§ The map · South Dakota
South Dakota was admitted to the Union in 1889.
Signed the same day as North Dakota. Officially, neither came first.
Asked how many people in the other party support political violence, South Dakota residents put the figure at 56%. Asked the same people whether they themselves support it, the answer comes back at 13.9%. The distance between what is believed and what is true is 42.1 points, across 409 respondents in South Dakota.
Divided Houses is about what a country does after it stops checking whether the thing it believes about the other side is true.
Ratification votes and dates from the United States Senate Manual. Statehood dates from the National Archives. Where sources disagree, this map follows the Senate Manual and says so.
America's Political Pulse, Polarization Research Lab. Weekly from September 2022 to March 2026. 162,000 respondents nationally.
Answer the same question yourself — six seats, from the world down to you, and then you see where every other reader landed.
All fifty-one cards on the map
Divided Houses, Book One of the Union Trilogy