Presidential elections in Wisconsin the last two cycles have been incredibly close. In 2016 and 2020, they were decided by less than one percentage point. Of course, polling in the state has been notoriously "off" - or maybe fickle - which makes it more important than ever to talk to people who have been covering politics in Wisconsin for quite some time and can help us understand the many whims and changes there. That's why we invited Craig Gilbert to talk today. He is a self-described chronicler of close Wisconsin elections and he calls it one of the "most enduring" of the battleground states. Craig has covered politics in Wisconsin since 1988. He was the Washington bureau chief and national political reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He is now a fellow at Marquette Law School's Lubar Center.
A special episode of The Odd Years: Amy and David catch up with David Axelrod in Milwaukee at the RNC. The three discuss what they're seeing on the ground, their thoughts on the selection of J.D. Vance as Trump's running mate, and the situation for President Biden and the Democrats as they head into their convention in a few weeks. David Axelrod is the founding director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago; former Chief Strategist and Senior Advisor to President Obama; senior political commentator at CNN; and host of the podcasts "Hacks on Tap" and "The Axe Files." **Subscribe to the Cook Political Report with our new $99 election season pass. Get the latest analysis, first, from our top-notch team for the next 4 months. Subscribe here: cookpolitical.com/subscribe**
We originally asked our guest today, Michael Podhorzer, to come on to talk about voter demographics. Mike was the longtime political director for the AFL-CIO. He’s now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and he writes a Substack called Weekend Reading. And Mike has been one of the pioneers in Democratic circles using data and analytics to inform campaign strategy. After we invited him on, President Biden had his terrible debate performance and the entire presidential race took a sharp turn. So we’re going to start with the news, and then later we’ll get into some of his big pictures thoughts on horse race polls, education polarization (he has differing opinions from our last guests on this topic), and what he calls “the anti-maga coalition.” Since news is moving fast right now, we recorded this conversation on Tuesday, July 9 at 2pm.
The Cook Political Report's David Wasserman, Jessica Taylor and Erin Covey answer your mailbag questions this week.They weigh in on what Trump's conviction will mean for Republicans in down-ballot races; they go into the weeds on their process for rating two congressional districts in California; they discuss Senate races in Virginia and Minnesota; and they explain why they don't believe in what some are calling a "reverse coattails" dynamic in the presidential race.
Donald Trump is very popular in rural America. Drive down a rural stretch of road, and you are still likely to see Trump flags waving in the breeze or the Trump logo painted on the side of a barn. Rural parts of America have always been conservative-leaning. But Republicans now dominate rural politics from the top of the ticket to the bottom. There have been plenty of books written about how and why Republicans, and Trump in particular, have thrived in rural parts of the country. Our guests today have one of the newest additions to the mix. Dan Shea and Nick Jacobs are professors at Colby College, and their book is “The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America.” Dan and Nick conducted 10,000 surveys of rural voters. They dug into hundreds of years of voting history to try and understand the voting patterns we are seeing today, and to provide a more nuanced picture of rural voters.
Amy Walter is joined by her colleague, Cook Political Report Senior Editor and Election Analyst David Wasserman. First, they answer a listener's question on partisan realignment, particularly among education lines. Next, they dive into the question of which House Republicans won by Biden in 2020 are the most endangered.Ask us your questions here or by calling 202-739-8520 (press 8). Remember to say your name and where you are calling from.
Amy is back with a conversation about the new show now streaming on Max, The Girls on the Bus. The show stars Melissa Benoist as Sadie McCarthy, a scrappy and ambitious journalist covering a fictional Democratic presidential primary. It follows Sadie and three other women reporters as they navigate the campaign trail, while juggling their careers, personal lives — and relationships with one another. The Girls on the Bus is inspired by the book “Chasing Hillary” by Amy Chozick, a former New York Times reporter. Amy’s book chronicled her experiences covering Hillary Clinton’s 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns.Amy Walter talks with Amy Chozick and Julie Plec, co-creators and executive producers of The Girls on the Bus, and actress Melissa Benoist. They discuss politics, journalism, and turning campaign coverage into a television series.
Amy sits down with her Cook Political Report colleague, Senior Editor & Elections Analyst David Wasserman, for a walk down memory lane. In honor of The Cook Political Report's 40th Anniversary, David selected the defining House races of every cycle since 1984. Amy and Dave reminisce about the names, faces, issues, and districts that have shaped congressional politics over the past 40 years.Read Dave's full report here.
The Odd Years is back with season two. It is a big election year, and we know you have many questions for the team at The Cook Political Report. We are opening season 2 with a listener mailbag. In this episode, Amy answers questions about swing states to watch in 2024 and what to make of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s support.Ask us your questions here or by calling 202-739-8520 (press 8). Remember to say your name and where you are calling from.
For our final show of 2024, we are bringing you a conversation we recorded a couple weeks ago with the Cook Political Report's David Wasserman and the two pollsters who collaborated with the our team on 2024 Swing State Project.We started the project in the spring of 2024 in order to get a deeper understanding of the issues, concerns, and priorities of voters in the seven key battleground states.We teamed up with two amazing pollsters, Patrick Toomey, partner at the Democratic firm BSG, and Greg Strimple, president of GS Strategy Group, a Republican polling company.What we really loved about working with Greg and Patrick and their teams is that these are campaign pollsters. They understand the dynamics involved, not just in what voters are saying, but also how candidates and campaigns would respond to them.We conducted three surveys with Greg and Patrick, one in May, one in August, right after Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the top of the ticket, and a final one in September. You can find all of those at here along with our analysis. The one consistent theme we saw throughout those three polls was that voters' concern about the state of the economy and inflation dominated even as events like Biden's last minute dropping out and an assassination attempt on Trump roiled the campaign.So Amy started this conversation with Dave, Greg, and Patrick by asking: even though Kamala Harris was able to narrow the gap on economic issues from where Joe Biden stood earlier in the year, in the end, was this simply it's an economy stupid election? **We're excited that we'll be back in 2025 with a brand new season. Our guests will include people who live and breathe politics - like us! - and plenty who do not. We'll be back soon in the New Year, but for now, enjoy our final show of 2024.**
Americans often say they hate how vitriolic and polarized our politics has become, and yet our current political system helps to promote this very behavior. That's why there's been a push for electoral reforms that incentivize candidates to appeal to voters across the political spectrum instead of just focusing on the most ideological and extreme voices in their party.Reforms like a primary system that all candidates, regardless of party, run on the same ballot, with the top two or more advancing to the general election. Another reform is ranked choice voting, which asks voters to rank their pick of candidates in order of preference.The thinking behind these ideas is that the American public is less divided than the elected officials we send to congress, and that makes it harder to pass legislation that many people actually support. So if there's a way to run our elections so that candidates didn't have to appeal to the more extreme elements of their parties, shouldn't we move towards that kind of system? That all sounds like something voters would like to see, right? Reformers thought so too. And in 2024, they helped get ranked choice voting on the ballot in a bunch of states like Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho, as well as Washington, DC. But while Americans are quite unhappy with how politics and governing worked these days, these reforms ultimately were rejected in almost all the places where they appeared on the ballot. Why was that? We asked Nick Troiano to join Amy on the podcast to help answer this question and learn more about where the electoral reform movement goes next. Nick has long been a part of the electoral reform movement. He's the executive director of Unite America, a nonpartisan election reform organization.He's also the author of The Primary Solution: Rescuing Our Democracy From The Fringes.
It's hard to overstate just how important Pennsylvania plays in deciding the Electoral College winner. If Kamala Harris loses the state, she'd need to win North Carolina or Georgia, as well as Nevada and the remaining blue wall states of Wisconsin and Michigan. If Trump were to lose Pennsylvania, he'd need to pick off at least one of those other Midwestern swing states - Michigan or Wisconsin - and would need to win Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, as well as North Carolina. Right now, polling suggests the outcome in Pennsylvania is on a knife's edge, which isn't surprising given that President Biden carried the state by just about 80,000 votes in 2020 and in 2016, Trump won the state by just over 68,000 votes. So what makes Pennsylvania the swingiest of swing states? Way back in the 1980s, Democratic strategist James Carville dubbed the state Philadelphia on one side, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in the middle. But our guests today, Philadelphia Inquirer reporters Julia Terruso and Aseem Shukla, recently took a detailed look at voting patterns in the state and identified five distinct places that are critical to a candidate's success there. Julia Terruso covers politics and our divided electorate for the Inquirer. And up until recently, Aseem Shukla was a data reporter for the Inquirer. You can now find him at the San Francisco Chronicle. Please check out their really fantastic interactive piece, The Five Kind of Places That Win you Pennsylvania.
Amy's guest today, Dr. Michael Bitzer, calls North Carolina the "stuck battleground state." That's because Republicans have dominated there in presidential elections. And yet, every four years, Democrats hold out hope that they can turn it blue. Barack Obama did it in 2008, but no other Democrat has done so since.Will 2024 be different? Joe Biden thought he could keep the Tar Heel state in play but as he struggled nationally, his numbers sunk. It's a different story with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket and North Carolina is now a very close race.Today, Amy turns to Dr. Michael Bitzer, Politics Department Chair at Catawba College and author of the blog, Old North State Politics, to learn more about the state of the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and what to look for as we get closer to election day.**Do you want insider access to Amy Walter, David Wasserman and the rest of the Cook Political Report editorial team? Registration to our live 2024 Election Preview on October 2 is now open for all annual, group and premium subscribers. We’ll have a presentation on key races and the political dynamics of 2024, followed by a Q&A session. If you are interested in attending and not yet a subscriber, go to www.cookpolitical.com/subscribe. Unlock all the inside access and benefits of a Cook Political Report subscription. We hope to see you on October 2!**
Right before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, his path to victory appeared very narrow. It was: win the midwest states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But with Kamala Harris now at the top of the ticket, the electoral map could open up for Democrats, and some of those states that Joe Biden won in 2020, but seemed out of reach in 2024, could be back in play. One of those states is Georgia. Biden won narrowly there in 2020 thanks in large part to significant turnout and support from the Black community. Recent national polls show Kamala Harris running stronger with younger and voters of color than Biden. This helps to explain why her campaign chose Atlanta for her kickoff rally last Tuesday night.Trump campaigns at the very same spot on Saturday. Our guest today is Maya King, New York Times politics reporter for the Southeast based in Atlanta. We wanted to talk to her about what she’s hearing from voters in Georgia and how Kamala Harris is changing the dynamics in the state. We spoke on Friday afternoon, a day before Trump’s Atlanta rally.
If you listen to this podcast, you’ve probably heard of the so-called education divide in American politics with those with college degrees increasingly supporting Democrats and liberal causes and those without college degrees, increasingly supporting Republicans and conservative social issues. On today's show, Amy talks with Matt Grossman, Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and professor of political science at Michigan State University and Dave Hopkins, associate professor of political science at Boston College. They are the co-authors of a book coming out this fall called Polarized by Degrees. Matt and Dave explore how this divide came to be and its impact on voting behavior. But they also look at what the degree gap says about which political party has power in the American culture - in corporate board rooms, on college campuses, and in the media - and why that's created a "perpetual cultural war."
In 2020, Donald Trump's considerable margin of victory among white working-class voters was expected, but his success in winning a larger share of the Latino and black vote was not. Amy's latest guest, Republican Pollster Patrick Ruffini, argues that Trump's advances with these voters is part of a more significant realignment in our politics. Amy talks to Patrick about his fascinating new book, "Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP." The pair discuss whether Trump will be able to keep this coalition in 2024 and the influence of culture on voting patterns.
Host Amy Walter confesses her love of Apple TV's For All Mankind and the magic of its decade-spanning montages and storytelling to none other than the show's Executive Producers and writers, Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert. As season 4 of the show launches, the trio goes deep into the show's origin [03:28]; whether we should consider the show science or fiction [06:57]; taking a closer look at Gary Hart, Al Gore, and Ellen Wilson's journey in FAMK to the highest office in the land [21:19]; the creative process, electoral maps and fictional news reports featured in the montages [16:33; where the show will go as it catches up to our actual reality [24:22]; grieving the loss of beloved characters [37:04]; favorite political reads [39:53]; and much, much more.Catch up on #ForAllMankind, and its Season 2, 3 & 4 montage openers, on AppleTV+.
Amy Walter talks with Mark Z. Barabak, a political columnist for the Los Angeles Times, focusing on California and the West. They discuss his new series, "The New West," which explores the forces and factors that led once-reliable Republican states like Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada to turn from red to purple and blue. Amy and Mark also delve into the state of the 'Reid Machine' in Nevada, the importance of Latinos to Democrats' success and how the post-COVID "work from anywhere" economy could play into future voting patterns.
Amy Walter chats with Astead Herndon, a national politics reporter for the New York Times and the host of the "The Run-Up" podcast. Amy and Astead grapple with the fact that while voters are overwhelmingly against a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024, it still appears to be the inevitable outcome. Astead notes that we are "careening towards a rematch very fast." The pair discuss the lack of enthusiasm around Biden. Astead makes the point that Vice President Kamala Harris will be the face of the Biden campaign on the road and will be under more scrutiny from the media.
Amy Walter catches up with Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark and founder of the Republican Accountability Project. Sarah also hosts The Focus Group podcast, which brings listeners into wide-ranging conversations with voters. Sarah and Amy discuss where Donald Trump is already showing his potential strength in a general election [6:16]. Sarah also reflects on what she’s heard in focus groups to explain where Ron DeSantis’ candidacy went wrong [10:04], why evangelical voters aren’t coalescing around Mike Pence, and what to expect from Tim Scott in the coming months [21:22]. Amy also asks Sarah whether a third-party candidate could hurt Biden with swing voters [31:20], and Sarah turns the tables on Amy to ask whether Trump actually could lose the Republican primary. [38:55]
Steven Maurice
exited