Politics Is Everything

Both political parties and candidates are already using artificial intelligence. Where is the technology at this stage, how is it being used and how might generative AI impact elections and politics? Anthony Sowah and Jeff Berkowitz join us to answer these questions and help us go beyond the hype cycle to understand what AI is and what it might become.

Jeff Berkowitz is the founder and CEO of Washington's preeminent competitive intelligence and risk advisory firm, Delve. Berkowitz previously served as the Research Director of the Republican National Committee (RNC). He also served on staff or advised five major presidential campaigns and has shepherded research and messaging operations at The White House, the U.S. Department of State, and several prominent private sector and non-profit organizations

Anthony Sowah is Vice President & Chief Technology Officer at The Hawthorne Group, a firm that specializes in strategic communications, issue advocacy and crisis management.

Links in this episode:

• Delve
• The Hawthorn Group
• American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) Condemns Use of Deceptive Generative AI Content in Political Campaigns

Cover art for this episode was generated by DALL-E.

Which states will have the most important elections downballot in 2024? David Nir and David Beard, co-hosts of The Downballot, join Kyle Kondik and Carah Ong Whaley to share their expert insights. They also discuss how Donald Trump continues to impact candidates down ballot and what new turnout data by demographics from the Census Current Population Survey tells us about the 2022 midterm elections and how should candidates and campaigns be thinking about their approaches to different constituencies looking ahead to 2024.

David Nir is the Political Director at Daily Kos and publisher of Daily Kos elections, and David Beard is contributing editor at Daily Kos Elections.

Links in this episode:

• The Downballot
• McConnell details GOP efforts to not 'screw this up' in 2024 Senate battle, CNN
• CBS News/YouGov poll on how 2024 GOP presidential primary race could be Donald Trump v. Trump fatigue
• Turnout rates by key demographics on the U.S. Election Project

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 episode for more.

Links in this episode:

Leaning Into State Trends: The Midwest and Interior West – Sabato's Crystal BallPart 1 Podcast

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 40s.

Links in this episode:

• Is Biden's Approval Rating Too Weak for Him to Win?

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 were a regular election. "It feels like Groundhog Day," says Setmayer, about the media making the same mistakes as they did in 2016. This is the time for journalists and media to seriously consider the way they approach coverage and content of politics generally and elections specifically. Tara also discusses what the Republican Party should do to rebuild. "People don't change until they've paid enough of a price. Republicans need to get with it. They can't continue to shrink their voting base."

Tara Setmayer is contributor to ABC News, MSNBC and former GOP Communications Director on Capitol Hill. She's appeared on ABC's The View, ABC's Good Morning America, and on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. In January 2020, she joined The Lincoln Project as a senior advisor and hosts the live show "The Breakdown" along side co-founder Rick Wilson, on the organization's streaming channel, LPTV.

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 policy outcomes. Grievance politics, negative politics, fear politics, has a shelf life. Keep focusing on the positive and people will be more attracted to that in the long term. Yes, it looks pretty dark now, but there are positive policy concepts we can focus on."

Mr. Krebs is a Scholar at the Center for Politics and a CBS political analyst. He and former Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos co-founded and head the Krebs Stamos Group, a cybersecurity consultancy.

Links in this Episode:

• CISA Security Advisors
• Cybersecurity High-Risk Series:Challenges in Securing Federal Systems and Information, GAO 2023
• Lawfare Podcast

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 discuss the Tennessee Republican supermajority's expulsion of two Black Democratic state legislators - Justin Pearson and Justin Jones and Senator Tim Scott's announcement that he's forming a presidential exploratory committee.

Links in this episode:

• How the Other Half Votes: The Southwest
• Elected Officials Expelled from State Legislatures

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, it can have the perverse effects we're seeing now," Bouie tell us. Political conflicts aren't going away, but reforming party politics and the structures that incentivize party competition may lower the temperature, Bouie argues.

Jamelle Bouie is also a political analyst for CBS News and a scholar at the UVA Center for Politics.

Links in this episode

• Jamelle Bouie's website
• Columns at New York Times