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Significant Digits For Monday, June 24, 2019

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news. Your regular Significant Digits host, Oliver Roeder, is out, so you’re stuck with his editor. Our politics intern, Erin Doherty, will be back with you tomorrow.


24th candidate

Somehow, there are still more Democrats who want to run for president. Joe Sestak, a former Pennsylvania congressman has declared he’s running for the highest office on a platform of stopping climate change and global injustice. He is, by HuffPost’s count, the 24th Democrat to say he is the person who can defeat President Trump in 2020. Can we make it to 25?? [Politico]


79 percent

The U.S. Women’s National Team returns to the soccer pitch Monday to face Spain in the World Cup’s Round of 16. FiveThirtyEight’s model says there’s a 79 percent chance the U.S. will win the match and move on to the quarterfinals. If that happens, the U.S. will face France, the World Cup’s host country and the Americans’ toughest competition. [FiveThirtyEight]


$118 million

“Toy Story 4,” the latest movie about inanimate objects who teach audiences all-too-human lessons, was the number one movie in America this weekend. It made $118 million at the domestic box office despite starring a spork. [BoxOfficeMojo]


1 ugly dog

After four years of scrounging for the title, Scamp the Tramp was crowned the World’s Ugliest Dog this weekend. Toothless, wispy-haired, and squat as a roach, Scamp had finished in second last year. He apparently got even uglier over the last 12 months. [BuzzFeed News]


54 percent

Residents of Istanbul chose to buck Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in electing a new city mayor on Sunday. The victor, Ekrem Imamoglu, won with 54 percent of the vote, higher than the margin in the city’s first mayoral election a few months ago. After electoral authorities ordered a re-vote, the city’s residents appear to have handed Erdogan his stiffest defeat in years. Some are concerned that social unrest may follow. [New York Times]


Nearly 100 internal documents

Before Trump took office, his transition team vetted dozens of people for potential roles in the administration. That kind of thing leaves a paper trail — one that’s now at least partially public. Axios obtained nearly 100 documents that detail the potential vulnerabilities of former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, among lots of others. Many of the “red flags” had to do with negative comments about Trump. [Axios]


Love digits? Find even more in FiveThirtyEight’s book of math and logic puzzles, “The Riddler.”

If you see a significant digit in the wild, please send it to @erin_dohh (for now).


Chadwick Matlin was a deputy managing editor at FiveThirtyEight.

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