We talk numbers with Nate Cohn, a reporter for The Upshot and our most trusted translator of polls. We also check in with seasoned pollsters from each party — Geoff Garin, a Democrat, and Whit Ayres, a Republican — about Mr. Trump’s chances. Finally, we speak to a longtime researcher of polling psychology, Kyle Dropp, about a phenomenon that could be Mr. Trump’s last hope.

Is This Election Over, Statistically?

“The Run-Up” is your guide to understanding the 2024 election. Host Astead W. Herndon talks to the people whose decisions will make the difference.

Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

News

Politics

News Commentary

Right now, President Biden’s clearest path to re-election in November seems to run through the middle of the country.

Here’s what that would look like: Biden wins the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — plus the other states that usually go blue — and it brings him to 269 electoral votes, just one vote shy of securing the presidency.

And that’s where Nebraska comes in.

Nebraska is one of just two states that distributes electoral college votes proportionally rather than with a winner-take-all approach. That means that, even though it’s a largely conservative state, Nebraskans sometimes still give one of their five electoral votes to a Democrat, as they did for Biden in 2020.

This year, Nebraska and the up-for-grabs nature of that one electoral vote have caught the attention of the right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk, former President Donald Trump and his supporters. In recent weeks, they’ve mobilized and are throwing Nebraska’s unique electoral system into flux.

On “The Run-Up” this week: A story about the electoral college, the power of right-wing media and the ongoing fight over who gets a voice in U.S. elections.

Nebraska Was Minding Its Business Until Charlie Kirk Came Along

Last week President Biden, flanked by former Presidents Obama and Clinton, came to Radio City Music Hall for what Biden’s campaign called “the most successful political fund-raiser in American history.” The former Presidents, alongside celebrities like Stephen Colbert, Mindy Kaling, Lizzo, and Queen Latifah, spoke to an audience of 5,000 donors. And according to the Biden campaign, the event brought in more than $25 million.

That fund-raising haul further tips the scales in the money race between Trump and Biden — a race that, so far, the Democrats have been winning. But Biden’s big cash advantage hasn’t helped solve his political problems. And when two candidates are as well known as Biden and Trump, there might be a limit to what money can buy.

This week, we speak with longtime Democratic donor Robert Wolf about the Radio City fund-raiser and why he’s donated to Biden. And National Political Correspondent Shane Goldmacher explains the vast financial gap between the candidates.

Biden Is Winning the Money Race. Does It Matter?

The people who don’t vote are often left out of the political conversation. Campaigns don’t spend much money on them, and the media doesn’t devote much coverage to them. But to understand a presidential contest like the 2024 race — one that threatens to be extremely close — we have to understand not just the people who show up to vote, but also those who sit out elections.
This week, we talk to several people who skipped the last Trump-Biden matchup in 2020 and ask how they’re thinking about 2024. We also speak to Anthony Williams, who directed a project at the Knight Foundation that surveyed 12,000 nonvoters ahead of the 2020 election. We ask: How do you define this group of people? And what, if anything, will change their minds when it comes to voting?

What About the People Who Don’t Vote?

This week, the Democratic National Committee formed a unit to push back against third-party candidates and independents. At the same time, a number of Biden allies have formed a super PAC called Clear Choice, which plans to do the same, signaling the seriousness of the potential impact of an outsider candidate.

One such candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is polling above 10 percent in national surveys and is well known for his family lineage.

Today, the candidate shares why he decided to jump in, the issues that matter most to him personally and his thoughts on positioning himself as a potential spoiler.

Don’t Ask RFK Jr. About Being a Spoiler

On Tuesday night, Donald J. Trump won another four nominating contests and officially became the presumptive Republican nominee. That’s despite the criminal charges, the judgments made against him in defamation and sexual abuse cases, the hundreds of millions of dollars in legal penalties and the continued fallout from the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Considering all of that, we want to ask Republicans the same questions we posed to Democrats last week — and to answer them more directly than we have before:
How exactly did we end up with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee again? And why?
To answer these questions, we turn to two different branches of the Republican Party today.
First, we speak with Henry Barbour, who has been a member of the Republican National Committee since 2005, a consummate party insider. He supported Nikki Haley in the primary but now supports Mr. Trump. Then we speak with Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran against Mr. Trump for the nomination, but was most similar to the former president among the other candidates in terms of ideology and style. He now fully backs his one-time rival and embraces the MAGA philosophy he represents.

Is This Election Over, Statistically?

Download our free app to listen on your phone