Donald Trump this, Ron DeSantis that. The race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination has been getting all the attention lately. But at least one person is trying to make fetch (and history) happen on the Democratic side. Last weekend, self-help author, motivational speaker and 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson announced she was running for […]
Author: Nathaniel Rakich
Democrats Did Well In Elections In February
It may be an odd year, but there are still elections happening — and the first notable election of 2023 took place last Tuesday, with contests in Virginia, Wisconsin and a couple of other states. The results left Democrats and liberals cheering; their preferred candidates not only won, but by larger-than-expected margins. However, Democrats shouldn’t […]
Why We’re Preemptively Banning A Pollster — And Not Banning Another
FiveThirtyEight is in the business of grading and reporting on polls — so when a pollster allegedly engages in misconduct, we take it seriously. In November 2022, an anonymous interviewee in The Tartan, Carnegie Mellon University’s student-run newspaper, alleged that Sean McElwee, the then-executive director of polling firm Data For Progress, was betting on elections. […]
Why Democrats Are Worried About 2024 Senate Elections
Transcript The next election is still two years away, but if you asked me today who will win the Senate in 2024, I would say Republicans. Why? It doesn’t have anything to do with the polls, or the candidates, or the economy. It’s because the 2024 Senate map is just really bad for Democrats. Bad […]
Biden’s Cabinet Members Seem To Really Like Their Jobs
Being a member of the presidential Cabinet can be a high-stress job, no matter who is sitting in the Oval Office. So it makes sense that just over two years into President Biden’s administration, some of his initial appointees are heading for the exits. Last Tuesday, it was reported that Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh […]
What’s The Deal With Political Trifectas?
Transcript Nathaniel Rakich: In November 2022, Democrats in four states achieved trifectas. No, they didn’t get lucky down at the track — although they did win a horse race of a different sort: They won the three elections that determine control of state government. And this kind of trifecta is even more valuable than a […]
Americans Usually Blame Republicans After Showdowns Over Government Spending
Playing chicken with the national economy is not unusual for Congress and the president. There was the time that former President Donald Trump ground the government to a halt because he wanted money for his border wall. Oh, and the time that tea party Republicans threatened to send the U.S. into debt default if Congress […]
Republicans Didn’t Get Less Popular After All That Speaker Drama — They Were Already Unpopular
The election for speaker of the House may have gripped Washington, D.C., for almost a week earlier this month, but the rest of the country apparently reacted with a big fat shrug. According to polls, Americans are indifferent about both Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s election and the chaotic process that led to it. Despite what some […]
What’s The Deal With The Freedom Caucus?
In order to become House speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy had to make concessions to a group of conservative Republicans called the Freedom Caucus. Now, as Congress is poised to deal with major financial issues like hitting the debt ceiling, the caucus has a ton of political sway. So, what is the Freedom Caucus, and what […]
Biden’s Approval Rating Is Up. Will His Misplaced Classified Documents Bring It Down?
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. President Biden still isn’t what you’d call popular, but he’s closer to popular than he’s been in some time. On Jan. 11, Biden hit a 44.1 percent approval rating in FiveThirtyEight’s average — his highest mark since October 2021. That was 3 percentage points higher than it was […]