The Midterms Got Me Politically Irritated 🗳️

This one isn’t about my website for once (okay, it kind of is, I’ll get there). It’s about the election, about change, and about why I ended up building a whole political tracker in the middle of all of it.

Why this one mattered so much to me

On November 3, Americans voted on who controls Congress for the second half of Donald Trump’s presidency. All 435 House seats were on the ballot, 35 states elected a senator, and 36 states elected a governor. That’s a LOT of power changing hands in one night.

And I wanted change. I think a lot of people did. Everything costs more, everyone’s tired, and it feels like the people in charge stopped listening a long time ago. Midterms are the one moment where regular people get to hit the brakes and say “okay, that’s enough.” So I was locked in.

And people showed up

The results are still coming in, but here’s where things stand as I’m writing this. Democrats flipped seven Senate seats (Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas) and took control of both chambers. Texas elected its first Democratic senator since 1988, which I genuinely did not think I’d see. Over in the House, Democrats have flipped a net 34 seats so far, and Alaska and Mississippi’s Senate races are still too close to call.

None of it’s official until the results are certified, and the new Congress doesn’t get sworn in until January 3, 2027. But the message is pretty clear: people want something different. And that has me hopeful.

The problem: the facts get lost in the noise

Here’s what drove me crazy, though. Every time I tried to look something up, like who actually won a race, what someone promised, or how the economy did under each president, I had to dig through hot takes, clips, spin, and arguments before I found the actual answer. Sometimes I never found it at all.

And it happens from every direction. A politician says something on the campaign trail, it trends for a day, and then it’s gone. Nobody remembers it by the time it matters. The receipts are out there, they’re just buried under a mountain of noise.

So I did what I always do when something annoys me. I opened Cursor and built the thing I wanted to exist.

So I built Politically Irritated

Politically Irritated is my new site that shows who runs Washington, at a glance. The whole idea is simple: what someone said, where they said it, a link to the proof, and what happened next. Here’s what’s on it right now:

• Seat maps for the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, and the White House, so you can see who controls each branch in one look.
• A profile for every member of Congress and member-elect, with their term, contact info, voting record score, and campaign finance totals where they’re available.
• A promise tracker that rates what politicians promised: Kept, Watered down, Blocked, Broken, or Clock is ticking.
• A presidents page comparing every administration from Clinton to Trump on jobs, inflation, pay, approval, and the promises they made.
• A news wire with the latest political headlines, refreshed every 15 minutes.
• The president’s Truth Social posts, shown exactly as written, because they often announce real policy before anything official does.

The profiles page is probably my favorite part. Every senator, every representative, and every member-elect voters picked on November 3, with a little “New” tag on the newcomers and a “Leaving” tag on the people on their way out. Tap anyone and you get their bio, their record, and what they promised.

The presidents page is the one I nerd out over. Pick a measure, like how satisfied Americans were with the country, unemployment, inflation, or weekly pay, and you can watch it move term by term. No spin, just the numbers and where they came from.

Neutral on purpose

I have my own opinions (clearly, scroll up lol). But the tracker doesn’t pick sides, and that was really important to me. A broken promise is broken whether it came from a Democrat or a Republican. Promises are quoted straight from the source so you can judge the wording yourself, and the news wire pulls from three outlets rated left, three rated center, and three rated right by AllSides, so no side runs the show.

Everything is sourced, too: public congressional data, Voteview for voting records, the FEC for campaign money, the Federal Reserve’s FRED database for the economy, and Gallup for approval. Member data refreshes every week on its own. And if I ever get something wrong, there’s a corrections email on the About page. I’d rather be corrected than wrong.

Where to find it

You can go straight to Politically Irritated, or find it on my site. It’s the first orb in the new Digital Network on my links page (open the ☰ menu and tap Digital Network), which is where all my projects outside the studio are going to live. It’s also in Latest Projects and on the Projects tab of the Studio page.

It’s the first site in the Digital Network, and it definitely won’t be the last. There are five more “Coming Soon” orbs sitting right next to it.

Stay irritated

Change doesn’t stop on election night. The next two years are going to be loud, and the facts are going to get buried again. I want one place where they don’t. So bookmark it, check in on your representatives, and keep track of who promised what.

I’m excited. For real. Let’s see what happens next. 🇺🇸