Which award leads

Every politician with an in-office record carries both awards. A card has room to lead with one. The rule that picks it is called dominance.

The rule

The dominant award is the one that says more about this record — the one further from nothing. A person with a 71% Monkey and a 4% Llama leads with the Monkey. A person with an 8% Monkey and a 66% Llama leads with the Llama.

The other award does not disappear. It renders beside it, always, on the record page.

Why not just show both everywhere

Because a card in a list has one line, and a citizen scanning a roster of a hundred names needs the most informative fact first. Showing two numbers of equal visual weight in a small space reliably produces the wrong reading — people take the first one they see as the summary regardless of which it is.

What dominance is not

• It is not a verdict. It picks which number leads; it does not merge them, average them, or produce a third number that ranks the person overall. There is no overall.
• It does not hide the other award. Any page with room shows both.
• It does not depend on party, cohort, or era. It is a comparison between two numbers about one record.

Both, side by side

Some people carry a voting-record award and a Flamingo state — a former officeholder running again, for example. Those render side by side as well, and the wall between them holds: the voting record feeds Monkey and Llama, everything else feeds the Flamingo, and neither ever contaminates the other.