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by Galen Druke
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- Today53 min
Trump Hits A New Low
As I was sorting through polls last Friday, preparing for Monday’s podcast recording, I started thinking, “Hmm, Trump’s approval is looking bad. Like, a new level of bad. It’s probably time to talk about it.” Across the polling averages, Trump seemed to be nearing, or already at, the worst numbers of his second term.And like clockwork, in case we needed any further confirmation, The New York Times released its latest Trump approval poll on Monday morning. The headline: “Just 37 percent of Americans approve of his performance as president… his lowest approval rating in any Times/Siena survey in either term.”Nate Cohn went on to write that, “while recent presidencies have often been unpopular and polarizing, no president’s approval rating has been under 38 percent [in the average] for more than a few days in the last 17 years.”So today we talk about that, and a whole lot more.Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy lost his primary on Saturday after Trump endorsed against him. With Cassidy’s departure, only three of the 17 Republicans who backed Trump’s second impeachment might remain after 2026. And two of them, Susan Collins and David Valadao, are fighting for their political lives.We also preview Tuesday night’s primaries in Georgia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. In Georgia, Republicans are choosing a challenger to Sen. Jon Ossoff, while both parties are picking their nominees for governor. In Kentucky, it’s another test of Trump loyalty inside the GOP.And finally, for the wonks, we’ve got a dispatch from this year’s big polling conference: the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Joining me after attending the conference are Mary Radcliffe, head of research at FiftyPlusOne, and Nathaniel Rakich, managing editor at Votebeat. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
- 4 days ago21 min
Live Show: Hot Takes, Warped Maps, and Nerd Trivia
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comA quick note: If you’re not already a paid subscriber, now’s a great time to sign up. Annual subscriptions are currently 20 percent off, which comes out to just $5 a month for twice as many episodes, access to live shows like this one, and more. Come join the crew!The GD POLITICS podcast returned to the Comedy Cellar this week with Nate Silver and Clare Malone for another sold-out night of political analysis, games, audience questions, and jokes that were, as always, purely incidental.We started with “Hot Take Hat,” pulling buzzy topics at random and giving them the treatment they deserved — from Labour’s meltdown in the U.K. and the global incumbency curse, to Hantavirus panic, Trump’s Iran war, inflation, and the apparently urgent matter of the White House ballroom.Then we turned to the 2026 midterms, where the redistricting wars have taken another turn. After rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and the Virginia Supreme Court, what once looked like a possible Democratic counteroffensive is now likely to net out in Republicans’ favor. We talked about how much the new maps could shift the House playing field, the politics of gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act, and the eternal question: Do voters care about any of this, or just the price of gas?Finally, we debuted a new game: “True or False: Crosstab Diving Edition.” Clare, Nate, and the audience guessed their way through some of the quirkiest and most revealing findings buried inside recent polls — including whether Democrats think an average 8-year-old boy could beat Donald Trump in a fight, which age and gender groups have swung hardest against Trump, and what Americans really think about AI, marijuana, and bisexuality.Catch the full episode for hot takes, warped maps, cursed crosstabs, and a reminder that American politics remains, somehow, both very serious and worthy of laughter.
- 1 weeks ago54 min
Can Public Health Win Back The Public?
Heads up: We’ve got a live show at the Comedy Cellar in New York City with Nate Silver and Clare Malone coming up on May 13. We’ll talk about the midterms and the Trump administration, play some games, and take questions from the audience. Grab a ticket, grab a beer, and come join us!Just about every institution in America has taken a reputational beating this century. And still, the speed and severity with which Americans have turned on the public health establishment remain striking.In March 2020, when COVID began disrupting American life in earnest, 85 percent of Americans said they trusted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an information source. Today, six years later, that figure is 47 percent. Republicans were the first to lose faith, dropping to around 40 percent during Biden’s tenure, but Democrats have largely caught up during Trump’s second term.For public health folks, this is an existential threat. If they can’t be trusted, their information can’t persuade, and public health itself becomes more of an academic exercise than an effort to save lives. The current hantavirus outbreak is a stark reminder of the stakes.It’s easy to blame bad-faith actors for the bind public health now finds itself in. But it’s also hard to have lived through the past six years without a sense that experts have helped bring some of this on themselves. In fact, they’re increasingly acknowledging as much and setting out to course correct.Sandro Galea, dean of the School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis, and Salma Abdalla, a professor at WashU’s School of Public Health, have launched a yearlong project called Purple Public Health, which aims to rebuild credibility with Americans of all stripes. (Sandro came on the podcast last year to talk about MAHA, so he may sound familiar.)I’m excited to have them on today’s podcast to talk about their work — not just because it matters on its own terms, but also because there’s probably something for all of us to learn about earning credibility in a polarized world. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
- 1 weeks ago19 min
How Prediction Markets Made The World A Casino
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player here.When we first started talking about prediction markets in the early days of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, back in 2016, they were something of a novelty and a joke.My then-colleague Clare Malone once quipped, “Who’s even putting money on these markets … Scottish teenagers?” From then on, we referred to online bettors as Scottish teens.Back then, the prediction markets that got the most attention were Betfair, based in the U.K., and PredictIt, based in New Zealand. Both took off in terms of volume and media attention during Brexit and Trump’s first election. But after 2016, PredictIt got bogged down in regulatory drama, and Betfair was largely inaccessible to Americans. In their place, Kalshi and Polymarket became the main characters in the American prediction market story.Today, prediction markets are no longer much of a novelty or a joke.Recently, an active-duty U.S. Army soldier was charged with using classified information for personal gain after he made more than $400,000 betting on Maduro’s ouster on Polymarket. He was allegedly involved in planning and executing Maduro’s capture.Betting trends point to potentially similar insider knowledge being used in Iran War prediction markets in February and March of this year. And Israeli prosecutors filed indictments against an Israel Defense Forces reservist and a civilian for allegedly using classified military intelligence to bet on Polymarket in the run-up to strikes on Iran last summer.The list goes on. Kalshi suspended three American political candidates for insider trading after an internal probe found they had bet on their own campaigns. Weather instruments at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris appear to have been tampered with in order to rapidly increase the temperature — perhaps with a lighter or hair dryer — and cash in on a weather prediction contract.As things stand, prediction markets seem likely to keep growing in popularity and media attention. On Polymarket, more than half a billion dollars has already been wagered on the outcome of the 2028 presidential election. One estimate suggests that total volume across prediction markets could reach $1 trillion annually by 2030.Meanwhile, lawmakers in Washington and the states are increasingly talking about cracking down on the markets, and state attorneys general have been filing lawsuits.So today, we’re diving into the messy world of prediction markets: their history, how they work, the arguments for and against them, how they’re regulated, and what their future holds.Joining me is Jacob Studwell, growth and engagement officer at PredictIt — home of the Scottish teens.
- 2 weeks ago49 min
The Senate Map Has A Maine Character
Heads up: We’ve got a live show at the Comedy Cellar in New York City with Nate Silver and Clare Malone coming up on May 13. We’ll talk about the midterms and the Trump administration, play some games, and take questions from the audience. Grab a ticket, grab a beer, and come join us!The Senate map is coming into focus. Maine Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the Democratic primary last week, leaving former Marine and oyster farmer Graham Platner as the presumptive Democratic nominee against Sen. Susan Collins.Mills was trailing Platner by 30 points on average before she dropped out. Meanwhile, Platner — despite no shortage of early scandals, including the infamous Nazi tattoo and online writings that ranged from calling rural whites racist and stupid to asking why Black people don’t tip — was raking in cash and rallying voters. It was a poor showing for Mills herself, but also for the establishment that drafted her to run in the first place.On today’s podcast, Sahil Kapur of NBC News joins me to discuss what the truncated Maine primary tells us about the Democratic Party right now: the “Biden trauma tax,” the value of “authenticity,” and whether Democrats are experiencing something like their own Tea Party moment.We also survey the rest of the Senate map, from North Carolina and Alaska to Ohio and Texas, and ask which races are actually most likely to flip. Then we turn to Washington, where the longest partial government shutdown in history has ended and Trump’s war in Iran is testing the War Powers Act. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
- 2 weeks ago34 min
Where The Gerrymandering Fight Goes From Here
Heads up: We’ve got a live show at the Comedy Cellar in New York City with Nate Silver and Clare Malone coming up on May 13. We’ll talk about the midterms and the Trump administration, play some games, and take questions from the audience. Grab a ticket, grab a beer, and come join us!The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais, striking down Louisiana’s congressional map and significantly raising the bar for challenges under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.The decision was not the full doomsday scenario that some voting rights advocates feared. The Court did not strike down the Voting Rights Act altogether, nor did it say that race can never be considered in redistricting. But the 6-3 conservative majority did make it harder to prove that a map illegally dilutes minority voting power, especially in an era when race and party are so closely correlated.So where does the fight over gerrymandering go from here?Nathaniel Rakich of VoteBeat joined me to break down what the Court actually decided, how the ruling could affect the 2026 and 2028 House maps, and why the next phase of the redistricting wars may hinge less on the courts and more on federal legislation, constitutional amendments, or some future anti-politics reform movement. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
- 3 weeks ago1h 5m
A Year Of Carney In The Age Of Trump
Heads up: We’ve got a live show at the Comedy Cellar in New York City with Nate Silver and Clare Malone coming up on May 13. We’ll talk about the midterms and the Trump administration, play some games, and take questions from the audience. Grab a ticket, grab a beer, and come join us!Tuesday marks one year since the Liberals won Canada’s federal election, securing Mark Carney as prime minister despite a Conservative victory looking like a foregone conclusion just months earlier.A year later, Carney’s popularity and power have only grown. His approval rating sits at about 60 percent, and after winning three by-elections earlier this month, the Liberals now govern with a majority in Parliament.The combination of Carney’s tack to the center and a backlash against American economic threats has transformed Canadian politics. Minor parties have been sidelined, new parts of the electorate have been absorbed into the Liberal coalition, and Canadians appear to be giving Carney the benefit of the doubt despite challenging economic circumstances.The biggest question for Liberals now is how long Canadians’ economic patience will last — and how long Trump’s influence will, too. Philippe Fournier of 338Canada and Éric Grenier of The Writ joined me to discuss it all. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
- 3 weeks ago21 min
Hot Politicians, Deaths In Office, And The Nebraska Senate Race
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player here.Virginia voters approved a gerrymander of their congressional map by a slim margin on Tuesday. As we discussed on Monday, the new map could elect 10 Democrats and just one Republican this fall, replacing the current delegation of six Democrats and five Republicans.It’s a dramatic turn in the mid-decade redistricting saga that began with Texas’s Republican gerrymander last summer. As things stand, Democrats could end up as the net beneficiaries of an effort initiated by President Trump.We dig into those results at the top of today’s podcast, then turn to the listener mailbag. We’ve been getting lots of great questions in the paid subscriber chat on Substack at gdpolitics.com. (A reminder to paid subscribers to take advantage of that!). I’ll start a new thread there so you can drop in questions whenever you like.Today’s questions cover the California governor’s race, whether candidate attractiveness affects election outcomes, that poll suggesting the Democratic Party is less popular than ICE and the GOP, whether MAGA identification has declined, and what to watch in the midterms — especially the Senate. We even get into the Nebraska race, which one listener argues deserves more attention.Joining me are Mary Radcliffe, head of research at FiftyPlusOne, and Lenny Bronner, senior data scientist at The Washington Post.
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About GD POLITICS
Making sense of politics and the world with curiosity, rigor, and a sense of humor. www.gdpolitics.com
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