Make a timeline gif using ggplot, gganimate and ggrepel

timeline_gif.R

### make a timeline gif of upcoming elections using data from IFES

library(ggplot2) # plotting engine
library(dplyr) # data manipulation
library(ggrepel) # smart plot labels
library(gganimate) # easy gif-making
library(lubridate) # dealing with date-time  
library(RColorBrewer) # color scale


 ## read in the data from github
elect <- read.csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/etachov/election-feedr/master/upcoming_elections_sample.csv")

 ##  make a string of key terms of representative elections - we'll use this later
reps <- "Representatives|Parliament|Council|Assembly|Congress|Senate|Chamber"

 ## add a simplified election type variable - it ain't pretty
elect_simple <- elect %>%
  group_by(country, date) %>%
   # if there more than one election in a country on a date, we'll categorize it as "Multiple"
  mutate(type.simple = ifelse(n() > 1, "Multiple", 
                          # next we'll use the list reps string to get the representative elections
                         ifelse(grepl(reps, elect.type), "Representative Body",
                                 # president is simple
                                ifelse(grepl("President", elect.type), "Presidential",
                                        # as is referendum
                                       ifelse(grepl("Referendum", elect.type), "Referendum", "Other"))))) %>%
   # pull distinct within the groups; this will remove the duplicates for countries that have multiple elections on one day
  distinct(country) %>%
   # ungroup before we mutate the dates
  ungroup() %>%
  mutate(date = ymd(date),
         month_label = month(date, label = T))


## making the gif with ggplot2, gganimate and ggrepel

p <- ggplot(elect_simple, aes(x = date, y = 0, color = type.simple, label = country, frame = month(date))) +
    # set up the line for the timeline
  geom_hline(yintercept = 0, color = "lightgrey", size = 1, linetype = 2) +
    # add points
  geom_point(alpha = .7, size = 8) +
    # use geom_label_repel to spread out the overlapping labels
    # the box.padding label arguement pushes the labels away from the line
  geom_label_repel(box.padding = unit(3, 'lines'), 
                   segment.color = "lightgrey",
                   segment.size = 0.3, 
                   size = 8, 
                   alpha = .7, 
                    # hide the legend for the label layer 
                   show.legend = F) +
  scale_color_brewer(type = "div", palette = "Set1") +
  labs(title = "Upcoming Elections") +
   # start with theme_minimal and makea a few tweaks
  theme_minimal() +
  theme(panel.grid = element_blank(), 
        axis.title = element_blank(),
        axis.text.x = element_text(face = "italic", color = "#777777", size = 20),
        axis.text.y = element_blank(), 
        plot.title = element_text(face = "bold", color = "#777777", size = 40, hjust = 0.5),
        legend.position = "top", 
        legend.title = element_blank(), 
        legend.text = element_text(color = "#777777", size = 14)) 


gg_animate(p, filename = "upcoming_elections.gif", interval = 1.2, title_frame = F)