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As the dust begins to settle on the 2024 election, one eye-opening result has been the number of split-ticket outcomes in states between their presidential and U.S. Senate races. Across the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, just one state — Maine in 2020 — didn't vote for the same party for both offices when both were on the ballot at the same time. But 2024 appears set to have at least three split-ticket outcomes, and most likely four as things stand.

Here at 538, we think a big part of our jobs during election season is to explore and explain how much trust you should put in all the people telling you who's going to win. More than anyone else, given the amount of data they produce and the press and public's voracious appetite for it, that includes the pollsters. That's why we do things like publish ratings of pollster accuracy and transparency and make complex election forecasting models to explore what would happen if the polls are off by as much as they have been historically.

For most of my life, I've owned an endless parade of dogs and cats. At various times, I've had aquariums full of fish, two rabbits, a guinea pig, and at least a dozen hamsters. For about a decade, my family had a rescue cockatiel named Alfred. I grew up in rural Arkansas, and between extended family, friends and neighbors, I encountered many more critters: horses, cows, pigs, pet goats, chickens kept for eggs, a donkey who brayed too long into the night and two ostriches who regularly escaped their corral.