FiveThirtyEight Politics

By FiveThirtyEight, 538, ABC News, Nate Silver

What's FiveThirtyEight Politics about?

Nate Silver and the FiveThirtyEight team cover the latest in politics, tracking the issues and "game-changers" every week.

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Will Voters Care If Trump G...

03.23.2023

All eyes have been on the Manhattan district attorney’s office this week to see whether Donald Trump will become the first former American president to be indicted on criminal charges. It appears unlikely that an indictment will come this week. ...

FiveThirtyEight Politics episodes:

03.23.2023 Will Voters Care If Trump Gets Indicted? All eyes have been on the Manhattan district attorney’s office this week to see whether Donald Trump will become the first former American president to be indicted on criminal charges. It appears unlikely that an indictment will come this week. ...
03.20.2023 The 2000s Called, They Want Their Politics Back The crew looks back at two of the most notable American political decisions of the 21st century: the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the bailout of American banks during the 2007-'08 financial crisis. Both feel relevant today, as the country ...
03.16.2023 The Hidden Stories In The U.S. Census The U.S. Census may be the most consequential data set in America. It determines how political representation is apportioned in Washington and how trillions of dollars in federal funding are allocated. But the data contained in the Census shouldn't always ...
03.13.2023 Polls Haven't Been This Accurate Since At Least 1998 Polling had its most accurate election cycle in at least 25 years in 2022. The crew explains the numbers behind that conclusion, which suggest that, despite a lot of the handwringing, polling is still just about as accurate as it's ...
03.09.2023 Few Americans Think AI Will Do More Good Than Harm Galen Druke and Nate Silver open up the mailbag and answer listener questions about politics and polling. They cover American skepticism of artificial intelligence — according to one poll, only 9 percent of Americans say it will do more good ...
03.06.2023 The Poll That Ended Dilbert Author Marianne Williamson officially entered the 2024 Democratic presidential primary on Saturday. It’s very unlikely that Williamson will be a serious challenger to President Biden, but with multiple polls suggesting that a majority of Democrats don’t want Biden to run ...
03.02.2023 Why The Federal Reserve's Power Is 'Limitless' American government is designed to have components that are not directly accountable to the public. The Supreme Court is probably the most recognizable example, but it’s not the only one. In her new book, “Limitless: The Federal Reserve Takes On ...
02.27.2023 How The War In Ukraine Could Go Nuclear To mark a year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Galen Druke brings back two experts who first joined the podcast when the war began. Samuel Charap is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and author of the ...
02.21.2023 What We Know About Kyrsten Sinema's Odds Of Reelection It's a busy week! The crew looks at what Americans think about aid to Ukraine one year on, how the public may respond to Sen. John Fetterman's treatment for clinical depression and former President Trump's legal liability in a Fulton ...
02.16.2023 Could Nikki Haley Actually Win The GOP Nomination? This week Nikki Haley became the first major candidate to challenge former President Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. The crew discusses what her path to the nomination could look like, given that Trump and Florida Gov. Ron ...
02.13.2023 American Opinion Of China Has Plummeted The U.S. shot down at least three unidentified flying objects over the weekend. We’re still waiting to find out what the deal is, but this focus on slow moving objects in U.S. airspace was kicked off by a Chinese spy ...
02.08.2023 Biden's Second State Of The Union Was His First Campaign Speech President Biden delivered his second State of the Union address on Tuesday to a newly divided Congress. It was his first big national speech since the midterms and a preview of his likely 2024 reelection bid. The crew discusses the ...
02.06.2023 How Our 2022 Forecasts Actually Did In this installment of "Model Talk," Nate and Galen discuss a recently published assessment of how our 2022 midterm forecast performed. How did the polling averages and seat-gain projections compare with the actual results? If we said there was a ...
02.02.2023 The Politics Of Loneliness Americans are spending more and more time alone, and more than a third reported experiencing “serious loneliness" in 2021. The director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development -- the longest study of human life ever conducted -- concluded in ...
01.31.2023 There Are Some Big Elections Happening In 2023 Although much of our elections-related attention is already trained on 2024, there are consequential elections happening this very calendar year. The crew discusses the races to watch in 2023. They also look at how the Democratic Party's effort to rearrange ...
01.26.2023 Baby Boomers' Strength Was In Their Numbers. That's Changing. In his new book "Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America," Washington Post national columnist Philip Bump argues that many of the fissures that the country is facing today — politically, economically, ...
01.23.2023 What The Debt Ceiling And George Santos's Career Have In Common The crew discusses how debates on both the debt ceiling and the future of Rep. George Santos’s career might unfold. In light of new data showing union membership at its lowest point since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began counting, ...
01.17.2023 California's Senate Primary Is Going To Be A Doozy Over the weekend, the White House announced that five more classified documents from the Obama administration were found at President Biden's Delaware home. The crew asks whether comparisons to former President Donald Trump's own classified document scandal are apt. They ...
01.12.2023 There Has To Be A Better Way To Pick Presidential Nominees ... Right? As we head into the new year and our attention begins to turn to the presidential primaries, we decided to reair our audio documentary series, “The Primaries Project.” It originally aired at the beginning of 2020 and across three episodes ...
01.09.2023 What The Speakership Vote Tells Us About The GOP The crew looks at why it took 15 votes to get Rep. Kevin McCarthy elected House Speaker and what that process says about the two years ahead and the GOP more broadly. They also consider how Rep. George Santos’s scandals ...
01.02.2023 How The Primary System Has Shaped Our Politics Happy holidays! As we head into the new year and our attention begins to turn to the presidential primaries, we decided to reair our audio documentary series, “The Primaries Project.” It originally aired at the beginning of 2020 and across ...
12.26.2022 Our Presidential Primary System Is An Accident Happy holidays! As we head into the new year and our attention begins to turn to the presidential primaries, we decided to reair our audio documentary series, “The Primaries Project.” It originally aired at the beginning of 2020 and across ...
12.22.2022 The Politics Of Prosecuting Trump As the House Select Committee for Jan. 6 publishes its final report, the crew considers what the committee's impact has been on American politics and former President Donald Trump's standing with voters. They also look ahead to how the Department ...
12.19.2022 What I Learned From The 2022 Midterms Editor Chadwick Matlin turns the tables on Galen Druke and asks him questions about what he’s learned from covering the 2022 election and his time as host of the podcast. They consider how much preelection polling can tell us about ...
12.15.2022 Is There A Political Realignment Among Latino Voters? As the broader electorate shifted left in 2020, compared to 2016, Latino voters shifted 8 percentage points to the right. It was the biggest shift of any demographic group between the two presidential elections and led to some speculation about ...
12.12.2022 We Answer Your Lingering Questions About 2022 With midterm elections in the rearview mirror, Galen and Nate open up the mail bag to answer lingering questions about the results. They also consider Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's motivations for registering as an independent and look at the latest ...
12.07.2022 How Democrats Won The Georgia Runoff The crew reacts to Senator Raphael Warnock's win in the Georgia Senate runoff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
12.05.2022 Warnock Has The Edge In A Close Race Galen speaks with Atlanta Journal Constitution reporters Tia Mitchell and Greg Bluestein about how the Georgia senate runoff is looking in the final stretch. The crew also looks at changes the Democratic Party is hoping to make to the 2024 ...
12.01.2022 Is Democracy All Good Now? Galen speaks with reporter Kaleigh Rogers about how candidates who denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election did in the midterms and what the future of election denialism looks like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
11.28.2022 If Biden Doesn't Run In 2024, Who Will? Election Day in Georgia is just a week away, so the crew shook off their turkey hangover to talk about what to expect in Georgia’s second Senate runoff in two years. They also review Democrats’ agenda for the current lame ...
11.21.2022 How The '90s Shaped Today's GOP Galen Druke talks to Nicole Hemmer about her new book, "Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
11.16.2022 Emergency Podcast: Will Trump Win The GOP Nomination? Galen and Nate react to former President Trump's entrance into the 2024 presidential race and debate he stands in a possible matchup against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
11.14.2022 Why Democrats Beat Historical Trends In 2022 Galen and Nate discuss the state of uncalled races, what let to a good night for Democrats and answer listener questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
11.10.2022 When We Could Know The Results In The House And Senate Two days after Election Day, control of the U.S. House and Senate still hangs in the balance as votes are tallied in the Western states. The crew discusses which states will determine the balance of both chambers and what they’ve ...
11.09.2022 The Red Wave Didn't Happen In this late-night installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Nate Silver and Galen Druke put their “Model Talk” hats on and discuss the initial results from the 2022 midterms. As of this writing, we still don’t know which party will ...
11.07.2022 The Final Pre-Midterm Model Talk Hours before we freeze the FiveThirtyEight midterm forecast tonight, it shows that Republicans are in a dead heat for the Senate and are favored to win the House. In this installment of “Model Talk," Nate and Galen reflect on the ...
11.04.2022 The Issues Worth $9 Billion In Ad Spending The crew previews what to expect on Election Day and listens to some of the most common types of campaign ads aired this cycle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
11.02.2022 How Do All These Republican Polls Affect The Model? Recent polls have sent some contradictory messages, but the long and short of it is that seven races are now separated by three points or less polling average. Galen and Nate discuss what to make of it in this installment ...
10.31.2022 The Pennsylvania Senate Race Is On A Knife’s Edge With one week left until Election Day, the crew analyzes some of the high-profile races and which issues Americans care about most as they enter the voting booth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
10.27.2022 Live From D.C. … This Is Model Talk In this live taping of Model Talk in Washington, D.C., Nate and Galen break down the current forecasts for the Senate, House and gubernatorial races. Then Nathaniel Rakich and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux join to discuss how abortion has played a role ...
10.24.2022 How A College Education Divides American Voters The crew discusses how much the two parties are spending on campaign ads and if it could factor into the forecast’s shift. Then, Equis Research co-founder Carlos Odio joins the pod to break down a new poll that asked Latino ...
10.20.2022 Don’t Obsess Over The Crosstabs! Galen and Nate discuss the reasons for Republicans' improvement in the forecast. They also explain why a dramatic shift among independent women in a recent New York Times poll shouldn't be taken at face value — but also shouldn't undercut ...
10.17.2022 The U.S. House Districts To Watch In 2022 The team debates if Americans really do move to Canada, or to different U.S. states, for political reasons. Then the crew explains why they consider four competitive U.S. House districts to be bellwether elections for which party will win control ...
10.13.2022 Is Oregon Going To Elect A Republican Governor? Nate and Galen answer listener questions in this installment of Model Talk. Tickets to the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast live show in Washington, DC on October 25th can be found here. The posting for the podcast's freelance audio editor position can ...
10.10.2022 From Gas Prices To The Threat Of Nuclear Conflict … What Is Shaping The Midterms? It’s October and the surprises are rolling in. OPEC+ announced it’s cutting oil production by 2 million barrels a day, President Biden is talking about the threat of nuclear “Armageddon” and shoes keep dropping in the Georgia Senate race. The ...
10.06.2022 Do Scandals Like Herschel Walker's Still Matter To Voters? The crew discusses how the scandals surrounding Walker have evolved over the course of his Senate campaign and how the latest could affect the outcome of the race. They also break down how candidate misconduct is generally factored into the ...
10.03.2022 What Would Two More Senators Do For Democrats? The crew discusses how hurricanes shape political perceptions, whether 52 Democrats senators would be all that different from 50 and how the Electoral Count Reform Act could prevent future attempts to meddle with American elections. Tickets to the FiveThirtyEight Politics ...
09.29.2022 There’s A 6-In-10 Chance One Party Will Control Both Chambers Of Congress Nate and Galen discuss the latest twists in the midterms and answer listener questions in this installment of "Model Talk." Tickets to the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast live show in Washington, DC on October 25th can be found here. Learn more ...
09.26.2022 Why Biden's Unpopularity Doesn't Seem To Be Tanking Democrats The crew discusses how Biden’s approval rating may impact the midterm election, whether tracking Google search terms over time is a better barometer than traditional polling, and how Black voters are changing the political landscape of Georgia. Tickets to the ...
09.22.2022 Is Social Media Turning Us Into Political Extremists? Max Fisher, author of the new book, "The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World," speaks with Galen about the impacts of social media on politics globally and in the U.S. Tickets ...

Older episodes

FiveThirtyEight Politics

What's FiveThirtyEight Politics about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

FiveThirtyEight Politics episodes:

Will Voters Care If Trump Gets Indicted?

The 2000s Called, They Want Their Politics Back

The Hidden Stories In The U.S. Census

Polls Haven't Been This Accurate Since At Least 1998

Few Americans Think AI Will Do More Good Than Harm

The Poll That Ended Dilbert

Why The Federal Reserve's Power Is 'Limitless'

How The War In Ukraine Could Go Nuclear

What We Know About Kyrsten Sinema's Odds Of Reelection

Could Nikki Haley Actually Win The GOP Nomination?

American Opinion Of China Has Plummeted

Biden's Second State Of The Union Was His First Campaign Speech

How Our 2022 Forecasts Actually Did

The Politics Of Loneliness

There Are Some Big Elections Happening In 2023

Baby Boomers' Strength Was In Their Numbers. That's Changing.

What The Debt Ceiling And George Santos's Career Have In Common

California's Senate Primary Is Going To Be A Doozy

There Has To Be A Better Way To Pick Presidential Nominees ... Right?

What The Speakership Vote Tells Us About The GOP

How The Primary System Has Shaped Our Politics

Our Presidential Primary System Is An Accident

The Politics Of Prosecuting Trump

What I Learned From The 2022 Midterms

Is There A Political Realignment Among Latino Voters?

We Answer Your Lingering Questions About 2022

How Democrats Won The Georgia Runoff

Warnock Has The Edge In A Close Race

Is Democracy All Good Now?

If Biden Doesn't Run In 2024, Who Will?

How The '90s Shaped Today's GOP

Emergency Podcast: Will Trump Win The GOP Nomination?

Why Democrats Beat Historical Trends In 2022

When We Could Know The Results In The House And Senate

The Red Wave Didn't Happen

The Final Pre-Midterm Model Talk

The Issues Worth $9 Billion In Ad Spending

How Do All These Republican Polls Affect The Model?

The Pennsylvania Senate Race Is On A Knife’s Edge

Live From D.C. … This Is Model Talk

How A College Education Divides American Voters

Don’t Obsess Over The Crosstabs!

The U.S. House Districts To Watch In 2022

Is Oregon Going To Elect A Republican Governor?

From Gas Prices To The Threat Of Nuclear Conflict … What Is Shaping The Midterms?

Do Scandals Like Herschel Walker's Still Matter To Voters?

What Would Two More Senators Do For Democrats?

There’s A 6-In-10 Chance One Party Will Control Both Chambers Of Congress

Why Biden's Unpopularity Doesn't Seem To Be Tanking Democrats

Is Social Media Turning Us Into Political Extremists?

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