Decision Desk HQ Podcast

Decision Desk HQ
  • 5.0 (3)
  • POLITICS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Every day is Election Day. Our weekly show talks votes, polls, trends, campaigns, and more. A show by election nerds for fellow election nerds, novices, and everyone in between. decisiondeskhq.substack.com

  1. Episode 19: Talking Texas Primaries, with Gabby Birenbaum of The Texas Tribune

    1D AGO

    Episode 19: Talking Texas Primaries, with Gabby Birenbaum of The Texas Tribune

    It’s almost primary time! This coming Tuesday, three states — Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas — will hold their regular primaries to nominate candidates for various federal and state offices. This will begin six months of primaries across 50 states and the District of Columbia, with the final races occurring in September. Of those states, Texas will host most of the high-profile races happening on March 3. To talk about the Lone Star State contests, DDHQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by Gabby Birenbaum, the Washington Correspondent for The Texas Tribune. Gabby joined the DDHQ Podcast in December to talk about Texas’s electoral slate, and she returned to help clarify where things stand in the state’s major primary races. The conversation opened with the U.S. Senate race, looking at the dynamics of the three-way Republican primary involving incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Rep. Wesley Hunt. Cornyn and Paxton look headed for a May 26 runoff, but don’t write off Hunt entirely. On the Democratic side, Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico are facing off in a much-watched contest that looks to be quite close. Down the ballot, some U.S. House primaries have grabbed their own share of headlines. Most notably, Rep. Tony Gonzales faces a tough primary challenge in Texas’s 23rd District under a cloud of scandal regarding an alleged affair with a staffer. The staffer committed suicide last September and, earlier this week, it came out that Gonzales had sent explicit texts to her, which has led some Republicans to call for his resignation. Beyond that race, Texas’s redistricted map has precipitated a number of heated primary contests for both parties, including the Democratic primaries in the 18th and 33rd districts, and the GOP primary in the 2nd District. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

    50 min
  2. Episode 18: 2026 Redistricting Refresher, with Nathaniel Rakich from Votebeat

    FEB 19

    Episode 18: 2026 Redistricting Refresher, with Nathaniel Rakich from Votebeat

    Mid-decade redistricting could be a wildfire that keeps burning and just won’t go out. Six states have already implemented new maps, either via newly-passed laws or court action. But seven other states — and perhaps more — have at least some chance of drawing new lines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Much depends on various contingencies, including the passage of a constitutional amendment by voters in Virginia and the potential timing of a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court dismantling the Voting Rights Act as we know it. And beyond 2026, politicians and activists in many states, such as Republicans in Utah and Democrats in Colorado, are already making moves with an eye on redistricting in 2028. Decision Desk HQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by Nathaniel Rakich, the managing editor at Votebeat, to examine the ins and outs of redistricting. They looked at the overall redistricting picture and the range of potential outcomes from the lines implemented so far. They then provided an overview of the states that could join the redistricting fray, including Virginia and Florida. From there, they zoomed in on the potential remaps in the Democratic-controlled states of Virginia and Maryland. They then talked about how referendums could play into redistricting beyond Virginia. This includes a GOP-backed effort in Utah to repeal the state’s redistricting rules with an eye on another new map in 2028, a citizen veto measure in Missouri to block Republican-passed legislation to establish a new map for 2026, and a push by Colorado Democrats to override the state’s independent redistricting commission and implement a Democratic gerrymander in 2028. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

    1h 4m
  3. Episode 17: Trump Isn’t Just Losing Ground With Young Men, with Mary Radcliffe from FiftyPlusOne

    FEB 12

    Episode 17: Trump Isn’t Just Losing Ground With Young Men, with Mary Radcliffe from FiftyPlusOne

    In recent months, one growing political narrative is the extent to which President Donald Trump has lost ground with young men. In the 2024 election, Trump lost among 18-29 year olds as a whole, but he did better than in his past elections. His improvement among young men especially stood out because he actually carried the group as a whole, according to some studies. The explanations for Trump’s performance have ranged from negative economic views among young people to Trump’s embrace of podcasters to connect with voters. Yet recent research suggests young men have soured on Trump. One study from the left-leaning Speaking with American Men Project found that Trump’s standing among young men has declined. But is Trump losing more ground among young men than among other groups? Decision Desk HQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by Mary Radcliffe, head of research at FiftyPlusOne, to talk about Trump’s approval among young men and more broadly. She recently found that Trump’s decline among young men was not necessarily outsized compared to other groups, most notably among women. The conversation began with Mary’s article and the narrative surrounding Trump’s standing with young men. They explored the difficulties of actually ascertaining the views of this particular subgroup and the small amount of reliable polling that’s available to study young men’s attitudes. They then discussed the reality that Trump’s approval has fallen across the broad, including a similar rate of decline in attitudes toward him among both men and women. They followed this by looking at changes in Trump’s approval among groups that played an important role in his winning 2024 coalition, including independents and Latinos. Trump’s declining approval on his handling of different issues likely plays into the growing dissatisfaction toward his presidency across different groups. Lastly, they talked about broader trends in Trump’s approval and what they could mean for the 2026 midterms. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

    47 min
  4. Episode 16: Perusing 2026 Races for Prosecutor & Sheriff, with Daniel Nichanian from Bolts

    FEB 5

    Episode 16: Perusing 2026 Races for Prosecutor & Sheriff, with Daniel Nichanian from Bolts

    It’s easy to focus on the high-profile elections happening this November. But many voters will have myriad downballot races to consider, too, including two important local offices: prosecutor and sheriff. These officials play a pivotal role in implementing policing and criminal justice policies. But they also matter to immigration, as shown by recent disagreements over collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE. In 2026, there are roughly 2,400 elections for prosecutor and sheriff, which means a large share of the nation’s 3,100+ counties and county-equivalents will vote on at least one of these offices. To explore these under-the-radar elections, Decision Desk HQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by Daniel Nichanian, founder and editor-in-chief of the digital publication Bolts. Nichanian and the Bolts team cover local elections and institutions that affect American politics, with a particular focus on criminal justice, policing, voting rights, and democracy. Nichanian recently put together a great guide covering which states have prosecutor and/or sheriff elections on the ballot this year, and an overview of some of the biggest races and issues at play. The conversation started with an overview of why these office are important and challenging to cover. They then discussed sheriff elections within the context of cooperation with ICE, a highly-contested debate in more Democratic-leaning places, and then the wider implications of sheriff elections for policing. Then the chat turned to prosecutors and the conflict between more reform-minded and more conservative proponents within the criminal justice system. These debates do not always wear straightforward partisan labels in the way that, say, a U.S. Senate election does. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

    56 min
  5. Episode 15: Sizing Up The Senate, with Grace Panetta from The 19th

    JAN 29

    Episode 15: Sizing Up The Senate, with Grace Panetta from The 19th

    A big part of the 2026 midterms is the race for the U.S. Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority. Because Vice President JD Vance can break a 50-50 tie in the GOP’s favor, Democrats must gain four seats for party control to shift. Of the races that could decide control, many will turn on the performances of high-profile women candidates. Those contests include Alaska, where Democrats’ chances of flipping the seat rest on the shoulders of former Rep. Mary Peltola, and Iowa, where the GOP’s odds of retaining the seat depend on Rep. Ashley Hinson’s political acumen. Other races will not be competitive in November, but the favored party could nominate a woman candidate who could change the look and feel of the Senate. For instance, Rep. Julia Letlow is challenging Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana’s Republican primary, while an open-seat race in Illinois features two Democratic women contenders, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Rep. Robin Kelly. To explore what’s happening in these races, Decision Desk Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined on the podcast by Grace Panetta from The 19th News. As a politics reporter for The 19th, Panetta covers candidates, issues, voters, and everything else happening on the campaign trail. Panetta has written extensively about many of these Senate races, so she was the perfect person to chat with about the role women candidates are playing in the 2026 election cycle. The conversation first focused on seats that will likely have competitive elections in November and could help decide control of the Senate. These contests include Republican-held seats that are on the ballot in Maine, Alaska, Iowa, and Texas, as well as a Democratic-held seat in Michigan. The discussion then turned to seats that are safer for one party but that have interesting primaries, including Minnesota, Illinois, and Louisiana. We hope you enjoy the conversation! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

    51 min
  6. Episode 14: Pollapalooza, with Eli McKown-Dawson (Silver Bulletin) & Scott Tranter (DDHQ)

    JAN 22

    Episode 14: Pollapalooza, with Eli McKown-Dawson (Silver Bulletin) & Scott Tranter (DDHQ)

    In this week’s podcast, we dug into polling, which is such a huge part of the conversation around elections. Beyond knowing who is in the lead and by how much, surveys can help us understand what issues are driving voters and what people think about the parties and their leaders. However, individual polls are subject to different forms of error that can affect their results. And pollsters can sometimes encounter challenges — think of 2016 and Donald Trump, white working class voters, and the Midwest — that can produce widespread, systematic error. So, the election community likes to track how well pollsters perform individually and as a whole. To explore this topic, we welcomed Silver Bulletin Senior Election Analyst Eli McKown-Dawson and DDHQ Director of Data Science Scott Tranter onto the podcast. We focused mainly on McKown-Dawson’s new analysis of how the polls performed in the 2025 elections and recent trends in polling error published on Silver Bulletin. We talked about what might have led to some sizable polling misses in New Jersey and Virginia, what goes into polling error and polling bias (the statistical form of bias), the choice by some pollsters to weight their samples by recalled vote, and what all this could mean for polling in the 2026 midterms. Subscribe now This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

    49 min
  7. Episode 13: A House Divided, with Joshua Huder from Georgetown's GAI

    JAN 15

    Episode 13: A House Divided, with Joshua Huder from Georgetown's GAI

    This week, the Decision Desk HQ podcast examined the messy state of affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives. There, Republicans hold just a 218-213 majority (with four vacancies), an edge so thin that GOP absences have at times left Democrats with more voting members on the House floor than Republicans. These trying governing circumstances have only made life more difficult for Speaker Mike Johnson, who has regularly had to navigate internal conflicts within the House GOP conference, all while having only a slim majority. To dig into this topic, DDHQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by Joshua Huder, a senior fellow at The Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. Huder has expansive expertise in the internal procedures, politics, and institutional makeup of the House — and how they have changed over time. Huder also his own Substack newsletter, Seat of Democracy, where he explores congressional politics, past and present. And he hosts the Georgetown GAI’s podcast, Congress, Two Beers In. The two discussed the challenges Speaker Johnson has faced, including the revolts from his left and right flank in the House GOP conference. More broadly, they examined the anti-establishment surges that have affected the politics of both parties, and how this trend has clashed with the top-down nature of the House’s legislative process. They also explored the impact of discharge petitions to push forward legislation, and how this tool to circumvent leadership has grown in use. All of this discussion included Huder’s deep knowledge of the House’s evolution as an institution, which enabled him to make comparisons with how the House functioned in the past that can help us understand today’s political situation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

    43 min
  8. Episode 12: Minnesota Musical Chairs and Virginia Voting, with J. Miles Coleman from Sabato’s Crystal Ball

    JAN 9

    Episode 12: Minnesota Musical Chairs and Virginia Voting, with J. Miles Coleman from Sabato’s Crystal Ball

    Welcome to the official midterm year of 2026! Looking ahead to what could happen this November, the podcast zoomed in on the electoral situations in Minnesota and Virginia. To do this, Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by J. Miles Coleman, the Associate Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. The two led off with the big news in Minnesota, where Democratic Gov. Tim Walz decided to abandon his campaign for a third term in the face of an ongoing crisis regarding government fraud. With the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president out of the race, it looks like Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar may run, and her strong electoral track record might make her an imposing candidate for Democrats. From there, they reviewed some of Miles’s recent findings about the 2025 Virginia election that suggest voters of color who backed President Donald Trump in 2024 may have been more likely to stay home in 2025 than other voters around the state. They then turned to Virginia’s involvement in the national redistricting battle. Virginia’s state legislature is about to take up a constitutional amendment that would potentially allow the Democratic-led body to redistrict the state’s congressional districts. What will that entail and what kind of gerrymander could Democrats draw if they succeed? Subscribe now This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

    56 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Every day is Election Day. Our weekly show talks votes, polls, trends, campaigns, and more. A show by election nerds for fellow election nerds, novices, and everyone in between. decisiondeskhq.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Decision Desk HQ
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Decision Desk HQ
  • Show Website
    Decision Desk HQ Podcast

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