FiveThirtyEight Politics

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What To Make Of Trump's 'Dictator' Comment Dec 11, 2023

Show notes

Former President Donald Trump attracted attention for his answer in a town hall with Sean Hannity last week suggesting he would not abuse his power as president in a second term, “except for Day One.” His answer came after extensive reporting on how his second-term plans would challenge democratic norms and accepted limits on presidential power on issues ranging from Department of Justice investigations to domestic use of the military.

In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen speaks with constitutional law professor Kate Shaw and professor of government Brendan Nyhan about Trump's second-term agenda. They discuss which aspects of it butt up against norms and the Constitution and which parts might simply be objectionable to partisans.

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Did The Fourth Republican Debate Matter? Dec 07, 2023

Show notes

Galen unpacks the fourth Republican primary debate from Tuscaloosa, Alabama with senior elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley and White House correspondent MaryAlice Parks.

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Is Nikki Haley The New Ron DeSantis? Dec 04, 2023

Show notes

In the month since the last Republican debate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has been inching up in the national polls, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been slipping. Today, DeSantis leads Haley by just 3 points nationally, 13 percent to 10 percent. They are similarly close in Iowa, and Haley leads DeSantis by a sizable margin in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Former President Donald Trump is at 60 percent nationally and 40-some percent in the early states.

There were already rumblings about Haley supplanting DeSantis as the alternative to Trump, and then, last Tuesday, Americans for Prosperity — the political arm of the Koch network — endorsed Haley, throwing its financial and organizing weight behind her. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, the crew considers whether Haley really has a shot of winning the Republican primary.

They also dive into one of the intractable polling questions of our time: What’s the deal with issue polling? In other words, when pollsters ask voters about the issues motivating them or how they feel about a certain policy, what information are voters giving us?

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2024 Is The First ‘AI Election.’ What Does That Mean? Nov 30, 2023

Show notes

Exactly one year ago today, OpenAI launched ChatGPT. And quickly, the program changed the conversation around what is possible for artificial intelligence. In the past 12 months, we've seen campaign videos featuring AI-generated images, legislative proposals and a congressional hearing on AI regulation. By all accounts, the 2024 presidential election is going to be our first "AI election." However, often the specifics around AI’s impact remain vague. How exactly could it impact our electoral politics?

In this episode of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen speaks with Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, the interim dean of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Bueno de Mesquita’s research focuses on game theory, political conflict and electoral accountability, and he recently co-authored the white paper "Preparing for Generative AI in the 2024 Election: Recommendations and Best Practices Based on Academic Research."

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Why The GOP May Be Ready To Say Goodbye To Santos Nov 27, 2023

Show notes

The U.S. House gets back to work on Tuesday and one of its first orders of business is expected to be a vote on whether to expel Rep. George Santos of New York. A House ethics report concluded earlier this month that he “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”

In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, the crew discusses how likely Santos is to be added to the only five House expulsions in U.S. history. They also look at changing public opinion surrounding the Israel-Hamas war, after more than a month and a half of fighting. Plus, with new economic data in hand, they once again try to tackle the gap between positive developments and Americans' dismal perception of the economy.

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What These Swing Voters Have To Say About The 2024 Election Nov 20, 2023

Show notes

What makes swing voters swing? In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast Galen heads to Simi Valley, California and speaks with voters whose preferences have crisscrossed parties in recent years. They explain how they’re thinking about politics today and why their views and identities may not fit neatly into one partisan bucket.

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The Fight For Working-Class Voters Nov 16, 2023

Show notes

In 2016, as has been widely reported, white working-class voters shifted decisively to the right. In 2020, working-class voters of color followed suit to varying degrees, though still giving President Joe Biden a clear majority of their support. This has left both parties with the understanding that going forward a multiracial, working-class majority will play a pivotal role in their electoral fortunes. So why have we seen these recent shifts to the right and what will both parties do to either capitalize on or reverse these trends?

In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen speaks with two authors who have recently published books about precisely those questions, but from opposite sides of the political aisle. Democratic political scientist Ruy Teixeira recently co-wrote the book “Where Have All The Democrats Gone? The Soul Of The Party In The Age Of Extremes” along with John Judis. Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini wrote the book, “Party Of The People: Inside The Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP.”

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If The 2024 Election Were Held Today, Would Trump Win? Nov 13, 2023

Show notes

To mark one year out from the 2024 election, Galen tries to make sense of the political environment based on all the data we have with a crew of election data nerds: G. Elliott Morris, ABC News editorial director of data analytics; Ruth Igielnik, editor for news surveys at The New York Times; and Lakshya Jain, partner at the election modeling website Split-Ticket.org.

In recent days, a spate of polls have come out, mostly showing a similar picture: Not only does former President Donald Trump outperform President Joe Biden in the swing states, he leads, on average, in national polls as well. The suggestion being that if the election were today — and Trump and Biden were the nominees — Trump might be favored to not just win the Electoral College, but the national popular vote too.

But there’s a catch, or two. Perhaps most importantly, the election is not today. Also, we got other data last week, from actual elections, showing Democrats performing relatively well. So, one year out, where does that leave us? The crew tries to answer that and later on in the show they also play a game.

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Haley Takes On Ramaswamy And DeSantis Nov 09, 2023

Show notes

The crew reacts to the third Republican primary debate in this late-night edition of the 538 Politics podcast.

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The 2023 Elections Were Good For Democrats Nov 08, 2023

Show notes

In this late-night edition of the 538 Politics podcast, the crew unpacks the results from election night 2023. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won reelection in Kentucky and Ohioans voted to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution. The night was a decent performance for Democrats, despite a spate of recent polling suggesting Americans are pessimistic about Joe Biden's presidency.

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