Politics Is Everything

How have voting patterns in the Midwest & interior West trended relative to the national popular vote in presidential elections since 2000? Hint: we're seeing a lot of red. This week on the podcast we're discussing part two of J. Mile Coleman's' analysis on trends in two party voting in presidential elections since 2000. Part 1 covered the Northeast and South and you can go back and listen to that...

Across more than 230 years of American history, 26 presidents have run for re-election after a full term and only 10 have lost. A mere four have lost in the past century - Herbert Hoover in 1932, Jimmy Carter in 1980, George Bush in 1992 and Donald J. Trump in 2020. Based on recent history, a key question for Biden is whether a president can win reelection with an approval rating in the low-to-mid...

How do state voting trends compare to the national popular vote in presidential elections since 2000? J. Miles Coleman shares his new analysis that contrasts two regions -  the North and South.  Links in this episode:  Leaning Into State Trends: The Northeast and Greater South – Sabato's Crystal Ball  

This has not been a great week for Fox News or Ron DeSantis. Tara Setmayer joins us to discuss the fallout from the Dominion Voting Systems settlement with Fox News and weighs in on the 2024 presidential election. She expresses deep concern for the way in which the media is contributing to the "desensitization of crazy" and how some channels are already covering 2024 presidential election as if it...

Chris Krebs, the first director of the federal Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), joins us to discuss a range of pressing national security and cybersecurity threats, AI, neural network models, machine learning, leaked classified information and more. The way to overcome election denialism, says Krebs, "is to push good policy ideas and good p...

What are the voting trends in the Southwest states of Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada? As recently as 2004, George W. Bush carried all 5 of these states, but there's been a Democratic trend in the region more broadly in the years since. Kyle Kondik continues the deep dive of how voters in the most populous versus the least populous counties vote in presidential elections. We also d...

In this episode, we discuss the indictment of Donald J. Trump, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court election, and the presidential election voting trajectories in the Eastern states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Links in this episode:  With Protasiewicz win, Democrats flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court How the Other Half Votes: The East Night Train

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie joins us to discuss a range of issues facing American politics, including misinformation and the fantasies of political separation, as well as what he would do to strengthen democracy. "Politics is about collectively deciding how we're going to solve problems and how we're going to govern ourselves. As that gets divorced from how people experience politics, i...

What are the factors driving shifts in presidential voting patterns in the Midwest states of Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana? In this episode, Kyle Kondik provides an in-depth look at the partisan split and direction of counties in these states. Carah Ong Whaley and Kyle also discuss the high-stakes supreme court contest in Wisconsin.  Links in this episode:  How t...

In this episode, we talk with former Republican Representative Barbara Comstock about why a red wave didn't materialize in the 2022 elections, the state and future of the Republican Party, and potential indictments of Donald Trump.  Barbara was elected to Congress in 2014, and served two terms representing Virginia's Tenth Congressional District, making her the first woman elected to that seat. Sh...

At a time when political rights are being contested, we talk with Dahlia Lithwick about the women who are working tirelessly through the law and legal system in pursuit of justice and a more democratic society. Dahlia Lithwick is the senior legal correspondent at Slate and host of Amicus, Slate's award-winning biweekly podcast about the law.  Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Harpe...

In this episode, Kyle Kondik discusses the 2024 Republican presidential primary field even though we're still about a year away from actual voting. In the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (who has yet to declare a bid) together get about 75% of the total support. And Trump is leading by 25 percentage points among potential Republican prima...

"What I wanted to do in the book, It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism (Penguin Random House 2023), is to break through the irrelevant discussion that takes place," Senator Bernie Sanders told an audience at a UVA Center for Politics event on March 2, 2023. He continued, "Politics is more than polls, more than elections, more than Democrats attacking Republicans or Republicans attacking Democrats....

How likely is an Electoral College tie in the 2024 U.S. presidential election? What are plausible paths to an Electoral College tie? What would happen if there's an Electoral College tie and the House of Representatives has to decide the election? Kyle Kondik, Managing Director of Sabato's Crystal Ball,v walks us through the history, scenarios, and procedures we should be paying attention to in th...

Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, discusses House Ratings for 2024, why control of the House Representatives begins as a Toss-up, the most competitive seats and the role that redistricting and gerrymandering will play in determining outcomes.  Links in this episode:   Initial House Ratings: Battle for Majority Starts as a Toss-up , Kyle Kondik, Sabato's Crystal Ball The hidden...

On February 21, 2023, Jennifer McClellan handily won the special election to serve Virginia's Fourth Congressional District, making her the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress, and Wisconsin held a primary for the most important judicial race of the year in the closely-divided state. In this episode J. Miles Coleman and Carah Ong Whaley discuss the elections and why they matter. Li...

Greg Laski, civilian Assistant Professor of English at the United States Air Force Academy, and Bert Emerson, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Honors Program at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington join us to discuss their new book, Democracies in America (Oxford University Press). The book features twenty-five essays written by a diverse group of leading intellectuals in...

Why has it been over a decade since an incumbent senator was successfully primaried in a regularly-scheduled election? Which Senators might be vulnerable to a primary challenge in 2024? What are the primaries that merit watching? How will changes in the Democratic presidential primary schedule play out? How should the Republican Party consider changes it might make to the way it nominates presiden...

Should we rethink State of the Union addresses, which have become pretty formulaic? This year, President Joe Biden touted bipartisan accomplishments and focused primarily on the economy and domestic issues. He didn't really delve into some of the cultural issues on which the parties differ, which was in stark contrast to Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' response for Republicans. Even in h...

In Chile, a special assembly spent more than two years writing a new constitution to replace the current one that dates back to the country's military dictatorship. The proposed constitution, which some called the world's most progressive, would have put a focus on social issues and gender parity, enshrine rights for the indigenous population, and address climate change. In September, Chilean vote...

Outcomes in the Senate races have increasingly become aligned with the presidential vote. Senate candidates frequently performed better a decade or two ago, with 40-point or more performance better than that of the presidential candidate occurring in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. J. Miles Coleman explains this trend and what it portends for the 2024 elections.  Links in this episode:  The Shocking De...

The Crystal Ball released its 2024 Senate Ratings this week. With 34 Senate contests, Democrats are defending 23 of these seats, while Republicans are defending just 11. That Democratic tally includes the 3 states with independents who caucus with the Democrats. In this episode, Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, provides an overview of the initial ratings and why Democrats wil...

J. Miles Coleman, Associate Editor of Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, discusses the 2023 gubernatorial elections in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi. Kentucky has a popular Democratic governor, and Republicans will likely retain control of the executive branch in Louisiana. In Mississippi, Democrats have not won a gubernatorial contest this century, but a credible Democratic candidate joined the c...

The biggest impact of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attacks was on public understanding to realize that it wasn't just a single day, says Luke Broadwater, a Congressional reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times .  Broadwater has written hundreds of articles covering the causes and consequences of the January 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol and the Hous...

For the second anniversary of the violent attacks on the U.S. Capitol, we spoke with Sandra Garza, a clinical social worker, veteran, and partner of Private First Class Brian Sicknick, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who died of injuries sustained during the insurrection on January 6th, 2021.  Ms. Garza shares her experiences attending the House Select Committee hearings and what more needs to be do...