Inside the 2024 election at the Minnesota Star Tribune

The Minnesota Star Tribune newsroom in downtown Minneapolis will be buzzing with organized chaos on election night when national, state and local vote counts start tumbling in. But the emphasis is on organized, because preparations for this year’s national election coverage have been underway for months.

Breaking down national, state and local politics to Minnesota readers has been among the newspaper’s paramount missions from its earliest days. That historic role is newly vital in recent years, as disinformation and misinformation around voting and election outcomes has spread far and wide.

On Tuesday, reporters, photographers and videographers with the Star Tribune will spread out across Minnesota to interview voters at polling locations. And when 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 election coverage.

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

“You plan for everything,” Mees said. “You make plans for contingencies, of us not knowing winners, of us knowing winners on both sides. And we map that out in advance so that we’re ready for anything.”

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

“We have this big back-end feed and code that combines those two in a way that is understandable for people, so that they can search 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 type in their addresses to see election results from their own ballot, or search for any local race in the state.

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

“We’ll be providing that information all day into the evening and even overnight. We will have staff here overnight on election night, updating the website, updating the live blog,” McCallum said.

Election night is a stressful place in a newsroom. McCallum said she’ll know it’s getting real when she hears Mees yelling out approaching print deadlines.

But it’s usually fun too. ”There’s this energy and adrenaline,” McCallum said. And, of course: lots and lots of pizza.