Today, FiveThirtyEight is launching our national polling average for the 2024 Republican presidential primary. It shows former President Donald Trump receiving 49.3 percent of the national vote and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (who has not officially entered the race) receiving 26.2 percent. Former Vice President Mike Pence, another potential candidate, is at 5.8 percent, while […]
Author: Nathaniel Rakich
The GOP Is Trying To Tilt Montana’s Senate Race In Its Favor. It Probably Won’t Work.
Last week, Republicans in the Montana state Senate voted to adopt a top-two primary system — but only for U.S. Senate races, and only for the 2024 election. Republicans say the bill is a “test run” to see if a top-two primary is a good idea, but Democrats say it is an attempt to defeat […]
The 4 Political Neighborhoods Of Chicago
America’s cities are some of its most solidly Democratic areas — but that doesn’t mean they are solidly liberal. Over the past two years, the mayoral elections in our two biggest cities have boiled down to surprisingly tight contests between a moderate Democrat and a more liberal alternative. Tuesday’s runoff election for mayor of Chicago, […]
How Trump’s Indictment Could Affect The 2024 Election
On Thursday, a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump, making him the first president in U.S. history to be indicted. As of now, though, we still have many questions — including how this bombshell will affect his campaign to regain the presidency in 2024. Since we have no precedent to guide […]
Which Taylor Swift Album Is The Most Popular?
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. The oldest poll I could find on Taylor Swift was from 2010. Even then, it was clear she was on her way to being a pop-culture phenomenon. When CBS News/60 Minutes/Vanity Fair asked American adults which of five musicians they would most like to have dinner with, 22 […]
Why Is Biden Moving To The Political Center?
Transcript Nathaniel Rakich: Joe Biden is racing toward the political center. First, reports surfaced that his administration may resume detaining immigrant families who cross the border illegally. Then he came out in favor of blocking a Washington, D.C., law that would have reduced the penalties for certain crimes. Finally, he approved a massive new oil […]
How Did State Supreme Court Races Get So Expensive?
It feels like November in Wisconsin — and not just because of the weather. TV watchers in the Badger State are again being badgered by political ads. Of course, there’s no presidential, Senate or House race happening soon. Instead, all that advertising is for persuading voters in a state judicial election. According to the website […]
Polls Aren’t Dead. Here Are The Pollsters To Trust.
Transcript Nathaniel Rakich: The death of polling has been greatly exaggerated. After the 2016 and 2020 elections, when the polls had a rough year, a lot of people wanted to leave them for dead. But in 2022, polls had one of their most accurate election cycles in recent history. But not all polls are created […]
How Our Pollster Ratings Work
The Details Longtime readers of FiveThirtyEight are probably familiar with our pollster ratings: letter grades that we assign to pollsters based on their historical accuracy and transparency. Since 2008, we have been evaluating pollsters and using these ratings to inform both the public and our models about the quality of individual polls. Over the years, […]
The Polls Nailed The 2022 Election
Let’s give a big round of applause to the pollsters. Measuring public opinion is, in many ways, harder than ever — and yet, the polling industry just had one of its most successful election cycles in U.S. history. Despite a loud chorus of naysayers claiming that the polls were either underestimating Democratic support or biased […]