Inside the 2024 election at the Minnesota Star Tribune

The Minnesota Star Tribune newsroom in downtown Minneapolis will be buzzing with organized mayhem on election night as national, state and local vote tallies begin pouring in. But the emphasis is on being organized, because preparations for this year’s national election coverage have been underway for several months.

Breaking down national, state and local politics for Minnesota readers has been among the paper’s most important missions from its earliest days. The historical role is newly vital in recent years, as disinformation and misinformation about polls and election results have spread far and wide.

On Tuesday, reporters, photographers and videographers with the Star Tribune will fan out across Minnesota to interview voters at polling places. And when the polls close, writers, editors and visual journalists will work to deliver election results in key national, state and local races to our digital and print audiences. In all, about 125 Star Tribune journalists will be part of the election coverage.

Planning started in January. A group from across the company met for a brainstorming session about the types of stories that would drive engagement and satisfy the Star Tribune audience’s curiosity, said Greg Mees, senior assistant managing editor.

“You plan everything,” Mees said. “You make plans for unforeseen events, that we don’t know winners, that we know winners on both sides. And we map that out in advance, so we’re ready for anything.”

Poll numbers come from the Associated Press, which has staff stationed in county and district offices across the country tasked with accurately recording voting data. The Star Tribune combines those numbers with findings from the Minnesota Secretary of State, said CJ Sinner, director of graphics and data visuals.

“We have this big back-end feed and code that combines those two in a way that people understand so they can search for any race that’s happening in the state on our site,” Sinner said. The Star Tribune Live Election Results Dashboard checks for and updates data every 60 seconds, eliminating the need to refresh. Users will be able to enter their addresses to view election results from their own ballot or search for a local race in the state.

On Tuesday, dozens of reporters will contribute to a live blog on the StarTribune.com website, capturing the mood by reporting scenes from polling places and watching celebrations around the state. Those updates will be interspersed with links to information for voters, said Politics Editor Laura McCallum.