FiveThirtyEight Politics

Happy Fourth of July! To celebrate our independence from Great Britain, the 538 Politics podcast is actually turning its attention to the United Kingdom's upcoming election. The U.K. is holding its first national election in four and a half years on July 4 and the polling suggests the Labour Party will make historic gains, booting Conservatives from power for the first time in 14 years. To get a s...

The ground has started to shift beneath President Joe Biden's feet. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, multiple Democratic lawmakers raised questions about his viability as a candidate in 2024 and weighed in on who might replace him should he step aside. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen Druke speaks with Senior Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley about the latest data on how voter...

Since Thursday, the only story in American politics has been President Joe Biden's poor debate performance and what on earth Democrats are going to do about it. That was until today, when the Supreme Court ruled that American presidents have legal immunity for official acts. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, Galen Druke speaks with Jessica Roth, a law professor and former federal pr...

Galen reacts to the first 2024 presidential debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump with senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich and New York Times polling editor Ruth Igielnik. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This Thursday, President Biden and former President Donald Trump will go head-to-head in the earliest presidential debate ever. It is also the first contest between a president and former president in over a century and the first debate not run by the Commission on Presidential Debates since 1988. In this installment of the 538 Politics podcast, the crew discusses whether historical expectations f...

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,...

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 P...

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 spea...

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 betw...

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...

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...

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 possi...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 the...

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...

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...

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...

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 Pol...

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 Re...

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 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...