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Three months ago, as the presidential primaries were getting underway, President Joe Biden was trailing former President Donald Trump in the polls nationally and in battleground states, and concerns about his age were coming to the fore. The optimistic view for Biden was that once the presidential primaries were over, and it became clear that the choice was a 2020 rematch, the polls would move in his direction. But the polls have changed little. In fact, a new set of battleground polls from The New York Times/Siena College shows Biden trailing in all but one of the battleground states, with a lead for Trump as high as 12 points in Nevada.
In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, the crew asks why the end of the primaries, weeks of Biden campaigning and millions spent on advertising have changed the polls little. They also preview Tuesday's primaries in Maryland and West Virginia, in particular a very competitive Democratic Senate primary in Maryland.
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Six months out, how does the conventional wisdom about the 2024 election compare with how we are thinking about the numbers here at 538? Are election watchers thinking in a clear-eyed way about an election that will undoubtedly produce a lot of emotion and narratives?
Unfortunately we don’t have a conventional wisdom thermometer in the office, so in this installment of the 538 Politics podcast we put that wisdom to the test with a game of “Buy, Sell, Hold.” We look at where the betting markets place the likelihood of everything from former President Donald Trump picking South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as his running mate to Democrats winning a Senate race in Ohio, and decide whether the odds are appropriately priced.
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This is the first installment of the 538 Politics podcast mini-series, “Campaign Throwback.” Across three episodes, we're taking a look back at campaign tropes from past elections such as, “it’s the economy, stupid,” or “soccer moms” or that question about which candidate you’d rather share a beer with. We’ll ask where those tropes came from, whether they were actually true at the time and if they still hold up today.
Our first installment: “It’s the economy, stupid.” It's a trope that dates back to Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. Clinton's chief strategist at the time, James Carville, had three main messages for his staff to remember: 1) Change vs. more of the same 2) The economy, stupid, and 3) Don't forget about healthcare. The second message was memorialized in a 1993 documentary about the Clinton campaign called "The War Room," and has taken on a life of its own in the field of election analysis. But is it accurate?
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College graduation season is getting underway, with a spotlight on campus protests over the war in Gaza. Some universities have canceled commencement events after local police were called in to numerous campuses to disband encampments and make arrests.
All of this is focusing attention on the youth vote and how these scenes could shape Americans’ votes this fall. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, we dig into it. We also ask whether a new poll from the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign is a good or bad use of polling.
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For much of Joe Biden’s presidency, political observers have puzzled over a disconnect between economic indicators and consumer sentiment. Unemployment is low, growth has been persistent and inflation is receding. Yet, the vibes aren’t great.
In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, we hear from undecided voters who participated in a focus group with PerryUndem and 538's Senior Politics Reporter Monica Potts, which focused on feelings about the economy.
Later in the show, Galen speaks with 538 researcher and editor Cooper Burton about an algorithm 538 built to group House members into caucuses based on how they vote.
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Former president Donald Trump’s legal saga reached two major milestones last week. In Manhattan, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified about a “catch and kill” scheme that prosecutors say was meant to help Trump win the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on whether presidential immunity protected Trump from prosecution in the federal case related to Jan. 6. The court’s conservative majority appeared sympathetic to at least some of the Trump team’s claims, raising the likelihood that any trial will not begin until after the November election.
In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, law professor Jessica Roth joins Galen to discuss the latest developments and preview what comes next.
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