Fivethirtyeight Politics

There are more people voting in 2024 than ever before. This year, elections are taking place in at least 64 countries, as well as the European Union, totaling almost half of the world’s population. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen sits down with Richard Wike, director of Pew’s Global Attitudes Research, and Matthias Matthijs, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, to talk about whether voters are behaving similarly across the globe. One of the biggest trends they discuss: a deep sense of discontent with the people in power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week we got significant news in two key issue areas that might shape how voters are thinking this fall: the economy and abortion legality. First, on Wednesday, the latest consumer price index data showed inflation cooling more than expected. Then, on Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously to uphold access to the abortion medication mifepristone by mail. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen speaks with Senior Researcher Mary Radcliffe and Senior Elections Analyst Nathaniel Rakich about how voters are are thinking about the issues of the economy and abortion access in 2024 and how that will, in turn, affect their votes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last month, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a roadmap for artificial intelligence policy, proposing $32 billion in funding to support AI research. The plan has raised numerous questions about whether and how the government intends to regulate the rapidly evolving tech industry, especially in areas related to copyright and privacy. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen speaks with Gregory Allen, Director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies, about the politics of AI regulation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2024 presidential election forecast is live. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen sits down with director of data analytics G. Elliott Morris to talk about the even odds between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. While Trump leads in the polls nationally and in the battleground states, the fundamentals favor Biden, resulting in an extremely close call between the two. Elliott and Galen discuss the sources of uncertainty in the forecast and what we might expect between now and Election Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This installment of the 538 Politics podcast comes to you from the nation's capital, where Galen is joined in-studio by senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich and friend of the podcast, New York Times polling editor Ruth Igielnik. They talk about the latest polling since former president Donald Trump's guilty verdict in his Manhattan hush-money trial and President Joe Biden's decision to issue an executive order restricting asylum at the southern border. They also play a game of historical election trivia, drawing parallels from past elections to today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's been four days since former President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in the Manhattan criminal case, and the early indication from the polls is that there has been a small shift away from Trump in head-to-head polling with President Joe Biden. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, we talk about the latest data and whether we expect that shift to endure. We are also now officially on Supreme Court decision watch, with cases surrounding Jan. 6, the Second Amendment and abortion medication regulations yet to be decided. To prepare for those coming opinions, we play a game of “Guess What Americans Think: Supreme Court Edition.” Do Americans approve of the current court? And do they think it will deliver an unbiased decision on Trump’s presidential immunity case? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Thursday, a Manhattan jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. In this 538 Politics reaction podcast, Galen speaks with former federal prosecutor Jessica Roth about the legal implications of the jury's finding. Then 538's Nathaniel Rakich joins the podcast to discuss the possible political implications of the guilty verdict. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Closing arguments have wrapped up in former President Donald Trump’s first criminal trial, where he is being accused of falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. This marks the beginning of the end of the first criminal prosecution of a former American president, and the verdict could affect his future career in politics. In the latest installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen talks with Jessica Roth, a law professor and former federal prosecutor, to discuss the trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a newsy week for elections here at home and across the pond. On Wednesday, in her first public appearance since dropping out of the Republican primary, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said that she is going to vote for former President Donald Trump this fall. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, we ask whether her endorsement actually matters to voters. We also indulge in some British politics, with the announcement that the U.K. will hold general elections on July 4. The electoral picture for the Conservative Party is currently abysmal and they have six weeks to try to change it. And we check in on lessons from the downballot primaries that played out in Georgia and Oregon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the third 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. In our third installment: "the beer question." After the 2000 and 2004 elections, political observers remarked that Republican George W. Bush defeated his Democratic opponents in part because he was the candidate who voters would rather "have a beer with." The phrase quickly became a cliche for evaluating a candidate's likability or relatability. But is it really how voters choose their presidents? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s no secret that we are headed toward a presidential election that many Americans said they didn’t want. Somewhere in the range of 20 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, and if ratings are any indication, a lot of folks seem to be tuning campaign news out. So what does this portend for turnout? We’ve been in an era of high-turnout elections since 2016, but will fatigue or disdain keep people home this fall? In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, the crew debates what kind of turnout we should expect and why it matters. They also discuss why Biden and Trump decided to go forward with two earlier-than-usual debates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Concerns about democracy are central to the 2024 election. Late last year, Gallup recorded a record low number of Americans who said they are satisfied with the way democracy is working. And in the latest polling from The New York Times/Siena College, 14 percent of voters said the economic and political system needs to be torn down entirely, while 55 percent said it needs major changes. To better understand how Americans are thinking about democracy heading into the election, 538 teamed up with PerryUndem, a nonpartisan research firm, to conduct focus groups with voters. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, we hear from those voters. We also speak with Gretchen Helmke of Bright Line Watch, which conducts regular polling of experts and Americans on the potential threats to democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the second 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. In our second installment: "soccer moms." In 1992, Bill Clinton won the presidential election in what was called the "year of the woman" after a record number of women ran for office and won. As the 1996 election took shape, gender politics were still at the forefront of campaign coverage. As Clinton’s popularity was growing and Dole was lagging in the early polls, the idea took hold that “soccer moms” might either save Dole’s chances or ensure that Clinton made it over the edge. But when the election was all said and done, was that conventional wisdom correct? Learn more about your ad choices.

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.f

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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? https://surfshark.deals/FIVE38 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megapho

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 538 presidential general election polling averages are officially live! That means no more poll-by-poll whiplash; for a sense of the state of the race nationally and in the battleground states, head to abcnews.com/538. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen speaks with Director of Data Analytics G. Elliott Morris about the main takeaways from the averages and what kinds of data they consider. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices