The Strength In Numbers Podcast with G. Elliott Morris

In this week’s live recording of the Strength in Numbers podcast, G. Elliott Morris and David Nir cover the latest on the Iran ceasefire, Tuesday’s elections in Wisconsin, and Elliott’s new statistical model estimating Trump’s approval rating in every congressional district and state in the country.Here are the big takeaways:* Wisconsin was a wipeout, and the swing was especially large in rural counties. Liberal Judge Chris Taylor won the state Supreme Court race by 20 points, roughly double the margin of other liberal justices in recent elections and the biggest win since 1999. But the results ran far beyond the headline contest: Democrats won the mayor’s race in the conservative stronghold of Waukesha and flipped the county executive seat in Portage County by more than 30 points after losing it narrowly four years ago. Some of the sharpest swings came in Wisconsin’s most rural counties, where the GOP is usually dominant, raising the possibility of a bigger-than-expected Democratic wave in November.* New modeling shows Trump is underwater in 135 GOP-held House and Senate seats. Using a technique called multilevel regression and post-stratification (aka “Mr. P”), Elliott estimated Trump’s approval rating in every congressional district and state. The results: Fully half of all Republicans in Congress sit in districts or states where Trump’s approval is negative. At least 30 GOP-held House seats show Trump more than 10 points underwater — more than enough to flip the chamber. And in every competitive Democratic-held seat Republicans hope to pick up, Trump is underwater there, too.* Americans overwhelmingly said last month that they want a ceasefire with Iran — but that doesn’t mean they’ll support this one. Our March Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll found 60% of Americans favored pursuing a ceasefire and negotiations with Iran, versus just 29% who wanted to continue military operations. Only 60% of Republicans back the war — a significant defection from a president who normally commands 90%+ within his own party. Meanwhile, prominent MAGA figures including Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, openly discussed invoking the 25th Amendment and impeachment after Trump’s social media posts over Easter weekend.If you missed our video livestream, you can watch it by clicking play on the web version of this post at gelliottmorris.com. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned topics and then answer questions submitted live by viewers.You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show!A reminder that paid subscribers to Strength In Numbers get to participate in our live Q&A!You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com.And if you’re coming from David’s site, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In this first special deep dive episode of the Strength in Numbers podcast, Elliott sits down with Joy Wilke, senior director of polling at BlueLabs, to discuss a set of focus groups she conducted in Michigan among independent, politically disengaged Americans — the exact kind of affordability voters who swung toward Trump in 2024, and who Elliott has been writing about over the last year. BlueLabs’ focus groups show that many voters are economically desperate, distrust both parties, and have a deep hunger for leaders who actually get them.Here are the big takeaways:* The focus groups reveal a level of economic desperation that polls can't fully capture. BlueLabs' detailed interviews surfaced gut-wrenching stories from voters. Some described working two jobs, skipping meals so their kids could eat, and spending hours managing coupon apps just to afford groceries. One participant in a Republican-leaning focus group, a woman in her mid-50s, put it simply: "We shouldn't have to work so hard to survive." This is the type of resolution you can’t get with quantitative polling data.* Both parties are seen as out of touch, but in different ways. Trump voters in the focus groups called the Republican Party “embarrassing” and “too radical,” while Democrats were labeled “weak” and unable to follow through on promises — even by their own supporters. Corruption was seen as a universal weakness of federal lawmakers, something voters say is particularly bad with Donald Trump but not specific to him. The divide in the focus groups wasn’t left vs. right, it was working class vs. political elites.* Voters don’t want policy platforms — they want someone who’s actually struggled. As one woman put it: “I would want somebody that’s for us and understands what it’s like to struggle.” And mobilization is a big concern for both parties. In these focus groups, Democrats are still seen as “for the working class” in theory, but convincing disengaged voters that showing up is worth their time remains the party’s biggest challenge.If you’re on email or the Substack app, you can read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:You can also subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In this week’s live recording of the Strength in Numbers podcast, G. Elliott Morris and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, dig into a news-packed week — from the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case and Donald Trump’s televised address about the war in Iran on Wednesday to the firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi and the first anniversary of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on Thursday. Elliott and David also run through Trump’s cratering approval ratings on inflation and the end of the government shutdown.Here are the big takeaways:* Trump’s war in Iran is deeply unpopular — and getting more so. Strength In Numbers’ polling shows 72% of Americans oppose sending U.S. ground troops to Iran, including a majority of Republicans. On top of that, Trump’s approval rating on his handling of prices and inflation has cratered to a new low of minus 33, a slide that tracks almost perfectly with a 35% spike in gas prices since the war began. According to YouGov, Trump is now doing worse on prices than Biden was at the equivalent point in his presidency — a remarkably bad position for a president who campaigned on lowering the cost of groceries on day one.* Trump gets record-low numbers on trade on the anniversary of his “Liberation Day” tariff announcement. One year after Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement, his approval on trade and tariffs has matched an all-time low at minus 20. The promised benefits — manufacturing job growth, lower income taxes, a revitalized industrial economy — never materialized. Instead, the U.S. has lost roughly 100,000 manufacturing jobs over the past year, consumers are seeing excess inflation in goods, and grocery prices have risen, due in part to Trump’s mass deportation of agricultural workers. When asked about a direct trade-off in polling, Americans chose lower prices over more manufacturing jobs by a 54-33 margin.* Trump took a beating at the Supreme Court... The birthright citizenship oral arguments went badly for Trump’s solicitor general on Wednesday. Legal commentators are predicting a lopsided loss for the administration, and polling shows wide majorities of Americans in favor of birthright citizenship — which wasn’t the case just a couple of decades ago.* …and in the shutdown fight. On the shutdown, Democrats emerged with a clear win: Republicans caved and announced a deal to pass virtually the same TSA-funding bill many had angrily rejected a week earlier, with no additional money for ICE or Customs and Border Patrol. Elliott’s flash Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll found 52% of Americans blame the Trump administration and congressional Republicans for airport chaos, versus just 25% who blamed Democrats.If you missed our video livestream, you can watch it by clicking play on the web version of this post at gelliottmorris.com. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned topics and then answer questions submitted live by viewers.You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show!A reminder that paid subscribers to Strength In Numbers get to participate in our live Q&A!You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com.And if you’re coming from David’s site, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In this week’s live recording of the Strength In Numbers podcast, G. Elliott Morris and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, talk about prediction markets and AI “polls” — the new hot crazes in political and election reporting. Elliott and David take a look at the accuracy of each source and compare them against traditional polls.Here are the big takeaways:* Prediction markets have real structural problems that their boosters ignore. Polymarket’s user base skews toward crypto holders — young, male, Republican-leaning — and bogus trades account for significant volume, distorting prices. To take one example: A single French trader moved Trump’s market price in 2024 with over $30 million in bets. The efficient-market framing that prediction market advocates rely on simply does not hold up in real life.* Markets mostly just follow the polls. Research by Robert Erikson and Chris Wlezien on older digital marketplaces found that once you account for polls in a forecasting model, market prices add essentially nothing to your prediction on average. Newer models may produce better signals, but they’re still untested.* Market predictions in 2022 failed badly. In the last midterm elections, markets gave Republicans a 73% chance to control the Senate, while FiveThirtyEight correctly called it a coin flip; Democrats held the Senate. Even in 2024, when markets beat polling models in the presidential race, statistical models outperformed markets on down-ballot contests, where thin markets with few informed participants produced worse prices than the polls.* Synthetic polling is not polling. Recent surveys from Heartland Forward and the Public Sentiment Institute padded their samples with AI-generated “respondents” rather than real people. Such approaches have promise in prediction, but you cannot create new information about public opinion by generating more synthetic data from a large language model. Until robots get the franchise, Elliott will only aggregate surveys of actual humans.If you missed our video livestream, you can watch it by clicking play on the web version of this post. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned topics and then answer questions submitted live by viewers.You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show!A reminder that paid subscribers to Strength In Numbers get to participate in our live Q&A!You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com.And if you’re coming from David’s site, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In this week’s live recording of the Strength In Numbers podcast, G. Elliott Morris and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot (and back from a week off!), talk about new polling showing Trump holding his MAGA base on the war in Iran—but losing ground overall.Trump’s support has badly decayed among soft partisans, lower-income whites, and Hispanic voters — the groups that swung most sharply toward him in 2024. We also cover a few bad pundit hot takes about the results of the Democratic primary for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District.Here are the big takeaways:* Trump is losing the working-class voters who put him in office. Our polling shows white voters making under $50,000 backed Trump by 22 points in 2024. But his net approval with this group today is minus 4 — a 26-point swing. Lower-income Hispanics have moved even further, from minus 7 in the 2024 vote to minus 41 on approval now. The voters who trusted Trump to lower prices are turning against him the fastest. And as Trump’s new war in Iran causes gas prices to skyrocket, it’ll be worth revisiting these numbers in the near future.* There is no MAGA civil war — at least not among voters. Far-right influencers like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Megyn Kelly, and Marjorie Taylor Greene have all attacked Trump over Iran. But polls show about 90% of self-identified “MAGA Republicans” support the war. The real split is among elites, not the base. We discuss what David dubbed “the X-Factor”: Journalists who spend too much time on X often mistake loud voices from political castoffs for movement among the mass public. There’s also a methodological wrinkle for real polling sickos: Anyone disillusioned enough with Trump to stop calling themselves MAGA will drop out of that polling cohort entirely. That may in turn overstate loyalty within the broader MAGA-sympathetic universe and decrease it among what Elliott calls “soft partisans.”* Centrist pundits learned the wrong thing from the Democratic primary in IL-09. Kat Abughazelah, a 26-year-old first-time candidate funded heavily by small-dollar donations, lost to Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss by less than 4 points in a 15-candidate field — outperforming a sitting state senator who was backed by $7 million in AIPAC spending. Pundits called this a bad night for “very online progressives,” but if anyone’s “too online,” it’s these critics. By focusing on the binary loss, they are missing the opportunity to learn from Abughazelah’s narrow margin. The real takeaway is that a digitally native outsider came unusually close to victory in a race where endorsements, name recognition, and outside money all pointed to a much wider gap.If you missed our video livestream, you can watch it by clicking play on the web version of this post. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned topics and then answer questions submitted live by viewers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show!A reminder that paid subscribers to Strength In Numbers get to participate in our live Q&A!You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com.And if you’re coming from David’s site, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In this week’s live recording of the Strength In Numbers podcast, Elliott flies solo (David’s on vacation — he’ll be back next week) for a special “chart-a-rama” episode breaking down the “rally around the flag” effect in presidential approval polls, and why Trump isn’t getting one. Elliott also covers a bad use of polling in a Washington Post article about the GOP’s midterm prospects.Here are the big takeaways:* Trump is getting no rally-around-the-flag bounce — and probably never will. Presidents historically see approval bumps after military crises. Bush Sr. got a 29-point bounce from the Gulf War. FDR got nearly 20 points after Pearl Harbor. Bush Jr. gained after both Afghanistan and Iraq. But Trump’s approval is stuck at 39 - 40 percent, completely unchanged since the U.S. struck Iran on February 28.I went through the polling history and identified five conditions a president needs for a rally. Trump’s not getting a bounce because he’s missing all five conditions.* A bad argument about Trump and the midterms. A Washington Post op-ed by Henry Olson argued that because Trump’s approval is about two points higher among likely voters than among all adults, Republicans could outperform midterm expectations. The problem with this reasoning is that the relationship between approval ratings and midterm outcomes is weak at best, and not causal. I plugged Olsen’s numbers into a historical model of presidential approval and midterm seat losses, and the difference between minus-19 and minus-17 net approval is the difference between losing 37 seats and losing 36. That’s not a the silver lining he suggests.* Rising gas prices will likely make the reaction to Iran worse. A viewer asked whether rising gas prices from the Iran war would further erode public support. Short answer: yes. Trump was elected on two promises — lower prices and ending foreign wars — and this war violates both. Gas is already up about a dollar, and trade disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz (through which 20% of global trade flows) will push grocery prices up too. About 80-85% of hardcore MAGA voters still back the war, but independents and soft Republicans who lent Trump their votes for economic relief are the ones most likely to peel off.If you missed our livestream, you can watch it by clicking play above. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2 PM Eastern — David will be back next week and we’ll go through the latest polling and answer your questions. You can also subscribe on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show!You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:Heads up: This button is only available on the web version of the podcast. If you’re reading this in your email inbox, you can get to the online version by clicking the headline of the post at the top of your email.If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com.And if you’re coming from David’s site, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news.Paid subscribers to Strength In Numbers get to participate in our live Q&A!Strength In Numbers is an independent, data-driven publication. To support our work, including this podcast, and make future data work possible, please become a paid subscriber…… or share this post with a friend: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In this week's live recording of the Strength In Numbers podcast, G. Elliott Morris and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, talked Iran war polling, the chaos of the Texas Senate primaries, and Trump's cratering approval numbers — including a record we really didn't expect to hit this early. Here are the big takeaways:* The Iran war is historically unpopular — and it’s only going to get worse. Across five high-quality polls, an average of about 38% of Americans support the military strikes in Iran and 50% oppose them. That makes this the most unpopular war at launch in the history of modern polling. For comparison, 92% of Americans backed the war in Afghanistan, and 72% supported the Iraq invasion when those conflicts began. If history is any guide, war polling only moves in one direction from here: down.We also explore how a few Republican-aligned pollsters have tried to manufacture better numbers with loaded questions, but even their most egregious efforts have barely cracked a majority.* Our recap of the Texas Senate primaries. On the Republican side, John Cornyn outperformed his polls and narrowed what was expected to be a wider gap with Ken Paxton, finishing within 2 points and heading into a late-May runoff. The 50+1 average had Paxton up 6 — a 7-point miss, but actually below the 13-point average error for primary polls. James Talarico, meanwhile, won the Democratic nomination and is running a populist, anti-billionaire campaign that could make Texas genuinely competitive — Elliott estimates he has roughly a 50-50 shot against Paxton and a 35-40% chance against Cornyn in the general.If you missed our livestream, you can watch it by clicking play above. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned newsy topics or deep dives and then answer questions submitted live by viewers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show!You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com.And if you’re coming from David’s site, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news.Paid subscribers get to participate in our live Q&A! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In the newest live recording of the Strength In Numbers podcast, Elliott and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, talk about the Texas Senate primaries, what the latest Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll says about Trump’s approval, and where the public stands on various proposed structural reforms to the Supreme Court, presidency, and U.S. Senate.We cover:* The Texas Senate primaries are wide open — and don’t trust anyone who tells you otherwise. On the Republican side, Ken Paxton — a far-right attorney general with corruption problems, both personally and professionally — is leading Sen. John Cornyn in the polls by about 3 points, with Rep. Wesley Hunt pulling 20%. The race is almost certainly headed to a runoff, and Paxton looks favored there since Hunt’s entry ate into Cornyn’s support. On the Democratic side, it’s state Rep. James Talarico vs. U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and the 50+1 polling average has them essentially tied.But here’s the thing: Historically, primary polls in statewide races miss by about 13 points on margin, and the leader in the polls ends up losing roughly one in five times. With the low-quality polling we’re getting in this race — small samples, long field dates, and partisan-sponsored surveys that disagree wildly — it’s wise to expect a surprise.* Trump has hit an all-time low in our Strength In Numbers/Verasight survey. The latest monthly poll, fielded February 18-20, has Trump at 37% approval and 59% disapproval — both all-time worsts in our survey. The biggest driver of this drop is erosion in his approval on immigration and deportations, following the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis in January. There’s evidence these events have also hurt Trump on crime and public safety. After all, who feels safe in public when people are being killed by federal agents in their neighborhood?* Voters care about prices, not border security. In our poll, a third of voters rank prices and inflation as their number one issue, with jobs and the economy at 16%. Border security, Trump’s strongest issue, is the top issue for just 3%. The issues that play to Democrats’ strengths are the ones voters currently actually care about.* Americans support several major structural reforms. Our survey found overwhelming support for Supreme Court term limits (net +50), strong support for Puerto Rico statehood (+27) and limits on presidential pardon power, and modest support for expanding the court from 9 to 13 justices (+7, with a third undecided). The one exception is statehood for Washington, D.C., which is net -4 overall and even among Democrats, only gets 45% in favor. That’s a problem, but it suggests Democratic leaders could increase support by making the case to their voters. This gets at a bigger theme of the show: Public opinion isn’t some organic, immovable force. Elites shape it, and Republicans have been much better at that than Democrats have.If you missed our livestream, you can watch it by clicking play above. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned newsy topics or deep dives and then answer questions submitted live by viewers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show!You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com. And if you’re coming from David’s sit, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news.Paid subscribers get to participate in our live Q&A! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In the newest live recording of the Strength In Numbers podcast, Elliott and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, talk about the latest news in elections, politics, and polling.We cover:* “Anti-system” voters explain Trump’s wins better than left-right ideology. A recent study of polling data from the American National Election Study shows frustration with government and elites predicted whether someone would vote for Trump in 2016 and 2024, regardless of someone’s left-right ideology. This suggests parties don’t win elections solely by moving to the ideological center, but by appealing to them on the “anti-system” axis, too. The implication for Democrats in 2028 is that they should find a candidate who channels anti-system energy. Trump lost these voters as the incumbent in 2020, and Republicans will face the same problem in 2028.* The DHS shutdown is electoral signaling, not just an appropriations fight. Democratic Sen. Cortez Masto — a moderate who broke ranks during the last shutdown — is now holding firm, citing polling that Americans support body cam mandates, judicial warrants, and an end to masking by ICE agents. A poll from Hart Research shows voters back the Democratic position on the shutdown 54-36. In reframing immigration from “border security” to “mass deportations,” Democrats are moving the issue in their favor ahead of November’s midterms.* This week, a huge controversy over a poll about trans rights is a case study in bad polling journalism. The write-up of the poll argued politicians should move right on trans rights, a position the editor of the publication that sponsored the survey later disavowed. The poll also cherry-picked common GOP attack lines on the issue while ignoring the popularity of anti-discrimination protections. Recent polls and election results have shown Democrats can have success in reframing the debate away from gotcha questions, as Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and John Ewing, the mayor of Omaha, Nebraska, have shown.If you missed our livestream, you can watch it by clicking play above. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned newsy topics or deep dives and then answer questions submitted live by viewers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show!You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so:If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com. And if you’re coming from David’s audience, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news.Paid subscribers get to participate in our live Q&A! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In this latest episode of the Strength In Numbers live podcast, Elliott and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, talk about the latest news in elections, politics, and polling.We cover:* Trump is losing the voters who elected him. New Strength In Numbers/Verasight data shows low-information voters — about 27% of the electorate — have swung from Trump +11 in 2024 to disapproval by 13 points. They’re now just as anti-Trump as high-information voters on every issue, and even more negative on prices. * Gallup drops presidential approval polling. The organization has been running regular public opinion polls since 1938. But political polling doesn’t make money for almost anyone anymore. Gallup has been trimming unprofitable public polling for years. This follows the same pattern as dropping horse-race polls after 2012 and daily tracking in 2018.* The SAVE America Act (and why it’s DOA in the Senate). The House passed a bill requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote. Republicans say it’s needed to prevent immigrants from voting, but passport data shows it would suppress more Republican votes than Democratic ones. It can’t clear a Senate filibuster anyway, so this is just signaling to the base that non-citizens are rigging elections for Democrats (they’re not).Plus: A Minnesota poll on anti-ICE mobilization in the Twin Cities, GBAO polling on Democratic messaging about defunding ICE + restoring ACA subsidies, and an unreasonable amount of pudding jokes…If you missed our livestream, you can watch it by clicking play above. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned newsy topics or deep dives, and then answer questions submitted live by subscribers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app to listen on your own time.You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button in the bottom right of the player box that looks like a piece of paper, or the button labeled ‘Transcript’ to the right of our names and just below the player. Like so:If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com. And if you’re coming from David’s audience, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In this latest episode of the Strength In Numbers live podcast, Elliott and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, have a wide-ranging discussion of the 2026 political environment. We talk about:* A Democratic shockwave in Texas. Democrats flipped a Texas State Senate seat in a district that Trump won by 17 points in 2024. We explain why turnout alone can’t account for the massive swing.* Is Texas redistricting a “dummymander”? The conversation turns to Texas Republicans’ aggressive attempt to gerrymander five Democratic congressional seats. David argues it’s not technically a dummymander, since Republicans didn’t endanger their own incumbents, but points out a wave election could still put unexpected GOP seats in play.* And on that note: Democrats could even net a few seats out of the 2025-2026 redistricting wars. Democratic gains in California, Virginia, and Utah could outweigh GOP gerrymandering in Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina, turning Trump’s mandated mid-decade map redrawing into a real strategic blunder.* And in our main section, we cover why Democrats should talk about ICE. Elliott lays out new polling showing that Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda is deeply unpopular once voters see the real-world consequences. Support for ICE reforms is overwhelming, including majorities favoring banning ICE agents from wearing masks and withholding DHS funding unless reforms are enacted.* Democratic intensity advantage. David points out that polling toplines understate how intense anti-ICE sentiment has become, pointing to mass protests and the lack of comparable pro-enforcement mobilization. Highly engaged voters are also, for now, substantially more Democratic on the generic ballot than the broader electorate.* A subscriber submits a question about Trump’s approval rating ticking up slightly in recent days, so Elliott explains why small changes in polling averages often reflect statistical noise — especially given the influence of low-quality partisan pollsters that inject volatility into aggregations.* Economic anxiety and democratic decline. We discuss a new Gallup global survey showing people increasingly cite politics/government and the economy as top concerns. In America, recent economic insecurity has made voters more volatile and less committed to traditional democratic values — a repeat of historical patterns of post-material politics.* Another live subscriber question: Texas Democratic Senate primary uncertainty. Elliott and David close with a discussion of early polling in the Texas Democratic Senate primary (Talarico vs. Crockett), emphasizing that primary polls are notoriously unreliable and that large undecided shares make toplines misleading.Plus: why we think everyone should avoid being a “margin bro.”If you missed our livestream, you can watch it by clicking play above. You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button in the bottom right of the player box that looks like a piece of paper, or the button labeled ‘Transcript’ to the right of our names and just below the player. Like so:If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com. And if you’re coming from David’s audience, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

(This note is from Elliott). Thanks to my friend Michael Podhorzer of the Weekend Reading Substack for having me on his show to talk about politics and electoral strategy ahead of 2026.We cover:* Taylor Rehmet’s massive upset win in Texas’s 9th Senate District last Saturday* How views about immigration have changed since January 2025* Where the “median voter theorem” falls shortPlus: What independent polling can add to our understanding of electionsIf you missed our livestream, you can watch it by clicking play above. You can also read the transcript from our conversation by clicking the button labeled ‘Transcript’ directly below the player.If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to Michael’s newsletter, head to weekendreading.net. And if you’re coming from Michael’s audience, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

In this conversation, Elliott is joined by David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, to take stock of Donald Trump’s polling numbers as he passes one year in office. We dig into the fresh January Strength In Numbers/Verasight polling data, talk about Elliott’s new project mapping public opinion at the local level, check in on Democratic strategy regarding immigration and immigration enforcement, and Trump’s “jokes” about canceling the 2026 midterms.We cover:* Trump’s polling collapse. Just 40% of Americans approve of his job performance, while 58% disapprove — a net -18 rating. Nearly half the country strongly disapproves. This is not a president with any sort of mandate to lead.* The highest-resolution map of Trump approval ever made. Using 12,000 interviews from our monthly polls, I built a sub-county-level interactive map showing Trump’s approval across the country. You can see what your neighborhood thinks of the president. (Bonus points for anyone who guesses the first- and second-most anti-Trump PUMAs in the country without looking.)* The immigration polling myth. Pundits say immigration is Trump’s strong suit, and Democrats should avoid pushing on the issue, or their numbers will sink. This has been the dominant strategy advice in Washington since 2024. The data disagree. In the new Strength In Numbers poll, Trump’s approval on deportations is -12, while border security is +4 — a 16-point gap. We are seeing the impacts on public opinion of Americans distinguishing between securing the border and ICE raids in their communities.* Why Trump can’t cancel the midterms. We talked through the distributed structure of U.S. elections and why — despite his authoritarian instincts and desires — President Trump cannot stop the midterms from happening in November. But he can disrupt them, and the fact that he jokes about it is disturbing enough. We are in the “tail outcomes” phase for U.S. democracy, and nobody can predict how this will end.Plus: Democrats are still running above baseline in special elections. And more. If you missed our livestream, you can watch it by clicking play above. You can also read the transcript from our conversation by clicking the button on the player that looks like a piece of paper, or the button labeled ‘Transcript’ right below the player.If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com. And if you’re coming from David’s audience, subscribe here to get the numbers behind the news! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

Happy Saturday, readers,I was delighted to sit down again with Paul Krugman this past Thursday to talk through the 2025 elections and what the results actually tell us. We cover the toplines — Democrats over-performed across Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and elsewhere — and then dig into the nitty gritty of which groups swung the most, and what it all means for 2026.Here are a few selected topics from the conversation:* First, the election results confirmed what the polls have been telling us for months: Trump is deeply unpopular, his policy agenda is unpopular, and when voters are forced to choose between Trump and something else, they choose something else.* Second, the movement to Democrats was concentrated among the voters who powered Trump’s win in 2024: Latinos, Gen Z, and lower-income voters. Hispanic-heavy precincts shifted 60 points to the left. People who rank the economy as their top issue also broke decisively in the Democrats’ favor, a big reversal from 2024.* And why did the Democrats win so big? In one word: affordability. In two words: affordability and Trump. When the economy isn’t delivering for the average voter, Americans usually respond by voting out the party that holds the White House. Trump’s unpopular agenda on immigration and tariffs likely exacerbated the swing against him, explaining a larger-than-average defeat in VA and NJ.* We also get into why affordability — not hyper-optimizing issue positions or a radical shift to the center — is the path forward for Democrats. I look at the Strategist’s Fallacy in action, and urge people to think about politics beyond the 1-dimensional left-right ideological spectrum.* Also, polls underestimated Democrats (a mirror image of recent cycles) by about a normal amount. This is notable because polls have tended to underestimate Republicans recently. I explain what I think went wrong.* Finally, the results of Tuesday’s election predict a sizable Democratic edge in the 2026 House midterms, and give them a non-trivial shot at winning back the Senate (I give them a ~30-35% chance). Lots can change, of course, but the upshot for now is clear: Democrats are in the driver’s seat next year. On the core questions of economic stewardship and policy congruence with the average voter, Trump is falling short. Looking ahead, Republicans will face serious headings for Trump breaking his promises on prices.A transcript of our interview follows. If you have any thoughts or questions while reading/watching, leave them below!ElliottTRANSCRIPT: (recorded 11/06/25)Paul Krugman: Hi everyone. Paul Krugman again. I am having another conversation with G. Elliott Morris, whose “Strength in Numbers” Substack and fiftyplusone.news have become my go-tos for polling elections. We had a few results this week and I want to talk about them and then talk a bit more about the broader debate. Hi, Elliott.G. Elliott Morris: Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me back here. I think this is a three-peat now.Krugman: It’s a three-peat, elections and polls keep happening.So we had a pretty startling Tuesday. Maybe before we get into more analytical stuff, why don’t you just give me some reactions. What do you think just happened?Morris: I wrote a couple of data driven takeaways—well not a couple, seven of them—on the Substack which I can reference. Then I’ll also mention a couple things from the new data analysis. For the readers, we’re recording this on Thursday. So there’s been about a day to catch up on sleep and digest the findings.The big thing is unsurprising, but it really bears repeating. This is an electoral repudiation of Donald Trump and an electoral verdict on his unpopularity. I have appeared on your interview show a couple of times now to say essentially that the polls show he’s the most unpopular president ever—save himself in his first term. Trump’s policy agenda is also one of the most unpopular policy agendas in American presidential history, at least since we have surveys, since 1936. In that context, it’s rather unsurprising that Democrats did so well in Tuesday’s elections. They swept all of the statewide races in Virginia, all of the New Jersey races, they picked up two utility offices in Georgia, a red state—or a purple state if you’re very optimistic there as a Democrat—which is surprising. In Pennsylvania, they hold like three partisan justices and they win a lower court race as well as statewide.In that context, it’s rather unsurprising, but it does affirm what we’ve been seeing in other data, which as good Bayesians, is always important to us. It also gives hard data to members of Congress that might want to fight Trump on things like his tariffs, or immigration, which is very unpopular, either from the right or from the left. It gives them something to point to that’s not just survey data, which is increasingly po-pooed in Congress, as we might say.So that’s my big takeaway. There are some smaller things which I’ll mention now. The first is it’s not just that Trump lost, it’s that he lost with voters that he supposedly had a realignment with in 2024. This is Latinos and Generation Z voters in particular. He loses with voters who say the economy is very important to them, which is the single constituency that likely propelled him to victory in 2024 in the first place. So in my article I’m putting out on Friday, I’m going to characterize this as: Trump’s losing his winning coalition; because I think that’s really what’s going on here.The voters that put him in the White House because they wanted lower prices have said, “he’s not holding up his end of the bargain.” He’s not lowering prices. The supposed Republican ideological gains among Latinos in Generation Z who have tended to lean to the left and who, by the way, still voted for Kamala Harris despite lower margins than they did previously has evidently, evaporated. That’s really worth digesting as well.Krugman: At one level of dispute we’ve had Trump himself insisting week after week that the polls are fake and that he’s extremely popular. And it’s basically you can argue to your blue in the face that “polling, it’s not a perfect science, but it’s meaningful.”But there’s nothing quite like actual elections to settle that dispute. This sort of says that the polling saying that he’s unpopular and his policies are unpopular is right. But it was even a bigger Democratic sweep than expected. I was taking some heart from your polling averages, and some of the polling you’ve been sponsoring. But I was still particularly nervous a little bit about New Jersey. What came in was: the polls were wrong. The Democrats won bigger than the polls suggested they would. Talk a little bit about why you think that happened?Morris: Interesting context here, we’ve spent the last three presidential election cycles saying, “the polls are broken,” or what have you—I haven’t said that, but other people surely have—because they’ve underestimated Republicans. Over those three cycles, presidential years 2016, 2020, 2024, the average bias at the state level was about 2.7 to 3 points, depending on how you count it, against Republicans. The error that we saw Tuesday night was about the same in the opposite direction, an underestimation of Democrats. So there’s a sort of flip flopping here of the error in the polls for different years and different levels of elections. Which is always my argument that we should use these surveys responsibly and acknowledge their uncertainty. This is a good reminder that polling error does not always go in the same direction. So that’s the first thing I’d say.But the error itself, about two points in the Virginia governor’s race according to our average, which was closer than other averages, and I think 6 points, maybe 7 points in the New Jersey governor’s race is slightly larger than average, but not terribly so for an off-year governor’s race, the average polling error for an off-year governor’s race is about 4.5 percentage points. So we did better than average in Virginia, worse than average in New Jersey, average those together: it’s not terribly surprising that we saw a candidate beat their surveys. But the mechanism here is really interesting and will have consequences for surveys in 2026. It looks like what is happening is that pollsters who adjust their surveys so that they match the electorate of the 2024 presidential electorate, something we call “weighting by past or recalled vote,” they underestimated Democrats more than the other pollsters did.Let me unpack. So today, polls have a response rate less than 1 percentage point, in some cases less than 1/10th of a percentage point. So the people you get are really weird, it’s terrible. The people you get to answering surveys are really, really weird. The way you account for that is to increase the weight on respondents who you think are underrepresented. Based on some benchmarks, we get really good demographic benchmarks from the census. That’s pretty easy. That problem has been solved for the better half of a century at this point, but we don’t have good benchmarks for the partisan composition of the electorate. We don’t really know how many Republicans or Democrats should be showing up in an off year election until the election happens, so pollsters have to make guesses about this. Some pollsters have said that their polls should be representative of the Kamala Harris and Donald Trump distribution of voters in the off-year election. Those people underestimated Democrats because, of course, the electorate was much friendlier to Democrats. You had a lot of Republicans not show up, and you had a lot of people change their votes from Trump and from Trump to Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey.So the top line conclusion here for me is that pollsters should not be adjusting their samples to be representative by past vote if they’re benchmark is past presidential elections, and they’re not in a presidential election. When they do that, they will probably u

ReadersRyan Lizza, the independent journalist formerly of CNN and POLITICO, asked me to do an interview with him on Friday about my new column on the outcome of Tuesday’s elections. In this conversation I make several bold claims, such as:* Trump is unpopular and that’s why Republicans lost on Tuesday* If Trump continues to be unpopular, Republicans will struggle in the 2026 midterms* Realignments are realignments by definition only if they stick* People read way too much into narrow debates about ideology and issue positions after the 2024 election, blinding them to trends that would have helped predict 2025 (and 2026/28)* Anti-incumbent sentiment is currently the driving force in American politics* Democrats should think about politics not as happening on a 1-dimensional left-right ideological spectrum, but a cartesian plane with a vertical pro/anti-system axis tooI also reference data from my Tuesday column.Have a nice weekend!Elliott This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

State of play + recent eventsTwo weeks ago, if you had asked me who was going to win the elections in Virginia this November, I would have confidently said Democrats are likely to sweep races for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and expand their majority in the House of Delegates. The state usually votes against the party of the president, and Democrats are up big in the polls. Easy math, right?Well, things might not be so easy now. Recent events have shaken up state politics, and a sweep is now in doubt.Notably, last week, text messages from 2022 surfaced showing Jay Jones (the Democratic candidate for attorney general) “joking” about shooting the then–Speaker of the House, Todd Gilbert: “three people, two bullets. gilbert, hitler, pol pot,” Jones wrote. “gilbert gets two bullets in the head.” Political bettors gave Jones a 92% chance of winning two weeks ago, but now put the odds at 50-50. And despite an apology from Jones and denouncement by Abigali Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for governor, the messages were a big topic of the debate between her and Republican nominee Winsome Earle-Sears on Thursday night, Oct. 9. The smart money still has Spanberger as an overwhelming favorite.Given the national conversation about political violence right now, the issue has staying power. President Donald Trump has called on Jay Jones to drop out of the race.Do scandals matter in our polarized politics?But how much does this really matter? Do Democrats simply have an indomitable turnout advantage in off-year elections now? Will the AG race be decided by “fundamentals” like Trump’s approval and the state of the economy? (Unemployment in Virginia has grown for 7 months in a row.)To make sense of all of this, I asked my friend and Virginia politics expert Chaz Nuttycombe to come on a live podcast episode for Strength In Numbers recorded Friday afternoon, Oct. 10. Chaz is an election forecaster and the founder of State Navigate, a non-profit devoted to sharing data about state legislatures (think roll call votes, district demographics, campaign finance — that kind of stuff). He’s a knowledgeable voice on Virginia politics with a good track record.Chaz and I get into the nitty-gritty of the races and balance the predictors for next month’s elections. We also talk about what the outcome could mean for Trump and 2026.I hope you enjoy our conversation above. Thanks to Chaz for coming! Share and subscribe if you want to see more conversations like this one. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

I joined my friend and ex-538’er Perry Bacon Jr and Amanda Litman, the founder of Run For Something, for a conversation on politics in 2025 and what the Democrats need to do to rebuild the party post-Trump. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

Here’s a quick Friday afternoon post.Ryan Lizza (and his cute new puppy) interviewed me today about our new Strength In Numbers poll this week — and about all the other great work the community here is both supporting and, increasingly, participating in.We talk about Trump, the LA and No Kings Day protests, immigration, Democratic strategy, polling in the age of AI, and more.Have a happy weekend! Elliott This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

Dear readers,In case you missed it, Mike Podhorzer and I did a video conversation together on June 2. We talked about:* My new piece on Trump’s popularity* How the media uses polling* Why it pays to approach public opinion with nuance and uncertainty* Why traditional ad-supported media is not set up to incentivize factual discourse when it conflicts with values of partisan fairness;* and moreMike and I have known each other for the better part of a decade now. At the end, I ask him about a big theory he has talked and written about for most of the time I’ve known him. We touch a bit on this question: Are Democrats just doomed in the Senate?You can watch a recording of the conversation above. Please share with your friends and family.Elliott This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

I was very kindly joined by David Nir of The Downballot on Tuesday to talk about the (successful, IMO!) launch of Strength In Numbers this week, and give a sneak peek at our first poll publishing tomorrow (Wednesday, May 14).The first few minutes will be familiar to readers because we are giving a wider audience on the Substack App the low-down on what we do here at Strength In Numbers. But the rest will be fresh for you.We talk about:* Why I think data-driven news is more necessary now than ever* Incentives for and against accuracy in political news coverage* How to improve journalism about polling* Why it matters that Donald Trump is unpopular* What’s in store for the first Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll coming out tomorrow…To watch the video from this live conversation, click the play button above.And if you haven’t yet subscribed to The Downballot, you can sign up below: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe