In 2025, The Texas Tribune's data visuals team significantly enhanced public understanding of pivotal policy and political developments across Texas. Their analytical contributions supported nearly 100 impactful stories, encompassing the legislative session, crucial education data, the state's water crisis, and the devastating July 4 floods. This review highlights their standout work throughout the year. The year commenced with a contentious legislative session. Senior developer Carla Astudillo provided key data breakdowns on votes for House Speaker and major school voucher legislation. A public tool was also developed for tracking local representatives' votes on consequential proposals. Mid-year, Texas politics shifted as state Republicans approved new U.S. House districts, designed to give the GOP an advantage. Astudillo developed an interactive tool allowing citizens to visualize changes to their congressional districts, complemented by maps illustrating impacts on residents and officials. Education funding, particularly the proposed voucher program, was a central debate. The team, including Rob Reid and Edison Wu, produced explainers and analyses simplifying complex terminology and major education data releases. This included the first A-F accountability ratings in five years (updated August) and new higher education outcomes data. Designer Alex Ford visualized higher dropout rates among socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Health data reporter Dan Keemahill, partnering with the Texas Tribune-ProPublica unit, investigated how conservative special interest groups leveraged at-large voting systems to influence school curriculum. The team extensively covered contagious diseases, marking the five-year COVID-19 pandemic anniversary. Yuriko Schumacher visualized Hispanic Texans' high vaccine adoption and its life-saving impact, alongside tracking measles spread statewide. Dan Keemahill analyzed long-term school vaccination trends and reported on the measles outbreak's aftermath in West Texas. Federal policy also drove key public health stories: Keemahill detailed millions of Texans facing SNAP benefit cuts post-federal shutdown, disproportionately impacting the Rio Grande Valley. His and Wu's work highlighted steep increases in Affordable Care Act premiums, particularly burdening rural areas. Amidst legislative debates on multi-billion-dollar investments in water infrastructure, Astudillo and Schumacher investigated Texas's looming water crisis. Their collaboration produced a visual explainer and an interactive tool allowing citizens to gauge expected shortage severity. Reporting covered declining groundwater levels, and desalination's potential as a solution. A tragic summer event involved massive, unexpected flooding in Kerrville and surrounding areas, resulting in at least 135 fatalities. Edison Wu's visualizations depicted nearly two dozen camps clustered along the Guadalupe River affected by the floods and demonstrated the July 4 inundation's unprecedented historical scale. The team provided analytical support for various immigration-focused narratives. Yuriko Schumacher's charts clarified the demographics of Texas's approximately two million undocumented residents, noting their population stability. Alex Ford and Edison Wu supported an article on a Houston mother facing deportation, illustrating the case's impact on her family. In November, Astudillo analyzed federal data documenting a sharp increase in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests during President Donald Trump's administration. Her charts highlighted a growing proportion of individuals apprehended without prior criminal convictions.