What Americans Expect From Trump's Second Term
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Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk, and we're beginning to get a clearer view of what a second Trump administration might look like. Trump is announcing his cabinet picks, some more conventional than others. The size of Republicans' majority in Congress is coming into focus. And this has all led to predictions about what will and won't happen in a second Trump administration.

We, of course, do not have a crystal ball. You all know this very well by this point. But we do have data. And that data reveals a lot about the expectations of consumers, TV news viewers, Wall Street traders, and yes, even the Scottish teens, aka the online betting markets.

So today we have two games that are going to help us assess expectations. The first is buy, sell, hold. We will survey the betting market odds for what will happen in Trump's second term, in particular, whether he'll get his nominees confirmed. Sneak preview right now. Polly Market says there's a 21 percent chance that Matt Gaetz gets confirmed as attorney general.

Then, secondly, we're going to do a round of Guess What Americans Think. How much has Trump's election scrambled economic sentiment, the markets, Nielsen TV ratings, and more? So here with me to do all of that is senior elections analyst Jeffrey Skelly. Welcome to the podcast, Jeffrey. Hey, Galen. All

Also here with us is senior researcher Mary Radcliffe. Welcome, Mary. Good morning, Galen. Do you all have your game faces on? Are you ready to do this? I mean, let's go. Let's see what we got. I think we got to put our cards out on the table here, first of all, which is that, Mary, you used to, before you worked as a journalist, participate in the online betting market. So I don't know, maybe you have an edge in this game? Well, that depends because when you play the markets, which I obviously haven't done in years...

you're not always necessarily playing to hold, right? You're playing to what you think the market itself will do in the future.

So that's maybe a different perspective than the long term outcomes. Pulling the curtain back here, the Wednesday night after the election, we all went out, of course, to celebrate and we were talking about strategy and online betting markets. And Mary said, you never hold until the event actually happens. You buy and sell contracts, you buy the contracts low, you sell them high and you move on to the next political event. Exactly.

Exactly. Because things change over time, right? So if something looks like there could be a piece of news that would impact it one direction or the other, you're playing for that news, not for the actual outcome. Okay. Well, with that, let's begin. As I said, according to PolyMarket, there is a 21% chance that Matt Gaetz, former representative now, is confirmed as attorney general.

To add some context to that, this past week, Trump announced that he was nominating Matt Gaetz for attorney general. It was surprising to a lot of people. He immediately resigned from Congress. And then it became clear that it looked like we were days away from a House Ethics Committee investigation becoming public with allegations that Gaetz was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl, a probe that ended Wednesday with Gaetz's resignation from the House. 21% chance, buy, sell, hold, marry.

I think I'm a hold on this. I think it's pretty unlikely that Gaetz gets confirmed based on what we've been seeing from various senators, statements that senators have been making.

On the other hand, I think there's probably a lot of senators that are not really excited to cross Trump. So the question I think here is whether Gates himself will withdraw his nomination before it makes it to the floor. Because there's a few ways that this could fail. And typically in these sorts of situations, if someone's really not going to get confirmed, the pressure campaign is on.

before it ever makes it to the floor of the Senate to get them to pull out. I think if it makes it to the floor of the Senate, he's got a pretty good shot at confirmation simply because I think the Republican senators are not at this point ready to go against what Trump wants. Interesting. Jeffrey?

I think I would buy. And it gets back to the fact that if it makes it to the floor of the Senate, as Mary said, I suspect he will be confirmed. Okay. So let's just do a little background and some Senate math. So-

There hasn't been a rejected nominee, like someone who lost the floor vote in the Senate for confirmation since 1989. There have been, since that time, roughly a dozen nominations that were withdrawn. And so to Mary's point, I think if Gates is going to fail, it's going to be a withdrawal moment rather than on the floor, most likely. And for me, the thing is, if I'm sitting there

And I'm thinking, all right, well, maybe Republicans in the Senate who will have, it looks like probably a 53-47 majority. Pennsylvania is still pending, but probably 53-47. You need four Republicans to break. That means either some Republicans who are in potential electoral danger and don't want to have a vote for Matt Gaetz on their record or being able to shape that into like supporting –

Radical, MAGA, etc., etc., or that some institutionalists who maybe feel more secure in their political position decide to risk Trump's wrath by voting against Gates. And my problem is that having observed the Republican Party for the last eight years and the fact that the party has become more Trumpy.

If it makes it to the floor, I believe he'll get confirmed. And I think there's a reasonable chance it's going to get. So I would buy because I think Susan Collins and maybe Lisa Murkowski are the only two clear nose to me. Like actually when push comes to shove and that still leaves you too short of stopping it. And that's why I believe almost all of Trump's appointees will get confirmed in the end. So maybe we can speed right through this part of the show. But just to confirm for folks, the

buy means that Jeffrey thinks those odds are low. So if you're buying, you think they're too low. If you're selling, you think they're too high. I know sometimes we get turned around when we're playing this game. So to add a little bit of context here, Senator John Cornyn, who holds the top spot on the committee that will consider Gates's nomination, said that he and other lawmakers should get access to the report by the House of Representatives Ethics Committee, which

which examined these allegations. For further context, the DOJ concluded its sex trafficking investigation without charging Gates in 2023. So there may be some information in there that's salacious. Of course, the DOJ ultimately did not pursue this. And just for what it's worth, Americans are not fans of Matt Gates. YouGov surveys just about everything. They found that 70% of Americans have heard of him. I mean, that's like...

like pretty high for a member of Congress. Only 23% said they had a favorable view of him. He

He's not in much electoral danger. I mean, obviously, he's no longer a member of the House, but he was also elected by a deep red district in the Florida panhandle. And even there, he ran behind Trump by five points. So to add a little bit of context there, Mary, how do you respond to Jeff's buy? I do think that we are going to see more pressure campaign to get Gates to withdraw. I mean,

The Federalist Society reportedly is pretty unhappy with this pick, which should probably carry a lot of weight for attorney general in a Republican administration. I've seen some reports to that effect. Very few people willing to go on the record, but a lot of people willing to talk on background, which means they are talking about

to power brokers in the background here that we are not privy to. I also think there may be a few more people willing to go against Gates than just Murkowski and Collins. I would not be surprised, for example, if Mitch McConnell was a no. He's a longstanding institutionalist with nothing to lose because he's not running again and has made no secret of the fact that he doesn't always like the bombast from the Trump administration in the past. So I think there's maybe...

a little more that could happen in this particular case. That's three. Yes, I know that's three. We need a fourth. But now you, well, I mean, we've heard skeptical statements from, as you mentioned, John Cornyn, from Mark Wayne Mullen. I think the thing is, if Trump really wants this guy, if Trump really wants this guy, and he wants a loyalist heading the Department of Justice carrying out all of his commands,

The track record of Republicans standing up against Trump is, let's say, not very lengthy or deep. Sure. I think what you need to be secure in holding or selling is who the alternative is. And I think you're right, Jeffrey, that somebody is not going to head the DOJ unless they are loyal to Trump. Does that person need to be Matt Gaetz? Is there, quite frankly, somebody who will be more effective at doing that?

doing what Trump wants as the head of DOJ, then Matt Gaetz. So I think it's like, if somebody can convince Trump that it's actually not in his best interest to have Matt Gaetz be the attorney general and offer an alternative, then maybe you see some movement. Yeah, and I think the way to convince Trump is not to harp on, you know, investigations and all these rumors of salacious misdeeds and so on. It's fake news, you know. Because he can say that's fake news, but...

I mean, this is a guy who only worked as a lawyer for two years before he went to Congress, right? I mean, this is not someone with depth of experience in the legal field that can competently lead a team of lawyers that have, you know, hundreds of different things that they have to be working on all of the time. All right, let's move on. We will follow up on this when it actually happens or doesn't. According to Polymarket, there is a 69% chance that

Pete Hagseth is confirmed as Secretary of Defense. Little context there. He's 44 years old and the co-host of Fox & Friends Weekends. He's a military veteran who served overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he does not have senior military or national security experience.

On Friday, news broke that Pete Hagseth was subject to a sexual assault complaint in California in 2017. Hagseth paid the woman responsible for the allegation but denies all wrongdoing. And Trump told advisers that he's standing by Hagseth despite that news. Buy, sell, hold. 69% that Pete Hagseth is confirmed. We'll start with you, Jeffrey. Well, it was higher before the news came out, obviously, about the

the sexual assault allegations i think my view would be to probably buy only because it was higher and sometimes even when new events have come in to change understanding of a situation

they sometimes can lead people to overreact. It might be worth still buying because the price has dropped and it might have overcorrected in a way. And so at the end of the day, I think that's a reasonable bet. This is the exact opportunity that Mary was talking about. You react to the news, buy when the markets are low and sell before he ever gets to his confirmation hearing.

Am I right on that, Mary? Yeah, absolutely. This is a buy. The reaction based on a sexual assault allegation, I think, is probably overreaction by the markets. We've had lots of nominees that have had similar sorts of allegations in the past and had no problem getting confirmed. So I would suspect that ultimately that bit of news probably blows over.

And of course, he aligns very much with Trump's priorities when it comes to the military. He's called to clean house at the Pentagon, referring to woke generals and in his recent book railed against DEI efforts in the military. And like Trump, he's been critical of NATO allies who are not spending enough on their own defense.

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Let's move on to a slightly different bet, which is that according to PolyMarket, there's a 24% chance that Elon Musk will be out from the Department of Government Efficiency in under six months. So basically, are Elon and Trump united for the long haul? Or will he leave? Or will Trump kick him out within six months? Mary, buy, sell, hold, 24% chance. I'm definitely a buy on this one, in part because both Trump...

and Musk are such big personalities that are used to being in control all of the time. I think that the likelihood that even that there's just some piece of news about some sort of rift coming down in the next six months would probably bring the price of this contract up. I mean, there's also reporting that inner circle folks like Susie Wiles and other folks around Trump are getting a little annoyed with Elon being around all the time already, and he's not even president yet.

I agree that I would buy given where it's at right now. I will say that I suspect that if it does happen, it will be longer than six months. So that's why you get out.

Before six months. You get out of the contract before completion. Yeah. Because here's the thing, a couple of things. We don't really know how much impact this new department is going to actually have. It may be something like a blue ribbon commission that has very little actual say. And so the amount of conflict, anything to do with that, that might actually lead to Musk leaving or being forced out or what have you, might not just rise to a level necessary. It also might take...

a little longer than six months for heads to bust against each other so much that they end up separating in some way. So if you're asking me what's the best strategy market-wise I would buy, in terms of actual timing that I think this kind of thing could happen, I would actually go a little longer than six months. Yeah, I mean, this gets at a big theme of Trump's first term, which is that there was an unprecedented amount of turnover within his administration.

And so the question this time will be, even with a lot of these unconventional choices, will they stick around longer because they align with Trump more and they aren't sort of establishment choices that are out of place in a Trump administration? Or is it going to still be the same problem, which is that folks butt heads and Trump gets tired of people and there is still a significant amount of churn for what it's worth?

In a YouGov poll conducted after the election, 52% of registered voters think Musk will have a lot of influence in Trump's administration. That is 10 percentage points more than the 42% who said the same about J.D. Vance. So just looking at expectations right now, Americans believe that Elon Musk will have more influence in this administration than the vice president.

I don't know if that says more about the vice presidency or if it says more about Elon Musk, but for what it's worth. Okay, let's move on. This one I think is more conventional. So I'll be curious what you think. According to Polymarket, there's a 92% chance that Lee Zeldin is confirmed as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. He may be known to folks because he ran for governor unsuccessfully in New York in 2022. And he is tasked in many ways with

And of course, on the campaign trail, Trump pledged to kill and cancel EPA rules and regulations that restricted fossil fuel pollution. So that's sort of the task at hand. 92% chance that he is confirmed. Jeffrey, buy, sell, hold.

The only reason that I would hesitate to buy here is because it is so high already that I think I would probably hold. I think Zeldin is one of the more conventional picks that Trump has made. He was a member of Congress for, what, eight years before his failed run for governor.

He's a member of the House, well-known. There's going to be articles about things. I think he's a bit of a climate skeptic or at least has some views like that. But at the end of the day, he is a far cry in terms of issues that are front and center that some of these other nominees have.

So I assume that he will get confirmed. But just given where the market's at, I would probably just hold. Yeah. In my experience, it never really pays to buy something at 92. You never know what can happen. Black Swan events happen all the time. But I agree with Jeffrey. I think this is one of the nominations that I have...

No doubt, as long as, you know, nothing that cannot be predicted comes out, I think there's the wholesale through. And I guess we should probably even say that some of these picks will have an even better chance if Republican senators are like, well, we rejected the most controversial one. And you can debate about who that is. I know we're going to get to somebody else here in a minute. But I think that gives them more leeway to actually confirm some of the other controversial choices if they feel like they rejected one of them.

All right. Well, with that, Jeffrey, you've teed me up perfectly. There is a 70% chance that RFK Jr. will be confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Folks are mostly familiar with his stance on vaccinations. And while he's denied claims that he would ban or block vaccinations, he's also said he wants to examine government vaccine safety data and share his findings with the public.

for what it says about the market's reaction. Prices for vaccine makers Moderna, Pfizer, and Merck fell after Trump announced the pick. He also said that he wants to overhaul the systems that oversee pesticides, food additives, and pharmaceuticals. He accused the FDA of suppressing the benefits of all sorts of things, including raw milk, psychedelics, sunlight, ivermectin, and quote, anything else that advances human health that can't

be patented. This is an interesting cut across party lines or just general views. For example, Marianne Williamson has said that she's very excited with this pick. And he's also, of course, vowed to remove fluoride from drinking water, which is not a federal government decision, but a local decision. Nonetheless, 70% chance RFK Jr. will be confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Mary, buy, sell, hold.

This is a tricky one, I think, because in some ways, I think you can see where RFK Jr. might align with the Republican Party on some priorities. And on others, it seems like he might be inclined to more regulations than the Republican Party is generally comfortable with. So this one's a little off the wall in a lot of ways. Would I play this contract at all? Right.

Mary's like, actually, next, next question. I mean, no, it is interesting. You know, the last person who in a high profile way tried to say Americans are unhealthy, we should make some changes. It's actually Michelle Obama, which was panned pretty widely by Republicans and

even though it was like, you know, put more vegetables in school lunches and encouraging people to garden and things like that, or maybe being more explicit with nutritional facts on packaged goods. And so that seems of a piece with some of what RFK Jr. is saying about health standards in America. If you look at his social media presence, a lot of it is America is fat and unhealthy. That's kind of what he's saying, which, again,

When folks like Michael Bloomberg have said that or, you know, like I said, Michelle Obama's work has sort of implied that we're unhealthy. There has been a lot of blowback from Republicans. Yeah, exactly. That's why this is such a tricky one. But there's also a universe in which you could see this pick getting some support from Democratic senators as well. Yeah, we're all cross party lines here. Everything is a little topsy turvy with this one, I guess, under the basic framework that

Most nominees will get through if they make it to the floor. At 70, I suppose I'm going to reluctantly buy. But more realistically, I'm going to not touch this contract until I have some more information. All right, Jeffrey? I frankly thought this was high. Oh, he's selling. I was not expecting 70 because in my view, Gates and RFK Jr. are the two most difficult and problematic nominees, at least so far.

And the ones that I could see the most hangups about and RFK Jr., as Mary pointed out, has these potential like hangups because he is not exactly a dyed in the wool Republican that could create issues on top of just the many controversies associated with him. So how...

I guess I'd be inclined to maybe hold. I don't know. It's tough. Because I also think that most people are going to get confirmed in the end. Sounds like you're leaning towards sell. Why not make things interesting, Jeffrey? You guys can be- Sure. I'll sell. You know what? I'll sell because it seems like maybe the market has popped up on that. Actually, let me take a look. Did it pop up? I hadn't actually checked to see if it had gone up. It's been hanging around 70%.

Yeah, I'll get out so I can buy the Matt Gaetz contract. All right. This is the last of our buy, sell, hold questions. And it is directly related to this one, which is, does the Trump administration recommend removing fluoride from water?

According to Polymarket, there's a 39% chance that the US Public Health Service officially withdraws or ends its recommendation for adding fluoride to US drinking water. For context, on November 6th, RFK Jr. said in an interview that the Trump administration would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water. For more context, most of Western Europe does not add fluoride to its drinking water.

And also an important note here that I already made, which is that this is up to local health authorities, not the White House. So this would be a recommendation, not an actual sort of binding piece of law. 39% that the Trump administration recommends removing fluoride from U.S. drinking water. Jeffrey, buy, sell, hold. I think I would...

I got I probably wouldn't touch this contract to Mary's point. You have to. I'm forcing you to. Yeah, this is just a weird one. And I just think in the grand scheme of priorities for the Trump administration, this one's a bit down the list. And so that makes me a little more like I you know what? There's no time aspect to this.

So I think I would buy under those circumstances. So there's not like it's not going to expire because there is a chance that it will happen at some point. If there were a sort of the six month thing like Elon Musk contract, I would not want to buy this. But sure, I'll buy under those circumstances. Yeah, I think I'm also a buy for the same reason, especially because it's a fairly toothless thing for the Trump administration to do. They can just do it and then there's like nothing happens as a result.

especially if we're in a regime where we're, you know, I was buying at RFK Jr. getting confirmed at 70, which I think also increases the likelihood of this recommendation being made. And because it doesn't have any immediate impact, there's sort of no downside, I think. All right. Got to stay consistent with those bets, Mary. Let's move on to guess what Americans think. But first, a break.

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All right, it is time for Guess What Americans Think. And the way that this works is I am going to cite some piece of polling or survey data about how Americans, or in some cases markets, are feeling about the second Trump administration. Mary and Jeff, you will be tasked with guessing the number. Whoever is closest wins. These are not prices right rules. You can go over and still win the

the point. But unlike buy, sell, hold, this is a real competition now. We will know the results of your bet in the moment. There will be a winner. There will be a loser. Take this seriously. Let's begin. In the days after the election, Morning Consul found changes in consumer sentiment along partisan lines. No real surprises there. Sentiment rose among Republicans and fell among Democrats. By how much did sentiment among Democrats fall?

And this will be a percent. All right. Three, two, one reveal. I have 23 percent. I have 28. All right. And Mary gets it. Although you both went over, it was 13 percent. Oh, that little sentiment. Yes. Consumer sentiment among Democrats. But just you wait. So that fall brought sentiment among Democrats down to levels not seen since early 2023, erasing almost two years of gains.

By how much, though, did consumer sentiment rise amongst Republicans? Three, two, one, reveal. I have 31. 35.

All right, Mary gets it. It was 30%. So we have an interesting dynamic here, which is one that we've actually talked about on this podcast, that when it comes to economic sentiment, Republicans cheer louder and boo harder. They are more reactive to a change in administration than Democrats are.

What should we make of that? I think it's also worth noting that Democrats in the 2024 campaign spent a lot of time banging the drum about how the economy wasn't as bad as people were thinking it was. The indicators were positive. So Democrats have to erase that from their memories first, I think, before they're going to let their sentiment fall much further. There's that may be part of it.

I think also, I mean, we have seen in this election in particular, a higher Democratic vote share among wealthier counties. So there may be less reaction among Democrats to changes in the economy simply because

more Democrats are better situated. All right, let's move on. It is Mary to Jeff Zero. Jeff, let's see if we can get you on the board with this one. This has to do with TV viewership. According to data from Nielsen, MSNBC's primetime audience since Election Day has fallen by what percent compared with October's numbers?

Three, two, one, reveal. And 45. 68. Mary gets it again. It is 53%. Now, I want to talk about this in a second, but first let's do the follow-up one, which is, according to Nielsen, what is the percentage change in Fox News' primetime audience since Election Day?

All right. Three, two, one, reveal. I have minus 17. Minus 10. And Jeffrey gets it because it actually increased by 21%. Really? Really? How is that possible? Interesting. Compared to October, right? Yes. We have a 53% decrease in MSNBC's primetime audience and a 21% increase in Fox News' primetime audience. Now...

You can make many things of this, but my question is, does this say anything about the sort of resistance movement, which is that in the immediate aftermath of Trump's victory in 2016, the resistance was overwhelming. Folks immediately started planning the Women's March. Everything was 12 out of 10 on the outrage scale every single day. And people were

People across the country got really involved in politics, immediately started focusing on the midterms of 2018 and tuning in to CNN and MSNBC for that sort of outrage IV. Does this suggest that the dynamic has changed? Does it suggest that it's only changed in the short term and not the long term? What should we make of this? I think my inclination is to think it's short term because...

Things are going to be happening once Trump takes office. And I would guess, based on our media environment and how politics are these days, that there will be a strong negative response from Democrats and people on the left.

So on the whole, that would seem to me that you're going to still see a lot of public outrage. MSNBC's ratings, they probably go back up some. Maybe they don't reach the same heights as October of the presidential election year, which is a fair point. And I wouldn't mind seeing full historical data on a couple of months after the month leading into a presidential election, which is probably a pretty high time for

You know, are we comparing with a super high point here? And where does that compare overall? But obviously, I know that the ratings game is a battle of what's what have you done for me lately? Yeah. OK, well, we are now at Mary three, Jeff five.

One, let's move on to a different way of measuring what Americans think, or at least some Americans. So the day after the election, this sector of the S&P 500 saw a 5% increase, which is the largest jump of any of the S&P's core 11 sectors. What are those sectors, you may ask? It is information technology, financials, healthcare, consumer discretionary, communication services, industrials, consumer staples,

Energy, real estate, materials, and utilities. We're getting real wonky here with this one. And here we go. Three, two, one, reveal. I went with information technology. I went with energy. I understand where you're all going with this. It was actually financial. So banking had the largest increase the day after the election. And

And I think it's in large part because Wall Street is betting that the Trump administration will relax regulations on banks and financial service companies. We will see what happens. Of course, the markets for that week grew across the board. So I think a lot of different sectors of the economy were betting that this would benefit them, although it seems like things have settled down or even declined since then.

After the election, the day after the election, after I got back from New York, I took the day off and I did an analysis of how the stock market reacted the day after the election for every election back in the post-war era and compared that to stock performance during that president's term.

Zero correlation. Mary, this is why we love you. Slightly negative correlation if you consider GDP instead of stock market. Mary, this is an article, right? We got to turn this into an article. So what you're telling me is that I can't just put all of my savings into...

institutions right now and expect them to grow by 5% every day until the end of Trump's second term? No, although I didn't do this analysis by sector, which also would be really interesting. I just looked at the S&P 500 overall and like how much it changed in the day immediately after the presidential election. And it just doesn't correlate at all to to overall changes during that president's term. All right. Moving on to a broad

broader-based analysis of how Americans are making decisions. We appreciate you, Wall Street, but we're moving on to the real Americans. A new report from the Civic Health and Institutions Project asked more than 25,000 Americans what their most important source of information was when making decisions about voting. With 29%, what was the most common response for making decisions about voting?

who to vote for in this election. See, the whole thing with this is that, of course, this is what people say, but knowing how people choose to vote is not necessarily going to line up with what they say. Not trusting the public to record its preferences responsibly. That's why you've got to also look at

stated preferences and reveal preferences. People are also really bad at explaining their own decision making. I mean, not me. I'm really good at explaining my own decision making. All right. Three, two, one, reveal. I said family. I have friends and family. And you both got the point. It was friends and family discussion with friends and family. Like the two political science junkies I know you to be. You both got it right. The science

Second most common response was news stories with 26%, but almost a third of Americans saying the most important factor is conversations with friends and family. And the two groups that were most likely to rely on friends and family were voters age 18 to 24. 38% of young people said that. And Republicans were also more likely, 34% said that. So Mary has four points. Jeffrey has two points. We got two questions left. Let's motor on through.

This is a straightforward one. According to YouGov, what percentage of Americans expect Trump to accomplish more in his second term than in his first? The options were more, less, the same, or don't know. Three, two, one.

One reveal. 38%. 35%. All right. And Jeffrey, you got it. It's 47%. I'm surprised it's that high. Yeah. Yeah, I'm surprised it's that high too. Only 16% expect he will accomplish less.

So it sounds like Americans think he's going to do what he said he's going to do. I suppose that makes sense in a survey taking really close to an election, actually, now that I'm thinking more about it, because folks that voted for Trump are probably going to say that they think he's going to accomplish a lot of his goals. I think you'll see some cynicism set in in a little while. Yeah. And then it would make sense that the people who voted against him for the most part said same or less.

All right. Final question for today's whole podcast episode of games, which is that you got asked respondents. Do you think America is ready to elect a woman president? In May 2015, 61 percent of Americans said yes. What percentage of Americans said the same last week? Three, two, one reveal.

I said 63 because I figured it may not have changed that much. I said 43. And Mary gets it. It is 46% of Americans said that we as a country are ready to elect a woman president. This pessimism is driven largely by Democrats. Democrats. Okay. Yeah. In May 2015,

81% of Democrats said America was ready. Last week, just 51% of Democrats said the same, but every group grew more pessimistic about it. So among independents, there was an eight-point decline. Amongst Republicans, a seven-point decline. Amongst men, there was a—let's see how quickly I can do math live—a 17-point decline.

Is that right? Yes. A 17 point decline. And amongst women, there was a 15 point decline. So we will see, like you said, this is a reaction to the most recent election. We will see how much that changes over the next four years. Yeah. I mean, it's not just a reaction to 2024, but also 2016, I think. Yeah, of course. Of course. All right. So the tally is, Mary, you have five. Jeff,

You have three. We're going to have to wait a while longer to see who won buy, sell, hold, or at least who made the most money in buy, sell, hold. But we have a lot of questions that we didn't get to this round. So we will come back to these games in the near future. For now, thank you, Jeff and Mary.

Thanks so much, Galen. Thanks, Galen. Before we go, I do want to say that like before the election, we want to do another mailbag episode where we answer some of your questions. You had a lot of questions that you wanted answered before Americans votes were tallied, but I'm sure you have even more now. So you can get in touch on Twitter at Galen Druk or Blue Sky or Threads or whatever the kids are using these days.

You can also email us, as always, at podcastsat538.com, or you can send a carrier pigeon, your choice. My name is Galen Druk. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Tritavian. You can get in touch by emailing us, like I just said, at podcastsat538.com. You can also, of course, treat us with questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you soon. ♪

Fifty years ago, a young woman named Karen Silkwood got into her car alone. She was reportedly on her way to deliver sensitive documents to a New York Times reporter. Bluntly stated, she was spying on her employer, gathering evidence her union wanted to document charges of safety violations at the Kermagee Corporation's nuclear plant. Karen never made it to that meeting with the reporter. Do you think somebody killed her?

There's no question in my mind that someone killed her that night. I think they were trying to stop her in order to get the documents. And those documents she'd agreed to deliver were never found. Fifty years later, we've tracked down fragments of Silkwood's story, including a trove of never-before-heard investigative tapes. Mike, you found it. Holy cow, I got goosebumps.

And we learned the accident investigator saved something from the crash, something he believed was a smoking gun. He told his daughter on his deathbed to hang on to it. We have the bumper. Something's not right with this story. I think it needs to be looked into further. A new investigation into the life and death of America's first nuclear whistleblower. Listen to Radioactive, the Karen Silkwood Mystery, from ABC Audio.

Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.