A House Divided
Grand Century
MetroForge
Verdigris
Electioneer
Desktop clientVote Factor Ledger
The factor ledger answers "why does each candidate have the votes they have" for a presidential general. It breaks every candidate's national vote total into the pieces that built it, so you can see whether a lead came from policy fit, name recognition, turnout, the national mood, or ground game.
It reads numbers the vote engine already computed. It never re-runs the vote math, so the ledger always adds back up to the real result.
How to read it#
The ledger is a waterfall. It starts from a structural baseline and adds a signed contribution for each factor:
baseline + sum of every factor's vote delta = final votes
Each factor shows a vote delta: how many votes that factor added (positive) or removed (negative). A few structural factors also show a multiplier for quick reading (for example a 1.20 on Policy fit means that factor lifted the baseline by 20%). The multiplier is display only; the vote delta is the real, conserved number.
The factors#
| Factor | What it means |
|---|---|
| State lean & standing | The structural base: each state's partisan lean, party organization, registration, regime, and the approval that favorability drives. |
| Policy fit | Ideological and positional alignment with the electorate. Pure platform fit, with no influence or favorability mixed in. |
| Name recognition | The reach a candidate's national political influence buys. In the general, influence feeds recognition only, never policy fit. |
| Turnout | How the state's turnout level scales the vote up or down. |
| Persuasion swing | Net votes moved by the turn-to-turn persuasion (swing) flow. |
| Spoiler effect | Votes gained or lost through first-past-the-post spoiler transfers between candidates. |
| National mood | The economy-as-referendum shift: the national environment rewarding or punishing the field. |
| Campaign | Ground game: state presence, canvassing, the running mate, governors, and campaign strength. |
| Other | A small residual that absorbs rounding so the waterfall reconstructs to the exact vote total. |
What you can see, and what only you can see#
- Public: the national waterfall above is visible for every candidate. Anyone can see how a rival's vote total was built.
- Owner only: where your support comes from by voter bucket (which census groups back you), and the per-state ledgers for your closest states. These are stripped for candidates you do not own. Admins can see everyone's.
The per-state ledgers cover the tightest races, the ones where the factor mix actually decides the state.
Related#
- General Elections: how general-phase votes accumulate.
- Live Election Results: the results page the ledger sits on.
- Campaign Manager: the owner-only briefing that turns these factors into a plan.
- Demographics & Targeting: the bucket appeal the owner-only view breaks down.