FiveThirtyEight Politics
The 538 team covers the latest in politics, tracking the issues and "game-changers" every week.
Episodes
June 13, 2024 • 43 mins
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 ...
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June 11, 2024 • 40 mins
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 disc...
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June 6, 2024 • 44 mins
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 asyl...
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June 3, 2024 • 46 mins
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...
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May 31, 2024 • 33 mins
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 g...
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May 28, 2024 • 37 mins
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 l...
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May 23, 2024 • 36 mins
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 ann...
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May 22, 2024 • 25 mins
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 ...
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May 20, 2024 • 38 mins
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 ...
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May 16, 2024 • 39 mins
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 thinki...
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May 15, 2024 • 29 mins
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 secon...
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May 13, 2024 • 43 mins
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 c...
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May 9, 2024 • 30 mins
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 ...
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May 8, 2024 • 25 mins
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 ins...
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May 6, 2024 • 35 mins
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 a...
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May 2, 2024 • 35 mins
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 ...
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April 29, 2024 • 35 mins
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....
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April 25, 2024 • 42 mins
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 yo...
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April 22, 2024 • 53 mins
After months of conflict over whether or how to aid American allies abroad, the House passed a slate of bills providing funding for Ukraine, Israel, Gazan humanitarian assistance and Taiwan. Each bill won a clear bipartisan majority, but a slim majority of Republicans opposed Ukraine aid.
In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen speaks with Rachael Bade, Geoffrey Skelley and Kaleigh Rogers about why this happened now ...
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April 18, 2024 • 36 mins
The jury selection process is still underway in former President Donald Trump's Manhattan criminal trial. In order to get on the jury, Manhattanites responded to a questionnaire with 42 questions ranging from whether they belong to QAnon or Antifa to what podcasts they listen to. The attorneys on both sides scrutinized their social media posts, asked them about their opinions of Trump, and had the opportunity to ask they be removed...
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