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Friendly, clean. Oh my God. Do you guys just like eat off the sidewalks? Yeah, well, it smells so lovely. There's no trash anywhere. It's crazy. Where do we put it all? It's been a while since you've been out of here. All the trash is in Congress. Whoa.
Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druke, and hello from the nation's capital. I think people might assume that this podcast is based in D.C., but I am in fact based in New York, a safe distance from which to dig through the data unsullied by the politics of the swamp. I kid, I kid. Am I kidding? I don't know. Up to you to decide, Nathaniel.
Today, though, I am in the ABC News DC offices with my colleague, senior elections analyst, Nathaniel Rake. Hey, Nathaniel, how's it going? Hey, Galen. It's great to see you. I'm looking forward to our drinks later. Yeah, it's so good to see you in person. Also here with us is dear friend of the podcast polling editor at The New York Times, Ruth Agelnik. Hello, Ruth. Hello. Thank you for having me in the studio. It's really my pleasure. This is the first time I'm meeting you in person. It's really been a joy. Wow. It's a delight. I know. It's very exciting. I'll say it is DC pride this weekend. I'm here by surprise.
Total coincidence, obviously, but happy pride to those who celebrate. Happy pride. We got a lot to cover today. We're going to check in again on the latest polling now that it's been a week since former President Trump's guilty verdict in the Manhattan falsified business records case. Also, this week, President Biden issued an executive order on the southern border, which resulted in the border largely closing to asylum requests Wednesday at midnight.
We'll talk about the numbers behind that decision. And we're also going to play a game of historical election trivia. When was the last time Republicans won self-identified moderates in a presidential election? And which states have been the swingiest over the past 50 years?
Stick around and find out. Nathaniel, Ruth, are you ready? Ready to dive in? Ready. Ruth, let's start with you because you've been making some news over the past 24 hours. At the beginning of the week, I talked to Elliot, my current colleague, your former colleague, about how the polls have shifted since Trump's guilty conviction in the Manhattan criminal case. And we saw about a point or two swing towards Biden in head-to-head polling. Now we have...
A few more days of data and the New York Times data as well. What are we seeing? Yeah. So what we found was pretty similar. We did something a little bit different. We took all the people that we've talked to for our polls in the last two months. It's about 5,000 people. We called them all back. And the ones who answered, we asked them who they were planning to vote for. So we could see that shift on an individual level to really try to
isolate whether it was a real shift. And we found a real shift that was actually similar to what you guys saw when you looked at cross-sectional surveys, about a two to three point swing in favor of Biden. Isn't it amazing when all of the data sources agree? Makes you feel good. Does it make you feel good? Are you like, ooh, what if we're all getting the same thing wrong?
True. I mean... Never happened before. Correlated pulling hair is very real. But when you look at it through these different lenses, it helps that they all agree that they're not the same method, but they are finding the same thing. That does make you feel a little better. Right. So I'll also say that, like,
Most of the time when pollsters do this, right, they're not doing a recontact survey where they're going back and talking to the same people. So if you have just like one pollster, you want to look at the same pollster over time, obviously, because different pollsters have different methodologies. But say one pollster did a poll a couple of weeks ago, and then they just came out at
of the field with another poll, you compare those numbers and maybe say it was a two-point shift toward Biden. Theoretically, that could be due to just different samples, right? Margin of error. But the cool thing about what Ruth did and what also Echelon Insights, another pollster that did this, did is that they asked those same people. So they were really able to identify people actually changing their minds. Now, of course, there are other potential sources of error in a recontact survey, but it makes you, yeah, like Ruth said, a little bit more confident.
Maybe the more relevant question to the campaign, though, is we are now five months minus one day away from the presidential election. How durable do you think this kind of a shift is in public opinion? And let me put that in a little bit of context. You have been polling on this race for over a year at this point.
How much change have we seen over the past year? And does that give us any sense of how much change we might expect for the coming five months? Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty small group of people these days who are swing voters because we live in such a polarized country. So the changes are on a much smaller order than they were, say, 15, 20 years ago. How enduring is this change is a great question. And I don't think anybody knows.
knows the answer. I think the things to keep in mind are very few people took this trial seriously as compared with the other trials. It didn't really impact a lot of views. So the people who did change, it's reasonable to expect that some of that will last and some of that will be a little bit more flexible.
And I think the interesting thing to remember is when we did this recontact study, we saw a three-point change in favor of Biden. We also saw some people move away from Biden, move away from Biden to Trump, move away from Biden to undecided. This small group of undecided people, there's a lot of churn in that group. So it's reasonable to expect there's going to be a lot of churn. These are people with weak preferences that are sort of moving with the news of the moment. So will it be enduring? It's hard to say.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point, right, is that there are these people who are just kind of constantly maybe flirting between candidates and they maybe don't show up as undecided in polls, but they are for all intents and purposes undecided. And it's just kind of about which candidate at the end of the day gets more kind of net movement on their side. And like right now with the bad news for Trump, there was more net movement toward Biden. But so many things can still happen over the course of the campaign.
I personally, if I had to bet, and this is definitely verging into pundit territory, but I would say that it probably will not be a durable shift or, you know, it'll just be kind of, you know, there'll be something that shifts things back toward Trump between now and the election. And then whoever happens to get kind of the quote unquote last word and, you know, October 31st, although by that point, a lot of votes will have been cast because of early and absentee voting. So, yeah, it's going to be tricky. But I also think it's worth noting that, like, these are small shifts and like so many people are dug in and it's going to be a close election either way.
Yeah, I think Ruth, you make some interesting points about who a swing voter is. You know, I'll oftentimes get the question, well, does this issue matter to swing voters? How are swing voters going to react to this? Or, you know, I can't believe that this didn't change the polls. And I'll ask people, you know, like,
Are you certain you're going to vote? And do you know who you're going to vote for? Well, then you probably can't really relate to the mind of a swing voter, which is these folks largely might see the two parties as not all that different. They may say, well, both Democrats and Republicans are corrupt or they don't really do the policies that I want or they have the same policy on this or that thing. It's relatively low information. People who don't feel like viscerally about politics the way that probably most people listening to this podcast might.
And not only are they not sure who they would vote for between Biden and Trump, they're not sure they're going to vote at all. In fact, when you look at those low information voters, people who are paying very little attention to what's going on in politics, that 3% who moved from Trump to Biden grew to about 15% who moved from Trump to Biden among those very low information voters.
because they're not paying attention, because their preferences are fairly weak. And in fact, when we called some of them back, they didn't really remember what they said last time we talked to them because they were sort of choosing in the moment. It wasn't a durable, strong preference that they felt.
All right. So we'll see how this all plays out. But let's talk about Biden's executive order on immigration earlier this week. So the order essentially shuts down asylum requests when daily illegal crossings between ports of entry hit 2,500 on average, and it reopens the asylum process once that number falls to 1,500. Now, the number of monthly encounters at the southern border has far
far exceeded that 2,500 limit for basically all of Biden's presidency. Why is this coming now?
Because it's an issue that's important to voters. It's an issue that's rising. And, you know, Gallup does this survey regularly. What are the most important issues to voters? And it's been the economy for a long time. And now immigration has eclipsed that for several surveys in a row. And all of these campaigns are paying a lot of attention to polls. And they're seeing the same things in their own polls. They're seeing that immigration is an important issue that can move voters. And Biden is struggling on the economy. He might be able to get some votes on immigration. Well, that's interesting. I don't know. Yeah.
Well, it's tricky, right? So immigration, of course, famously is one of Democrats and Biden's worst issues, right? When pollsters ask which party do you trust more on immigration, on health care, various issues, immigration has a large Republican net advantage.
Based on that, I don't necessarily think Biden's going to get a lot of immigration voters. But I do think it's interesting because it's like, well, like, what do you do when faced with a deficit like that? Right. You basically have two choices. One is kind of ignore it and like try to run a campaign based on issues that are stronger for you. Like in Biden's case, that would be like abortion and democracy. And these choices aren't mutually exclusive, I should say.
Or the other choice is to kind of try to confront the issue head on and try to blunt that advantage somewhat. And Biden is obviously trying to do that as well as focusing on other issues. And so I think that between the bill in Congress where Democrats were basically –
They had reached this compromise bill that was like actually like fairly tough on immigration and Democrats were the ones who were really wanted to pass it. But Republicans ended up taking it because Donald Trump didn't want to hand Democrats essentially a win or like lower immigration in an election year. A lot of Democrats thought that might help them politically. But then we talked on this podcast about how Biden could also just do things differently.
via executive order on immigration, which is how Trump did a lot of his immigration policy. And voters might be like, well, you didn't pass this bill, but like you could do executive orders. And now obviously Biden has done that. I don't think voters are going to end up trusting Democrats on immigration more than Republicans anytime soon. But like...
If this moves the dial five points or whatever, maybe it makes it a little bit less bad of an issue for Biden. And that could help on the margins. Right. And I think that's right. I think it's more of a sort of stop the bleeding moment. And partially, I mean, you mentioned that it's a Republican issue and it is. This is an issue Republicans care a lot more about than Democrats. But the movement, the small movement we've seen is among...
You know, I always struggle with the concept of independence because most independents lean towards a party. But when you look at independents, they are sort of moving on immigration. And that's the group that Biden is trying to capture. And so even though it's a Republican issue, it is an issue that is rising for these people who don't affiliate with either party. Yeah. Nathaniel, I think I disagree with you. OK. Which is that this...
is a pretty volatile dynamic issue. You know, during Trump's first term in office, he was unpopular on immigration. And in fact, family separation was one of the most unpopular things he did. Building a wall at the southern border was not popular. It's not as if Republicans had a massive advantage on the issue in totality. But since Biden has taken office, the situation on the ground has changed. I mean, I've talked about the numbers before, but like
the sort of peaks, monthly encounters at the southern border have increased in some cases sixfold, right?
last December. And regularly, there are over 150,000 encounters at the southern border compared to 50,000 under both Obama and Trump. And so Americans can see this, and they can also experience it in their own cities and states, and they're reacting to it. And so I don't think that it's just the case that Republicans have always had an advantage on this issue, and there's nothing Biden can do about it. In fact, in some ways, it's surprising that Biden
from like a political strategy perspective, waited three and a half years. Because if you look at the ABC News polling that came out recently, it is the single issue on which Biden does the worst compared to Trump. And it's actually the issue on which there is the largest advantage for any party, which is to say Republicans have a larger advantage on immigration over Democrats than they do on the economy than they do on
crime than they do on the war in Gaza, on anything. And so I think this is a dynamic issue that has really put Democrats in a tough spot, because not only do they strongly prefer Americans, strongly prefer Republicans, they care a lot about it.
Yeah, I think that's fair. I will also say, though, don't discount the role of thermostatic public opinion. I don't think it's that American. I mean, I think Americans are reacting to the higher numbers of migrants trying to cross the border. Although I think a lot of that movement has been among Republicans. If you look at the graph kind of by party and Gallup's most important problem. They're not exclusively. Not exclusively. And a lot of independents as well. Yeah, absolutely. 25% of independents, I believe, said that immigration was the most important problem, which is roughly about
The same, yeah. But like the increase is definitely highest among Republicans. So I do think that there is disproportionate interest among Republicans there. But also if you look at other, so like I'm looking at Gallup's kind of long time time series now of like, do you think immigration should be kept at present levels, increased or decreased? And like the changes for that happened basically after Biden took office. And so I think it's like when Trump is out there pushing these very restrictive immigration policies, Americans tend to be a little more sympathetic to maybe thinking more about issues like, you know,
the dreamers and things like that when thinking about the issue of immigration, when it's Biden who is perceived as kind of like weak on border enforcement and stuff like that. They're thinking more about like the security of the border. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Although a reminder here that in 2015, when Trump came down the escalator and started talking about immigration and
and was really unpopular amongst the American electorate as a whole on that issue, Obama was president, right? So I think the thing that has really changed between Obama and Biden is the situation at the border. I mean, there's one more thing I want to say on this, which is that when we were talking earlier in the week
about the guilty conviction for Trump and how this plays into preconceived notions that Americans have about him, which is that Americans who say that he's unfit for the presidency, a second term for Trump, what's the number one reason that they say he's unfit? It's
that they view him as corrupt and dangerous. When you ask Americans, you know, do you see Biden as fit for a second term? The people who say they don't when given the opportunity to explain why the number one reasons are he's too old and incompetent. The concern about age is a concern about competency. And I think the things that help play into that and sort of Americans, you know,
relatively pessimistic views about Biden are they feel like there are some things that are out of control that they don't think that Biden can get under control. And those things are chiefly inflation, the southern border, and foreign conflicts. And so while, you know, the...
details of some of these specific things can get complicated. Thermostatic public opinion does exist. The general sense that things are out of control and we don't view Biden as competent enough to get them under control, I think is a big vulnerability for him that sort of
is the water in which all of this may be playing out. So you're basically saying that if immigration levels decreased in the next few months, voters will see that. They'll see the fact that Biden made the executive order and they'll be like, oh, maybe he's more confident than I thought he was. And that could tangibly help him. Well, yes.
And you just want to be out in front of the American public saying, I'm doing this. I'm doing this. I'm doing this. I mean, so far, he's tried to do that on infrastructure. He's gone all throughout the upper Midwest and said, I'm opening this bridge. I'm opening this bridge. I'm opening this chips plant. And maybe that catches on locally. But ideally, you want to do that in big ways that breaks through the news cycle. Now, the fact that the border shut down on Wednesday night...
I think that broke through. I think people heard Biden did an executive action and now the border is shut down. That language is a little bit complicated. I don't know what people understand when newscasters say the border is shut down, like you can still drive between San Diego and Tijuana, but it's closed to asylum. Right.
Yeah. And I think, I mean, it's interesting that you lay out those three buckets because Biden is also trying on the war front, right? He had that big announcement about the potential ceasefire plan with the war in Gaza. So he's trying to pull at all of those levers that he can. I think it's interesting because obviously what we see in our polling, because we ask a slightly different question than Gallup. We ask the most important issue to your vote. And there we still see the economy as top over immigration. And
The economy really is central to a lot of people. So the more he pulls at that lever, I think that will actually be the difference maker. But you're right. He is trying with immigration as one of those levers to pull. Let's move on to the trivia portion of our podcast. But first, a break.
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To help us put the 2024 election in context, I hope, we're going to play a little election history trivia. So we're going to look back at some past campaigns, and maybe we'll be able to glean some lessons for the current campaign. It's going to be Nathaniel versus Ruth, and these are multiple choice. So I'm going to ask you a question. That's too easy. A, B, C, or D.
And if you get it right, you get a point. If you don't, you get zero. And you can both get a point. We can have, you know what? This is beautiful. We can tie. Yes. How very modern. We are millennials. All right. Here we go. Everyone gets a trophy. Let's dive right in. In 2020, Americans said in exit polls that the economy was the most important issue deciding their vote. What was the second most important issue?
A, racial inequality, B, immigration, C, the coronavirus pandemic, or D, crime and safety? In 2020, I'm going to say the coronavirus pandemic. Yeah, I'm also going to guess the coronavirus pandemic. You have both chosen C, the coronavirus pandemic, and you are both wrong. It was...
A, racial inequality. That was my second guess. I mean, June 2020 was the death of George Floyd and the protests and, you know. I'll break it down for you. I was weighing those two. So 35% said the economy, 20% said racial inequality, 17% said the coronavirus pandemic, and 11% said crime and safety. And when I was looking at this exit poll, I was thinking, boy, what a lesson in how quickly things can change. Yeah. All right. Next up, we have...
In June of the 1988 presidential race between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, who was leading and by how much? So in June, at this point in the race, five months out, who was leading? A. Dukakis plus four. B. Bush plus 15.
C. Dukakis plus 9. Or D. Bush plus 7. So that was a really interesting choice of a race because it was a very volatile race. So pinpointing June is really hard because that was a race where the polls really moved up and down. There was a lot less polarization. I'm going to guess A. Dukakis plus 4.
That was also going to be my guess. Now the question is, do I want to play it safe and try to go for the top and like keep pace with Ruth? Or do I want to pick something different and risk? Hedge your bets. Yeah. Hmm.
See, I think you probably picked this question because it's probably Dukakis and you wanted to emphasize that the polls can change a lot. But the other Dukakis answer was like, what, Dukakis plus seven or something? Nine. Plus nine. That seems like a lot. That's how I arrived at my answer. Polarization was a lot less back then. Eh, what the hell. I'll say Dukakis plus nine. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yes. Whoa. You are correct. Good pick.
Wise move. In June of 1988, DeConcus was leading by nine points. He, of course, would go on to lose by seven. So a 16-point difference between June and November. Now, of course, we are not going to see volatility here.
Anywhere close to that level. But this does prompt me to ask the question, in general, maybe put the specifics of this race aside, how much volatility would we expect in the final five months of a race? I mean, it's not unreasonable. Putting this race aside, it's not unreasonable to have some volatility, right? A lot of people aren't paying attention. The interesting thing about that race was Dukakis was not well known, which is part of that volatility. People just didn't know who he was.
Partially this race, we have well-known people. Partially now we just have a greater degree of polarization into the 2000s. So it's really hard to say what another race would look like now because polarization is also different. Like it's not just this unknown candidate. But reasonably, I mean, we used to talk a lot more about swing voters because they were a fairly sizable group. Not such a big group anymore. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Elliot, our colleague, actually is going to be writing about this for next week. And I just edited the piece and I don't remember the exact number. I want to say maybe it was like there's an average of like eight points of movement in the polls between this point and the end of the election. But again, that's going back to when I think it was back to like the 40s. So like it's obviously I mean, I mean, right. So like I mean, it's a really interesting question, too. Right. Because like obviously.
we are in this more polarized era. We're not going to see a swing like we saw in 1988. But I also do think that like we've been somewhat conditioned. There is this recency bias where like in 2020, the polls really didn't move very much. So far this year, the polls haven't moved very much. In 2016, there was like a little bit more movement. It wasn't like a ton. It wasn't on that level. But like, obviously, there were there were highs for Hillary Clinton. And then there were times when Trump was within shouting distance. And obviously, that was what ended up happening. And so I do think it's worth remembering, like, there is this tendency to be like, well, the
polls are just like baked in at this point. But obviously, that's not true. And it really would only take a small shift for Biden to take the lead. Yeah, you don't have to go back that far. Like even in 2012, you look at, you know, Mitt Romney's first really good debate performance that moved the needle quite a bit. You know, I mean, things were even then things were moving a little bit more.
All right. Next question. Speaking of 2012, in late October of 2012, an NBC Wall Street Journal poll found Obama and Romney tied at 47% each amongst likely voters. In that same poll, what was the result amongst registered voters? We're getting real nerdy here. Get ready. Okay. A, Romney plus two.
B, even, also even. C, Obama plus two. Or D, Obama plus five. So historically, switching from registered voters to likely voters has helped Republicans. And this is something that's really kind of only recently switched, you know, in part because of the realignment along educational lines. But back in the day, so many years ago in 2012, likely voters did tend to be more Republican. So I'm going to say Obama plus five.
Yeah, I mean, that's exactly the logic that I was going over in my head. So now I have my choice. Do I? Yeah.
And I'm inclined to say Obama plus five also because in the end, Obama won that by a pretty sizable margin. And in fact, there was a decent amount of polling error that race, which is to say polling underestimated Obama's margin. So nobody cared because he still won. That's right. Exactly. The direction was correct. So nobody cared about the polling error, which makes me think it was Obama plus five. So I'm going to take the opposite tactic and agree with you and have that be what was my pick anyway.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You both got it right. It is Obama plus five. Now, the shoe is on the other foot in 2024, which is that Biden currently does better with likely voters than registered voters. A little bit. A little bit in polls where you can see both and not every pollster publishes.
Right. And to be clear, it's actually not. For example, when we did our state polls, there was a difference in Michigan, but there was almost no difference in most of the other states, which is fascinating because usually there is a little bit more difference. Yeah, I do think this is a little overstated right now. Like, I'm not sure the evidence is there. I do think it probably will end up that way when pollsters switch. Most pollsters will switch from registered voters to likely voters and like
Labor Day or whatever, I do think that'll end up helping Biden. Although it's also worth noting that like our average at 538, for example, we already adjust polls to be likely voters. So when you look at our polling average, that is among likely voters. So don't expect a shift in like our polling average, for example. All right. Nathaniel has two points. Ruth has one. I'm on the board. In June of 1948, I'm going to go way back. The American Institute of Public Opinion asked, will you tell me what the Electoral College vote system is?
What percentage, by their estimation, described it correctly? I love this. What a poll question, right? What a poll question. We could not ask that now. They said, open-ended question. Tell me what it is. And then they themselves, the American Institute of Public Opinion, decided whether you got it right. I feel bad for the person who had to code that. That is terrible. Well, okay, quick, before I read the answers. Good or bad use of polling?
I'm not sure it's a great use of polling. I don't know what, I guess we learn about the public's level of education about this, but I always feel like knowledge questions are a little, like, I don't like to finger point and say you guys don't know anything American public. So not a great use of polling. Okay. All right. Here we go. Percentage, who described it correctly? A, 35%, B, 15%, C, 7%, or D, 53%.
I'm going to outright reject 53% because I don't believe that 53% of Americans then or now could correctly describe it. I'm going to say 15B. I feel like there's also a fair amount of subjectivity in assessing these grades. And so I don't know how strict this coder would have been. Like maybe they just said voting was correct. It was 1948. People were pretty strict back then. I have no idea. Yeah.
You know, I'm going to have a little more faith in the American people than Ruth. So I'm going to say 35%. And that faith is going to get you. Oh, not so far. Ruth, you got it right. It is 15%. It's another point for Ruth. I applaud your faith in the American people. That's a good thing. That's a real prize. Right, exactly.
Okay. Next question. But also that was the year of Dewey defeats Truman. So was it wrong? Good point. All right. Next. You played it like you weren't that familiar with historical. I boned up before I came here. I read a bunch of polling history. Did you read that poll? I remembered the years. All right. Next question. Fast forwarding 20 years.
In March of 1969, Gallup asked, if your party nominated a woman for president, would you vote for her if she was qualified for the job? What percentage of the public said no? I will not vote for a woman if she's qualified for the job. A, 39%. B, 54%. C, 66%. Or D, 23%. Were the only options yes and no? You could also say no opinion. Oh, okay. Okay.
I'm going to say 39%. I'm going to say 66%. Whoa, Ruth. Very pessimistic. You said in 1969, amidst this social revolution, Americans said, two-thirds of Americans said no. Well, it also said like the question wording is kind of leading. It says, of your party, she's qualified. Yeah, it's true. I should have more faith in that, that people are led by that question wording. Yeah.
Nonetheless, Nathaniel, you got it right. It was 39% said no, 54% said yes, and 7% had no opinion. And that's why we've elected so many women presidents. That's right. Maybe that's why I went with that answer. I expected the no opinion to be higher. I expected more sort of like DK aside.
All right. Next question. Nathaniel has three. Ruth has two. In October of 1999, when Donald Trump was competing for the Reform Party's nomination, a Gallup poll asked, regardless of whether or not you would vote for him, do you view Donald Trump as a serious candidate for president? 74% responded, no, not a serious candidate.
In a July 2015 poll, one month after Trump entered the presidential race, how did respondents answer the exact same question? Do you view Donald Trump as a serious candidate for president? A. 34% Not serious. B. 74% Not serious. C. 61% Not serious. Or D. 47% Not serious.
I'm going to say 47%, not serious. D. I'm going to say 61% because this is a time everybody was like, this is a joke. He's just doing this for attention. Nobody thought, even though he was leading in the poll, I don't know if he was leading the polls specifically at that time, but he relatively quickly searched the top of the polls. But like everybody was dismissing him in kind of pundit land. And also like this was back when
a lot of Republicans did not like Donald Trump. And so I think you probably saw a lot of Democrats and also a good number of Republicans say, yeah, he's not serious. Yeah, that's a good justification. Nathaniel, your rationale is correct, but your answer is wrong. All right.
Seventy four percent said not a serious candidate. And all the way back to July of 2015. That's that's I mean, that's the right logic. It's true. People were not taking it seriously. Even Republicans. And just to underline that, it was the same number, the exact same number, not a point higher or a point lower. Seventy four percent in 1999 said that and 74 percent in 2015 said that.
Not a serious candidate. Again, that's why Donald Trump has not been the president. Historically, these are telling us a lot about what happened. So are we just telling people not to pay attention to the polls? Maybe. All right, Nathaniel, you have three points. You still have two points. There were no points awarded that round. We're moving on to a two-point question. All right. Get ready.
From 1976 to 2020, two states have swung between Democrats and Republicans five times. Which two are they? You have several more options for this because you've got to pick two. A, Ohio. B, Iowa. C, Pennsylvania. D, Virginia. E, Florida. Or F, New Hampshire.
I was going to say Ohio and Missouri. I was going to say Ohio and Missouri, too. Seriously. Whoa. Because those were the big bellwether states back in the day. People, you know, obviously now it's like hard to fathom. Yeah, I really expected Missouri on that list. I'm frankly very disappointed. Definitely going to say Ohio. What were the other ones? I was just waiting for Missouri. I didn't even know. Iowa, Pennsylvania. No, that was seriously exactly the same. Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, New Hampshire.
I think it's either Florida or Iowa. Yeah. I'm going to say Ohio and Florida. But I think Iowa is probably the correct answer and Florida is a ringer. All right. Then I'll say Ohio and Iowa. All right. Well, you both got a point for Ohio. Congratulations. Good job. And Ruth, you get the point for Florida. It was Florida.
Well done. Thank you. Still disappointed about Missouri, though. I mean, that makes sense, obviously. You think about the canonical swing states. Exactly. Though not anymore. Two points for Ruth, one point for Nathaniel. You are again tied. I love this. Honestly, I couldn't be happier. I couldn't be happier. All right. Next question. We can't say statistical tie. Neck and neck is much better. Neck and neck. Right.
Okay, similar question. From 1976 to 2020, 11 states swung between Democrats and Republicans zero times. They vote today the way they voted in 1976. Which of these states was not one of them? A. Alaska B. Utah C. Mississippi D. South Dakota
I think maybe Clinton won South Dakota, so I'm going to say South Dakota. Very low confidence. So that is D, South Dakota. Ruth? You know, Alaska has an independent streak. I'm going to give it to Alaska. You choose A, Alaska. Sadly, no points awarded for this question. It was C, Mississippi. Oh, that actually... Mississippi. Did Clinton win it?
It swung one time from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Jimmy Carter's included. Okay, yeah. And then it's been Republican ever since? That makes sense. Good you threw Utah in there because they had that independence drink with Evan Mullen, you never know. Utah hasn't elected a Democrat statewide since like the 80s. It's something crazy. Obviously, that was a different question, but anyway. Yeah.
All right, still tied. Next question. In 1956, Eisenhower won one of the highest percentages of the black vote for a Republican presidential candidate ever. What percentage was this? A, 22%. B, 29%. C, 43%. Or D, 36%. So obviously not ever. Well, so it is one of the ever, but it is...
The highest in the modern era. Right, because we don't have polling data from the 1800s when they were much more Republican. What was it, 34? D was 36%. 36%. I'm going to go with the one that was in the 40s.
43%. C, 43%. 36%. Yeah. I just think, you know, Eisenhower was popular. There was a lot more fluidity in the electorate. That was before, obviously, like the civil rights era and everything when Democrats really, when Black voters really coalesced around Democrats. So, yeah. Let's go for it. Ruth gets it. It is D, 36%. That is, Ruth now has five points. Welcome to the lead. To Nathaniel's four. All right. Now things are going to get... I told you to let me win. I know. I know.
Now things are going to get kind of fun. Oh. Oh, now they're going to get fun. Yeah, it's been boring. This has been boring so far. Okay, this is all of the next questions have a bit of a theme to them. And they come from the Roper Center's How Groups Voted. Good. Which goes back to Carter versus Ford in 1976. So from then until now. This is exit polls. Yes. Which president since 1976 won the highest overall percentage of women's votes?
A, Clinton in 1996, B, Reagan in 1984, C, Obama in 2008, or D, Bush in 1988? This is percentage of the vote. Mm-hmm.
I mean, I think any question like that has always got to be Reagan in 84 because that was such a landslide of an election. Clinton in 96 is tempting, but there was Ross Perot who had a decent share of the vote. Famously popular amongst women voters. Well, you know, I just don't think in a three-way or even a two-and-a-half-way race...
She's going to beat Reagan's landslide in 84. Yeah, I'm inclined to say Reagan, too, because it was such a landslide. On the other hand, I mean, even in that landslide, did he do better than a Democrat typically does with women? That's what's kind of holding me back to answer that. But that is my sort of initial reaction. So I'm going to go with it. Reagan.
And you both get points. It was Reagan in 1984, although it's not as much of a walk as maybe your analysis would have suggested. Obama won women voters in 2008 with 56 percent. And Reagan won in 1984 with 58 percent. OK. Yeah.
So it was reasonable. That's the thing. I mean, that was what I was struggling with. Reagan had such a landslide victory, but Democrats often do very well with women. So it's really hard to say if that was going to eclipse a typical any any typical Democrat. Well, it's interesting. I realize I don't know the answer to this, but like when did like the gender gap as we kind of know it today really emerge? Yeah, in the 80s.
Yeah, I was actually just looking at this. Well, not as we know it today. It emerged in the 80s and it became really pronounced in the 90s. Right, okay. Yeah, because Clinton actually didn't do as well with women as maybe people think historically. Interesting. Yeah. All right. Next question. Ruth's deleting by one point. By what margin did Jimmy Carter win young voters in 1976? Yeah, yeah. I like that facial expression. No effing clue. No clue. A, he didn't.
B, 18 points. C, 31 points. D, 8 points. I don't know. I feel like, you know, I could see Jimmy Carter being the, you know, Barack Obama of his day, right? Like, you know, this was like after Watergate, people are disgusted. Here comes this like, you know, nice, like, you know, youngish with, you know, like clean governor of Georgia being like clean. Yeah. Like, you know, corruption. Regularly showered. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Not that Gerald Ford was corrupt, but obviously he had ties to Nixon. And yeah, so I could see young voters being really into him. So I'm going to say, was 18 one of the options? 18 was one of the options. I'm going to say that. It's interesting that you say that. Because I think, I mean, I think, yeah, he probably did do well among young voters, but I'm going to go just shy of that. So eight was one of the choices. Yes, that's my guess. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Ruth gets it. It was eight.
Conservatism. I'm really, I'm really fading fast. Yeah. I mean, part of the reason I wanted to include that is to sort of emphasize that the modern gap amongst young voters is exactly that modern, somewhat similar to the modern gender gap that you go back 50 years or so and you see a much closer race, a much more volatile race for these parts of the electorate that we just assume are going overwhelmingly Democratic today and just sort of
hammer that home in 1984. Reagan won young voters by 18 points. In 2008, Obama, the high watermark for Democrats, won them by 34 points. So we are nearing the end of the game. Ruth has seven points. Nathaniel has five. How much would both of you like to wager for this final question? I should not have suggested that.
Well, we can't share our. Yeah, we have to like write down it because, you know, it's like a prisoner's dilemma kind of thing. All right. Well, I'm going to make this easy and say that this final question is worth three points. All right. Thank you. Get ready. When was the last time Democrats won Americans in the top income bracket in exit polls going back to 1976?
And for some context here, today the top income bracket in exit polls is over 100,000. But if you racked to 1976, it was over 20,000. So just the top income bracket across all of the different exit polls. And it has fluctuated or, well, it hasn't fluctuated. It's only increased since 1976. So we have A, Obama in 2008. B, Biden in 2020. C, Clinton in 1996. Or D, never. D, never. Never.
I think it's probably never. I think that Biden probably came close with that group, but I don't think he won. I think it's also D, never. Yeah. Wow.
You both get it. It is D, never. Although that group was tied in 2020. Interesting. Yeah. I thought Biden had done like, yeah, surprisingly well for a Democrat with that group, but I didn't think he'd won it yet. Right. And obviously this is related to the educational realignment, if you want to call it that. And I think it seems I would probably guess that Biden will win them this time. Interesting. Interesting.
All right. So with that, congratulations, Ruth. You got 10 points. Cheers. Good game. Good game. Nathaniel, you got eight. Both. You kept it really competitive all the way through. Much like this election. I and the listeners are the winner here because you made this really competitive and fun to listen to. So thank you. Now I think Ruth moves on to the Jeffrey round. Oh, good God. If I had a chance here, I have no chance there.
He's like the final boss of the 538 video game. Yeah. Bowser? Yeah. Wario? I don't even remember. Those are definitely names of bosses. All right. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been really fun to be in studio with both of you. Now it's time to go to lunch, maybe get a drink. Yeah. The three martini lunch. Isn't that what you guys do in DC? Obviously. Yeah, exactly. That's how all the sausage gets made.
And the polls get made. And the polls. And with that, my name is Galen Druk. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Chertavian. And our intern is Jayla Everett. And thank you to everyone in the DC Bureau and the New York Bureau who helped us set up the studio today so we could do this in person. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or a review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon. ♪
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