GD POLITICS

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.On Monday’s episode we began to set the table for the 2026 midterms. Today we acknowledge that there’s something of a bull threatening all the fine china we’ve just laid out. Pardon the strained metaphor.Put bluntly, the 2026 midterms will be the first nationwide federal election with Trump as president since 2020, when he pushed to overturn the results. Some recent developments have already caused a tea cup or two to wobble. I promise I’m done with the metaphor now.This week, on Dan Bongino’s podcast, Trump suggested that Republicans move to nationalize elections in 15 unnamed states and later reiterated his push from behind the Resolute Desk at a bill signing ceremony. Last week, in an unusual move, the FBI raided a Fulton County elections office, seizing 2020 ballots and other voting records.In the background of all of this, starting last year, the Department of Justice began requesting full voter rolls with private voter information from states, in an apparent attempt to create a national voter file.Trump has also issued executive orders attempting to change the elections process nationally, including that all ballots be received by the time polls close on Election Day and that Americans show government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship when they register to vote. For what it’s worth, he has also quipped about canceling the election, something he can’t do, and about ending mail voting.Concerned about losses at the midterms, state Republicans, at Trump’s request, have already pursued mid-decade gerrymandering to try to buttress their majority. Trump’s latest comments about nationalizing elections came after a Democrat won a state Senate seat in Tarrant County, Texas, by over-performing Trump’s win in 2024 by 30 percentage points.It doesn’t take a detective to put these pieces together. A president who has a record of only accepting election results when he wins is concerned about Republican losses at the midterms. He has told Republicans himself that he doesn’t want the ensuing consequences, which would be Democratic investigations into his administration. In an attempt to prevent that, Trump may sow doubt in the results in 2026 or try more serious interventions.Today we dig into what that could look like and detail the ways American elections are designed to be resilient. After all, it’s not one bull in one china shop. There are more than 9,000 jurisdictions administering elections nationwide and no matter what Trump says, the constitution charges the states with running elections.With me to discuss it all is Nathaniel Rakich, managing editor at Votebeat, and Jessica Huseman, editorial director of Votebeat. Votebeat is a nonprofit newsroom that covers voting and election administration.

This is our start-of-the-year, table-setting episode for the 2026 midterms. A flood of January news pushed it back, but the clock is now ticking. The primaries begin in just four weeks.Republicans begin with control of the House by the slimmest of margins. To flip the chamber, Democrats would need to gain five seats. Republicans have a safer margin in the Senate, where Democrats would need to gain four seats, but in much redder territory than in the House.In polls that ask Americans if they prefer Democrats or Republicans to control Congress, Democrats lead by five percentage points on average. When it comes to the president’s approval rating, Trump is at net -14, a rating that puts him just slightly below where Biden was at this point in his own historically unpopular presidency.High-quality polling from the New York Times also shows that President Trump has given up his gains and then some with the voters who powered his popular vote victory in 2024 — a group that tended to be younger, lower propensity and less white than Republicans’ past coalitions.History is clear about the challenges for Republicans. The incumbent party has lost seats in the House in 20 of the last 22 midterms elections, with an average loss of 32 seats.With me to set the table are two friends of the pod: Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor of Inside Elections and Leah Askarinam, elections reporter at the Associate Press. 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

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.Democrats are gearing up to turn the page on the Trump presidency and some 2028 hopefuls will likely announce their intentions by year’s end. At least a half-dozen candidates are, for all intents and purposes, already running.Will California Gov. Gavin Newsom be able to ride the wave of his current support for the next two years or is he cresting now? Will voter outrage and a consolidation of the left flank of the party power New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the head of the pack or will a moderate prevail? And who is even likely to run in the first place?In a live 2028 Democratic primary draft at the Comedy Cellar in New York City, Nate Silver, Clare Malone and I debated those questions and many more. (Make sure to reply in the comments with who had the best roster!)As a heads up, we began the night on a more somber note, discussing Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis and whether it is likely to serve as a turning point in our current political moment. As we moved to the draft, we got a little competitive and plenty silly. This is the second Democratic primary draft we’ve done on the GD POLITICS podcast. If you’d like to look back at our previous picks, you can do that here.

Call this something of an emergency podcast. I’d planned on airing an episode setting the table for the 2026 midterms today. We’re going to save that for another day, because on Saturday a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37 year-old Veterans Affairs hospital ICU nurse.It’s the second killing by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis in less than three weeks — the first being Renee Good, a 37 year-old mother, who was shot while impeding traffic as part of a protest.We’ll get into some of the details of what happened on Saturday, but I think it’s fair to say the public, many lawmakers, and even some Republicans have lost patience with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.In both killings in Minneapolis, the Trump administration rushed to brand Good and Pretti as domestic terrorists and fabricated events despite the shootings being visible in multiple videos. While there was plenty of pushback among Democrats, Independents and the press in the case of Good, this time a handful of Republicans, including the NRA, have joined that pushback as well.As listeners well know, it’s going to take a minute before we can fully understand the impact of this weekend on American politics, but we’ll share what we know at this moment. With me to do that is head of research at FiftyPlusOne, Mary Radcliffe, and managing editor at Votebeat, Nathaniel Rakich. 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

Trump has now been back in office for a year. To help make sense of the past twelve months, on Tuesday I hosted a live Substack conversation with friend of the pod and author of the Wake Up To Politics newsletter, Gabe Fleischer.We began by assessing Trump’s accomplishments and failings by the standards he set at the beginning of his second term. We also discussed how Americans have reacted and took a closer look at the areas where Trump’s new assertions of presidential power have been allowed to stand and where they’ve been batted down.One of the themes of the conversation was that there’s often so much going on that it can be hard to actually follow a single story from beginning to end. We try to tie up some of those loose ends where possible. 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

I hope everyone had a nice long weekend! Today’s episode is part two of our mailbag episodes, focusing on some of the more esoteric questions that listeners asked.Part one focused on current events. If you’re curious about how the public is reacting to the surge in ICE activity, possibility of military intervention in Iran, or the politicization of the Department of Justice, I encourage you to listen to that as well.Today we answer your questions, including: Are high profile politicians able to effectively rebrand? Why were polls noticeably better for Democrats right after the 2025 elections? What does it mean that there are a record number of independents in America? And who are the Republicans in polls that say they don’t approve of Trump — Never Trumpers, or people who voted for him and have since soured? We even share some career advice at one listener’s request.Joining me to dig through the mailbag is Lenny Bronner, senior data scientist at the Washington Post. A reminder to submit your own questions on Substack, on social media, or at galen@gdpolitics.com. 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

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 by following the directions here.I like to say that this podcast is driven by three principles: curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. You, dear listeners, share those qualities, certainly when it comes to curiosity.I collected all the questions you submitted since we last recorded a mailbag episode at the end of November and even if I just limited us to the best ones, we’d be looking at a three hour podcast at least.I didn’t want to let your questions go unanswered, so I decided to sort them into two categories and we are doing two mailbag episodes. The theme of the first is current events and the second is esoteric political questions. Next week we’ll go esoteric; today we are doing current events and there’s a lot to discuss.There’s the ICE surge in Minneapolis, shooting of Renee Good and related protests, the federal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, major protests in Iran and threats of military action by President Trump, Democrat Mary Peletola is running for Senate in Alaska, the White House met with Denmark and Greenland, and there’s the story that was the only thing anyone could talk about just last week: Venezuela.We seem to be cycling between a different major headline just about every hour and with me to help make sense of it all is dear friend of the pod and senior data scientist at the Washington Post, Lenny Bronner.Also, a couple quick updates: 1) Our live show on January 27th is sold out. We can’t wait to see you there! Paid subscribers will get a recording of the show after the fact. 2) Our seasonal merch shop is going away at the end of the month, so get your merch at gdpolitics.com/merch. 3) A reminder to submit your own questions on Substack, on social media, or at galen@gdpolitics.com.

Heads up: Our first live show of 2026 is scheduled for Tuesday, January 27th at the Comedy Cellar in New York City! Nate Silver, Clare Malone, and I are recording a live 2028 Democratic Primary draft. You can get tickets here.We are less than two months away from the start of the midterm primary calendar. Things will kick off in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas on March 3rd. We’re going to have plenty of coverage of those elections throughout the year and, of course, heading into the big election in November. You should expect a table setting episode in your feeds before too long.On today’s episode we hear from one of the more unique candidates running this cycle: Geoff Duncan, the former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, who is now running for governor as a Democrat.He began his political career as a Republican in the state legislature and then served as lieutenant governor alongside current Governor Brian Kemp from 2019 to 2023. He became better known on the national scene after the 2020 election, as one of a number of Republicans in the state who pushed back strongly against Trump’s attempts to overturn the results in Georgia.He chose not to run for reelection in 2022, endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024 and formally became a Democrat last year. Now he’s running for governor in a Democratic primary field that includes former Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, and former DeKalb County CEO, Michael Thurmond.On the Republican side, Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones is competing against Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who notably rejected Trump’s request that he “find 11,780 votes” in 2020.Democrats have not won the governor’s mansion in Georgia since 1998, so will this be the year they do it? And will Geoff Duncan be the one to try? 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

I said on Monday’s podcast that we all needed to get a bigger imagination, so here we are. Let’s talk about Greenland.After capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife over the weekend, the White House’s focus seems to have turned to the Danish territory of Greenland.It’s the largest island in the world, roughly the size of Western Europe, with a population of just 56,000. Denmark colonized it in the 18th century and today it’s a semi-autonomous part of the Danish Kingdom.According to President Trump, we “need” it. Trump advisor Stephen Miller told CNN this week, “obviously, Greenland should be part of the United States.” He went on to say, “nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.”Reportedly, Marco Rubio told members of Congress that Trump actually wants to buy Greenland and that this posturing is a negotiation tactic, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt released a statement on the subject saying that, “utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”Democrats have rejected the Greenland idea and many Republicans, in a rare break from Trump, have as well. Among Americans, the idea of acquiring Greenland is 30 to 45 percentage points underwater and 85 percent of Greenlanders also reject it.For Denmark’s part, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a statement to “stop the threats” and that, “the U.S. has no right to annex one of the three countries in the Danish Kingdom.” She also said an attack would end NATO.Denmark has a population of 6 million with about 16,000 active military personnel. The U.S. military, for its part, has 1.3 million active personnel. Denmark is also a longtime U.S. ally. They were one of only four European countries to invade Iraq alongside the U.S.I wanted to get a perspective on Trump’s threats from inside the Danish national security community, so joining me on today’s episode is Peter Viggo Jakobsen, professor in the Department of Strategy and War Studies at the Royal Danish Defense College in Copenhagen. 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

Heads up: Our first live show of 2026 is scheduled for Tuesday, January 27th at the Comedy Cellar in New York City! Nate Silver, Clare Malone, and I are recording a live 2028 Democratic Primary draft. You can get tickets here.If you listened to the end of our 2025 time capsule episode, you heard me say that I might have to put a disclaimer at the top of the episode because we invaded Venezuela in between when we recorded the podcast and when we published it. Well, that didn’t quite happen, but we weren’t so far off.Early Saturday morning the U.S. launched a series of strikes on Venezuela, captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and brought them to New York, where Maduro was indicted in 2020 and Flores was added to an updated indictment.It’s an uncertain moment for Venezuela and American policy towards the country. President Trump said during his Saturday press conference, “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” without giving much more detail than that.He suggested that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez would comply with U.S. demands under threat of further military action, though Rodríguez subsequently referred to the U.S. intervention as illegal armed aggression and stated that Maduro remains the president of Venezuela.There are plenty of questions about the legality of Trump’s approach to Venezuela, the internal dynamics of the country and how this compares to past American foreign intervention. We covered a good amount of that in our December 18th episode titled “Is Venezuela The Next Iraq?” and I encourage folks to listen to that if they haven’t already.In today’s episode, Nathaniel Rakich and Mary Radcliffe join me to discuss how Americans are already reacting to U.S. involvement in Venezuela and how it could reverberate politically from here. In classic fashion, we also dissect some questionable uses of data, including tracking of pizza orders near the Pentagon and alleged insider trading on online betting markets. 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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comHappy almost new year! 2025 has been a big year for this GD podcast. It’s the year of our birth, of course, but we didn’t stop there. We hosted live shows, got rebranded, created merch, and even made some news. An enormous thank you to everyone who joined us this year 🙏. You made this all possible.2025 was also a big year for America. We began our semiquincentennial year, for the second time ever a U.S. president was inaugurated to a nonconsecutive term. The country also got a rebrand of sorts. There’s more gold detailing on the walls these days and the East Wing no longer exists.A lot more happened, but I don’t want to give away today’s episode. To mark the end of 2025 we are building a time capsule and filling it with numbers that represent the year in politics. I asked friends of the podcast Nathaniel Rakich and Mary Radcliffe to choose five numbers each they’d like to place in the capsule. I also have plenty of numbers of my own. The bad news is that only 10 numbers fit in the time capsule, so we have to duke it out to see who gets their way. We also shared new year’s resolutions for the two parties and ourselves in 2026.As a sneak preview, here are the 10 numbers we settled on, without any indication of what they represent. See if you can guess!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThis is the second installment of “Roman Empire” elections, in which friends of the podcast Jacob Rubashkin and Leah Askarinam join me to discuss the elections that we just can’t stop thinking about. If you missed the first installment, definitely start there. We talked about the 2000 election (of course), the crazy turn of events that indirectly resulted in Glenn Youngkin becoming the governor of Virginia, and the even crazier turn of events that links the election of Barack Obama to the reboot of Star Trek.Today the fun doesn’t stop. We discuss the nomination of Andrew Johnson at the Republican convention of 1864 (he ended up taking the oath of office blackout drunk), the story of the only dead person in U.S. history to win an Senate race, and how the Republican party might be different today if Mitt Romney won the presidency in 2012.Today’s episode is for paid subscribers and will cut off shortly for free subscribers. If you are not a paid subscriber, now is a great time to upgrade! If you are a paid subscriber, thank you! Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

In 2022, a Swedish influencer told her followers on Instagram to ask the men in their lives about the Roman Empire. Her instinct was that men, for some reason, have plenty of thoughts about the ancient civilization. She turned out to be correct.The suggestion led to a proliferation of videos on social media of women asking men how often they think about the Roman Empire. For some men, it was daily. For others, weekly.(This is the part where I admit that as a teenager I got a large SPQR henna tattoo on my forearm, although technically those are the initials of the Roman Republic, not the Roman Empire, and with that distinction, I am probably already telling on myself.)In any case, a meme was born. What began as a question of how often men think about the Roman Empire, morphed into the idea that any topic that occupies an inordinate amount of one’s mental space is one’s own personal Roman Empire.For example, someone might say their Roman Empire is 2003-era pop culture or The Titanic. You can quickly fall down a Reddit rabbit hole where people share obsessions as wide ranging as women’s bible studies groups and Chicago’s alleyways.Now that I’ve got all of the Boomers who listen to this podcast up to speed (hi, dad), you have the context for today’s episode, which is “Roman Empire elections.” Not elections that happened in the Roman Empire (which, again, wouldn’t be possible because the start of the empire marked the end of representative government), but instead American elections that take up an inordinate amount of our mental space.Dear friends of the podcast Leah Askarinam, Jacob Rubashkin and I came up with this idea while we were recording a different podcast a while back, so this week we are actually indulging. Part 2 will publish Tuesday, December 23rd for paid subscribers. 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

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 by following the directions here.On Monday’s podcast, while we were talking about shifting political landscapes, I quipped that perhaps by the midterms we would be at war with Venezuela. If you keep up with the news coming out of the Caribbean, it seems like it could be a lot sooner than that.Things appear to be escalating quickly. The U.S. has launched 26 strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific since early September, killing 99 people, per tracking at the New York Times.The stated goal of the strikes has been to stop drug traffickers that the Trump administration has labeled terrorist organizations, but there are questions about the legality of the strikes, as well as questions about whether the goal is really to put pressure on Maduro with the hopes of ousting him.Speaking of pressure, last week the U.S. seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, and this week President Trump announced a “complete blockade” on sanctioned oil tankers going to and from Venezuela. This comes closer to threatening the lifeblood of the Venezuelan economy. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves and oil makes up 90-95 percent of its export revenue.The U.S. has also deployed military assets to the region capable of land strikes and disabling Venezuela’s defenses and Trump has said he’s authorized covert CIA operations in the country.To better understand the unfolding conflict with Venezuela, I invited on Michael O’Hanlon on today’s podcast. He’s the Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution and author of the forthcoming book To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution.

The politics of healthcare are again front and center in Washington. Last week, Senate Democrats’ proposal to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years failed to get 60 votes, as did a Republican proposal that would end the subsidies but provide direct payments to some Americans to cover healthcare costs.Monday, December 15th is also the last day for enrollment in insurance that begins January 1st on the ACA marketplace. All that is a long way of saying that the cake appears mostly baked. Healthcare coverage costs will rise dramatically for millions of Americans next year and many will opt out of coverage altogether.A bipartisan group is still holding out hope of coming to some compromise, but if that does happen it will likely be after Americans have already started to feel those costs. So what exactly will the impact be and what do Americans think about it? On today’s podcast we dig into the data.We also take a broader look at President Trump’s approval rating and the recent claim from a friend of the pod that, “Trump’s Approval Ratings Are Low Again. This Time It Might Matter.” Plus we discuss Indiana Republicans’ rejection of an effort to gerrymander their state. Is it a story about redistricting or is it really a story about the power limitations of a lame duck president? And is that a leading question?Joining me on the podcast to keep me honest 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

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 by following the directions here.Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett has jumped into the Texas Senate primary with just three months to go until Election Day. She’s controversial, at times outright offensive, and gets the cable news part of her party very excited. She also appears to be leading in early primary polling. (Sound familiar?) So, is the candidate The Atlantic is calling “a Democrat for the Trump era” up to the task of flipping Texas? Frankly, is any Democrat up to the task?On today’s podcast we take a look at how 2026 primaries are shaping up around the country in both the House and Senate. Beyond Texas, we check in on the latest in Maine, Michigan, and Georgia and debate whether the dividing lines are mainly generational, ideological, or just a fighter mentality. We also look at the results of recent elections in Miami and Tennessee where Democrats over-performed.Lastly, a case at the Supreme Court this week considers how much money the political parties should be able to spend in coordination with candidates. Should the relatively low caps be kept in place or should the flood gates be opened? With me to talk about it all is Deputy Editor of Inside Elections Jacob Rubashkin.

If you are tired of hearing about how messy American politics are, today I’m offering you a reprieve. You’re going to hear about how messy British politics are.Last week I was in London, exploring the city and speaking with journalists, friends and strangers alike about life in Britain. I visited a couple newsrooms and toured parliament during Prime Minister’s Questions. The big news of the day was the Labour government’s budget proposal and, despite their largest majority in nearly 30 years, Labour seems to be facing challenges on all sides.If American politics can feel disappointing or frustrating, wait till you hear Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating: net -52 percentage points. By comparison President Trump, facing his own second term low of net -14 points, looks utterly popular.Today we get into the challenges facing the Labour party and much more – the rise of the populist Right in the UK and Europe, relations with the US, and yes, people are still talking about Brexit.To do this I reassembled the team from the dearly departed Talking Politics podcast. The former hosts, Helen Thompson and David Runciman, used to join me on the also departed FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast during the height of the Brexit drama. Think of this as the ghosts of two podcasts past.Helen Thompson is a professor of political economy at Cambridge and author of the book “Disorder: Hard times in the 21st Century.” David Runciman is an honorary professor of politics at Cambridge and the host of the “Past Present Future” podcast. 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

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 by following the directions here.Oftentimes when we talk about what divides the United States we talk about things like education, race, gender, or class. My guest today makes the argument that there’s something else fundamental at play, stretching back hundreds of years, to well before the founding of the country: the regional cultures that were developed by the people who settled America.It may seem like a stretch to say that after waves of immigration and internal migration, technological and social change, that the pilgrims, quakers, aristocrats, and pioneers are still culturally with us. But Colin Woodard argues that you can’t actually understand our contemporary politics and the fights we’re having without that context.In his previous book “American Nations” he laid out what he described as the 11 different “nations” – or culturally distinct regions – within America. In his new book “Nations Apart” he looks at the political and social differences across them on everything from voting, to health outcomes, to gun violence.He also discusses what kinds of common narratives have united us in the past and what might work again today based on public opinion research. Colin is the director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University.

If everything is going to plan, I am on vacation this week. Fear not! I have recorded podcasts ahead of time so you’ll still have two episodes this week. However, don’t be surprised if something crazy has happened in the world and you don’t hear it mentioned in conversation. I haven’t forgotten, it’s just that whatever crazy thing we are now dealing with had not yet happened when the podcasts were recorded. If past is prologue, hold onto your seats, the news cycle rarely behaves while I’m away.Today we are opening up the mailbag to sort through our backlog of listener mail. Listeners have been sending in great questions lately! As a reminder, you can always share your questions in the paid subscriber chat at gdpolitics.com. You can also send questions to galen@gdpolitics.com and reach me via the usual social media channels.On today’s episode we discuss the power of celebrity in politics, the possibility of the Democratic presidential primary moving to a ranked choice voting system in 2028, the state of the Republican Texas Senate primary, and much more. With me to do it all is friend of the podcast and data scientist at the Washington Post, Lenny Bronner.P.S. — I am currently in London for a combination of work and fun. Feel free to use the channels above to share any recs! 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

Even in our topsy turvy political world, last Friday stood out as one for the books. President Trump seemed to embrace New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, complimenting his underdog victory, saying he thinks “he’s going to do some things that are going to be really great,” and even smilingly saying that it’s ok if Mamdani calls him a fascist.Just hours later, one of Trump’s formerly fiercest defenders, Marjorie Taylor Greene, announced that she will resign from Congress in the new year, after disagreements with Trump led him to brand her “Marjorie Traitor Greene” and threaten support for a primary opponent against her. This all would have been hard to dream up just a couple months ago, but does it say anything meaningful about our politics?On today’s episode we also check in on the state of gerrymandering around the country after a federal panel of judges struck down Texas’s new map designed to add five seats to Republicans’ ranks in the House. If it stands, in a turn of fate, Democrats could end up being the net winners of the ongoing mid-decade redistricting spat. That decision now heads to the Supreme CourtAnd finally, Happy Thanksgiving week! Have you heard of the pre-Thanksgiving dinner “cousin walk?” It’s apparently when the younger members of the family get stoned before sitting down for turkey. The idea has become popularized online and the Wall Street Journal even called it a “full-blown commercial holiday,” with dispensaries reporting the second biggest sales of the year for “Green Wednesday.” (Second to 420). But is this all coming at a time when Americans are turning against marijuana?With me to discuss it all are two dear friends of the pod: head of research at FiftyPlusOne, Mary Radcliffe, and managing editor of Votebeat, Nathaniel Rakich. 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