering 600+ SVG curves was slowing things down. So I took their advice, fixed the problems and made a second version. Now the chart uses Canvas for the hundreds of background curves and SVG for highlighting individual laureates. It runs faster and, hopefully, is easier to explore on mobile [...]," October 9 (<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7514279607492055040/"><strong>LinkedIn</strong></a>, <a href="https://elia.kabanov.org/nobel/"><strong>project website</strong></a>) — Elia Kabanov: " [...] Yesterday, I published a visualisation showing the lives of Nobel laureates, from birth to the year they won their prize. Alexander Bogachev suggested colour-coding the three disciplines by default. Stas Kulesh asked for links to Wikipedia pages. Aleksei Smagin noticed that rendering 600+ SVG curves was slowing things down. So I took their advice, fixed the problems and made a second version. Now the chart uses Canvas for the hundreds of background curves and SVG for highlighting individual laureates. It runs faster and, hopefully, is easier to explore on mobile [...]," October 9 (**LinkedIn**, **project website**)

The Hindu: <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/infographics/2026-10-06/nobel-prize-2026-winners-full-list/index.html"><strong>Nobel Prize 2026 Winners | Full List</strong></a>, October 6 — The Hindu: **Nobel Prize 2026 Winners | Full List**, October 6

EL PAÍS: <a href="https://elpais.com/cultura/2026-10-08/quien-ganara-el-nobel-de-literatura-como-han-cambiado-los-premiados-y-quien-es-favorito-en-2026.html"><strong>¿Quién ganará el Nobel de Literatura? Cómo han cambiado los premiados y quién es favorito en 2026</strong></a> [<em>Chart title: Nobel Prizes in Literature by gender</em>], October 8 — EL PAÍS: **¿Quién ganará el Nobel de Literatura? Cómo han cambiado los premiados y quién es favorito en 2026** [*Chart title: Nobel Prizes in Literature by gender*], October 8

Turning to the topic of food, the availability of seasonal vegetables varies depending on the climate of the region. Meanwhile, the war in Iran has affected the transportation of America's most popular fruit: bananas.

The European Correspondent: <a href="https://europeancorrespondent.com/en/r/what-does-eating-seasonally-even-mean"><strong>What does eating seasonally even mean?</strong></a>, October 8 — The European Correspondent: **What does eating seasonally even mean?**, October 8

The New York Times:<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/business/economy/bananas-iran-war.html"> <strong>America’s Favorite Fruit Is Being Bruised by the Iran War</strong></a>, October 12 — The New York Times: **America’s Favorite Fruit Is Being Bruised by the Iran War**, October 12

A selection of maps reveals Germany's population distribution and state interventions at pro-Palestine protests.

Alikhan (Alin) Beisenbayev: "Population density peaks of selected countries [...]," October 13 (<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7515640320160776193/"><strong>LinkedIn</strong></a>) <span class="badge">Take a look at the full collection featuring other countries</span> — Alikhan (Alin) Beisenbayev: "Population density peaks of selected countries [...]," October 13 (**LinkedIn**) Take a look at the full collection featuring other countries

The European Correspondent: <a href="https://europeancorrespondent.com/en/r/never-been-to-a-protest-youll-still-feel-the-crackdown"><strong>Never been to a protest? You'll still feel the crackdown</strong></a>, October 7 — The European Correspondent: **Never been to a protest? You'll still feel the crackdown**, October 7

We end this Dispatch with some other interesting topics: variations in majors' earnings across U.S. colleges, a ranking of countries' GDP per capita, Thailand's Girls' Love industry, changes in car prices in Singapore, and an interactive visualization of the Hebrew Bible.

The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/10/07/your-money/college-degree-earnings-guide.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HFE.pPod.ym57iFqOl4pI&smid=url-share"><strong>A College-by-College Guide to Which Majors Pay Off — or Don’t</strong></a>, October 7 — The New York Times: **A College-by-College Guide to Which Majors Pay Off — or Don’t**, October 7

Visual Capitalist:<a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-worlds-richest-countries-2006-2026/"> <strong>Ranked:</strong> <strong>The World’s Richest Countries (2006-2026)</strong></a>, October 6 — Visual Capitalist: **Ranked:** **The World’s Richest Countries (2006-2026)**, October 6

Kontinentalist: <a href="https://kontinentalist.com/stories/thai-girls-love-conquered-the-world"><strong>Thai Girls’ Love: Does love conquer all?</strong></a>, October 13 — Kontinentalist: **Thai Girls’ Love: Does love conquer all?**, October 13

The Straits Times: <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/multimedia/graphics/2026/10/coe-review-explainer/index.html?shell"><strong>Why Cat A and B could merge under proposed changes to COE system</strong></a>, October 8 — The Straits Times: **Why Cat A and B could merge under proposed changes to COE system**, October 8

FlowingData: <a href="https://flowingdata.com/2026/10/09/interactive-map-of-the-hebrew-bible/"><strong>Interactive map of the Hebrew Bible</strong></a>, October 9 (<a href="https://torahmap.org/?overlay=commentary&zoom=0.38&x=1794&y=804.4"><strong>project website</strong></a>) — FlowingData: **Interactive map of the Hebrew Bible**, October 9 (**project website**)

What else we found interesting

The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/climate/glacier-archaeology-melting-alps.html"><strong>A 2,500-Year-Old Ski? The Melting Alps Release Ancient Secrets</strong></a>, October 6 — The New York Times: **A 2,500-Year-Old Ski? The Melting Alps Release Ancient Secrets**, October 6

Sonja Kuijpers: "Oooh! 😍😍 These are some extraordinary works! The datavisualizations of W.E.B. du Bois re-imaged with 21 Century data by Shraddha Ramani and William Villalongo using different printing techniques [...]," October 8 (Bluesky, project website)

Cabinet of Infographic Curiosities: <a href="https://attilabatorfy.substack.com/p/an-infographic-yearbook-from-the"><strong>An infographic yearbook from the early 20th century</strong></a>, October 12 — Cabinet of Infographic Curiosities: **An infographic yearbook from the early 20th century**, October 12

Applications are open for…

A graphic designer/data visualization artist at Institute for Progress (IFP)

A head of design at The Guardian

Help us make this dispatch better! We’d love to hear which newsletters, blogs, or social media accounts we need to follow to learn about interesting projects, especially from less-covered parts of the world (Asia, South America, Africa). Write us at hello@datawrapper.de or leave a comment below. Want the Dispatch in your inbox every Tuesday? Sign up for our Blog Update newsletter!

Data Vis Dispatch, October 13: False election claims, a total blackout, and bananas

What else we found interesting

Newsletter

Related Posts

All Blog Categories

What else we found interesting

Newsletter

Related Posts

Data Vis Dispatch, October 6: Brazil elections, FlyDubai plane, and ice melting

Data Vis Dispatch, September 29: Marine heatwaves, London buses, and the WNBA

Data Vis Dispatch, September 22: Big AI, low birth rates, and laughs

All Blog Categories