Marginle

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Name the year of three US elections from their county maps, five guesses each.

Play Marginle

on marginle.com

Marginle's daily presidential round for Arkansas after one guess: 15 of 75 counties reporting on the map, the case file showing a Republican win, and the guess 2016 marked within one cycle

Marginle is a daily election puzzle: three statewide races in three states, a presidential, a Senate and a governor's race, each shown as a county map. Guess the year in five tries as each miss unseals more of the map and more of the case file.

About Marginle

Marginle opens on a county map of one state with only the biggest counties reporting, coloured by how they voted. Beside it sits a case file naming the state and the race, with the winning party, the victory margin, the decade and the winner sealed.

You type any year as your guess. Each miss reports more counties on the map and opens the next line of the file, first the winning party, then the margin, the decade and finally the winner's name. Winning in one guess scores five points, down to one point on the fifth.

Every day has three rounds, one each for president, Senate and governor, in three different states. Historical returns from 1865 to 2020 come from a Harvard Dataverse collection and recent ones from state-certified results via OpenElections.

It suits players who follow US politics and history and like reading a map for clues, such as which counties swing or how lopsided a margin looks.

How to play Marginle

Look at the county map and the case file: state and race are given.
Type a year and press Guess.
Each miss reports more counties and unseals the winning party, margin, decade and winner in turn.
Name the year within five guesses for points, then move on to the next race.
Finish all three races and compare your points.

Screenshots

Marginle's first daily round: a Virginia county map with 14 of 133 counties reporting, beside a case file with the race President and the other details sealed

Marginle's card: Daily Election Puzzle, with county result maps coloured red and blue around the title

Tips

Big city counties reporting first tell you a lot about the era's party coalitions.
A very lopsided margin often points to a landslide year.
Use your first guess to split the centuries, then narrow with the decade when it opens.
Read the guess feedback: a guess marked within one cycle means the right year is one election away.