FiveThirtyEight Debate Poll Project

I had not planned on watching the November, 2020 election debates. I consider myself very politically involved––which is probably why I didn’t have the appetite to watch.

But when I was approached by FiveThirtyEight to sketch the debates, I couldn’t resist. Suddenly I had a new way to watch and, from an artist’s perspective, it was VERY interesting.

FiveThirtyEight conducted polls to gauge voter interest toward candidates before and after each of the four (which became three) scheduled debates. Apart from two permanent, illustrated category headers, they would need before and after illustrations to accompany each poll.

Designer & Art Director Emily Scherer pointed to my baseball game/ballpark drawings and sketches as guidance for how to approach the debate drawings, which was helpful because reference-to-turnaround time was extremely quick.

Images of stage sets would often become available late the day before the debate, so I’d get to work as soon as I got a good look. As soon as the “before” drawing would go up on the site, I’d ready myself to live sketch the debates, then get up at the crack of dawn the following day to turn sketches into an “after” illustration. It was hectic, but exciting, like His Girl Friday! I felt like a combination of Rosalind Russel and Roz Chast.

As detailed in some of my social media posts, like the one below, and as with most of my drawing, I wanted to do more than just draw what I saw, I wanted to draw what was felt, heard and conveyed. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was a satisfying, educational and rather therapeutic experience and I’m pleased with the outcome.