0:01

One of the most important data points

0:03

on following and twenty twenty four, the

0:05

most important metric the most. Important data

0:07

point. I think the data point

0:09

that we have been watching the

0:11

most closely. Really important. Number is is

0:14

the when that gonna be tracking cross

0:16

tabs. By the way I love this

0:18

idea! This is so fun! Hello

0:28

and welcome to the Five Video Politics

0:31

Podcast. I'm Gail and Drink We're going

0:33

to something a little bit different today,

0:35

which I'm very excited about. While the

0:37

primaries are not technically over, we are

0:40

for all intents and purposes in the

0:42

early weeks of the general election, and

0:44

it's a unique one. a rematch between

0:46

a sitting president and a former president,

0:49

to people who are universally known and

0:51

have been in the American consciousness in

0:53

some way or another for decades. And

0:56

with the early and to the competitive

0:58

part. Of the primary, it will be

1:00

the longest general election in memory, and

1:02

I'm sure it will also feel that

1:04

way. So as we start this process,

1:07

we wanted to lay down some markers

1:09

of what to watch for in the

1:11

year ahead. So we reached out to

1:13

more than a dozen experts, pollsters, political

1:16

scientists, and data journalists people who know

1:18

their data, other politics, and follow these

1:20

things closely and we asked them all

1:22

one question: What is the most valuable

1:25

data point you are watching to understand

1:27

the Twenty Twenty Four Election. And

1:29

why were you going here today is

1:31

their responses. There's a range of views

1:33

with some overlap. In fact, one com

1:36

and answer in particular stuck out and

1:38

these data points don't just get it.

1:40

Who will win? In fact, although we

1:43

didn't give people any parameters for what

1:45

they could pick, no one said the

1:47

head to head polling average between Biden

1:49

and Trump, Many of these answers get

1:52

it the why: why people might be

1:54

drawn to one candidate or another. So

1:56

let's begin our first date. A point

1:58

comes from a deal. Dear friend of

2:01

the Podcast in fact a former

2:03

Five Thirty Eight or himself that

2:05

his senior political data reporter for

2:07

Cnn Mister Harry Entin. Taken

2:09

away Harry. So. I am

2:12

looking at a question than a

2:14

bunch of pulsars avast in some

2:16

form of another. Been just gonna

2:18

give you the Nbc News question

2:20

which is essentially they wanted voters

2:22

to compare Joe Biden and Donald

2:24

Trump on a few issues impersonal

2:26

characteristics, one of them being being

2:28

effective and competent. and this is

2:30

a question that gets out one

2:32

of them big sort of issues

2:34

surrounding this campaign and that as

2:36

the age of the candid is

2:38

obviously Joe Biden is the oldest

2:40

President ever. Donald Trump, if he

2:42

were in fact to win again by

2:45

the end of his second term, wouldn't

2:47

that be over the age of eighty

2:49

and what we? Why? This

2:51

question is so important is because right

2:53

now Donald Trump is beating Joe Biden

2:55

on this question by a forty eight

2:58

percent to thirty two percent margin. This

3:00

is a reversal of what we saw

3:02

during the Twenty Twenty campaigns in which

3:04

Joe Biden impact will add Donald Trump

3:06

on this question by a forty seven

3:08

percent to thirty eight percent margin and

3:10

I think of Joe Biden is gonna

3:12

wanna come back and the polls because

3:14

he's trailing right now. He is gonna

3:16

have to be seen as somebody who

3:18

can overcome the age issue right now.

3:21

Most Americans believe that Joe Biden is

3:23

too old to competently serve another term

3:25

as president, despite the fact that the

3:27

economy is doing fairly well despite the

3:30

fact that voters prefer him on the

3:32

issue of abortion which of course as

3:34

a major issue and the twenty twenty

3:37

two metres in voters do not believe

3:39

that Joe Biden can be competent and

3:41

effective. I'm just not really sure how

3:44

he comes back in this race, despite

3:46

all the problems that Donald Trump is

3:48

facing with the for criminal indictments. the

3:51

questions over his character because at the end

3:53

of the day in a lot of voters'

3:55

minds if you're going to be the president

3:57

of the united states you have to be

3:59

somebody who can actually go in there

4:01

and do the job. And a lot of

4:03

Americans at this point, simply put, do not

4:06

believe that Joe Biden can be competent and

4:08

effective for another four years. So

4:10

Harry coming out of the gate with one of the

4:12

big issues of 2024, which is age. While

4:17

Biden and Trump are similar ages,

4:20

voters' perceptions of the two candidates

4:22

based on age are pretty different.

4:24

So in that NBC poll that

4:26

Harry mentioned, it actually gets at

4:29

this explicitly as well. 76%

4:32

of voters had major or moderate concerns

4:34

when asked whether Biden has the necessary

4:36

mental and physical health to be president

4:38

for a second term. Only 11% had

4:40

no real concerns. When

4:43

asked about Trump, 48%

4:46

said they had major or moderate concerns. Now,

4:48

the role of campaigns is to try

4:50

to change perceptions about yourself or your

4:52

opponent. So, you know, historically, maybe if

4:54

you're seen as inexperienced on foreign policy

4:56

or something like that, you

4:58

try to go abroad during the campaign,

5:01

beef up on your defense policy, maybe

5:03

pick a running mate who has foreign

5:05

policy experience, but can perceptions

5:07

about age and therefore competence also

5:10

be changed and how? So

5:12

that is something that Harry and also we

5:14

will be tracking over the coming year. The

5:17

next four responses we're gonna hear

5:20

fall into a category that we're

5:22

calling the It's Personal category. They

5:24

emphasize voters' perceptions of whether this

5:27

election will affect them personally. Starting

5:30

us off is another friend of

5:32

the pod, Kristin Soltis-Anderson. You've almost

5:34

certainly heard her before on the

5:36

podcast. Kristin is a Republican pollster

5:38

and a founding partner of the

5:40

polling firm Echelon Insights, which scores

5:42

highly on our pollster ratings. Kristin,

5:44

take it away. The

5:47

most important metric that I'm watching

5:49

through this election season is

5:52

whether or not voters think that

5:54

it actually makes a difference to

5:56

them personally, whether Joe Biden or

5:59

Donald Trump. Trump wins the election.

6:02

Now, for people who follow politics closely,

6:04

it should seem obvious, right? These are

6:06

two very different candidates. And

6:08

yet for not insignificant portion of

6:11

voters, there right now is such

6:13

dissatisfaction with both of these candidates

6:16

that if people get to November and

6:18

they think, you know what, it doesn't

6:20

really matter, then maybe they stay home.

6:22

The reason why that's such a big

6:24

deal is on the one hand for

6:27

Republicans, they now increasingly rely on low

6:29

propensity, low turnout voters. So people who

6:31

are more marginally attached to the process,

6:33

they need high turnout. If people think

6:35

the stakes aren't really that high in

6:37

this election, who cares? This is just

6:39

too old guys. That could hurt Trump.

6:42

But I actually at this point think

6:44

there's even a bigger risk of it

6:46

hurting Biden. In my latest polling, I've

6:48

asked this question, assuming the 2024 election

6:51

is between Donald Trump and Joe Biden,

6:53

which of the following do you agree

6:55

with more? 74% say whether Trump or

6:57

Biden wins really would make a difference

6:59

to me personally among voters

7:01

who are Republican, who are older, who

7:03

are white, who are the

7:05

types of demographics that are already kind of

7:07

in Trump's coalition. They are sky high on

7:09

that. But for the other

7:12

option, whether Trump or Biden wins really

7:14

would not make a difference for me

7:16

personally, 14%

7:18

of respondents chose that another 12%

7:20

chose unsure. And this is

7:22

higher among young voters voters of color,

7:25

precisely the types of voters that Biden

7:27

has maybe struggled to connect with a

7:29

little bit more in the Democratic coalition

7:31

as of late. So I'm going

7:33

to keep watching this number. I don't know

7:36

that the top line number is going to

7:38

move a ton between now and November. And

7:40

I do think you're going to see more

7:42

voters think, oh, yes, the stakes are very

7:44

high in this election. But if things stay

7:46

a bit lower among those younger voters, voters

7:48

of color, the types of folks who are

7:50

perhaps most likely to be disappointed in

7:53

both candidates, that could spell real

7:55

trouble for Democrats in the election.

7:58

It's an important point that Kristin. makes. You

8:00

know, here in our little world on

8:03

the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, it may seem

8:05

like everyone is clued in and cares

8:07

one way or another who wins

8:09

the 2024 election. But

8:11

I'll just say from my personal experience, going

8:14

out in the field and talking to folks, especially

8:16

when you're not at a political rally for a

8:18

Republican or Democrat and say in a park or

8:20

at a grocery store or whatever, you find people

8:22

all the time who are not clued in and

8:24

will tell you straight up, they don't really care

8:26

and may not even plan on voting. The

8:29

United States has one of the lower

8:31

turnout rates amongst developed democracies. And actually,

8:34

to Kristen's point, I want to cite

8:36

some polling from Axios comparing intention to

8:38

vote between 2019 and now. Now, 49 percent of 18 to

8:41

29 year olds definitely plan

8:43

on voting for president in

8:48

2024. That's down from 57 percent who said the same

8:50

in 2019. 38 percent of young black Americans

8:56

say they will definitely vote this year compared

8:58

with 50 percent in 2019. And

9:02

40 percent of Hispanic Americans say they will definitely vote in 2024

9:04

compared to 56 percent

9:07

in 2019. So Axios polling comparing

9:09

the difference between now and four

9:11

years ago and some striking numbers in

9:14

terms of the parts of the coalition

9:16

that we generally think vote for Democrats.

9:19

Next up, we're going to hear from Ruth Igelnik.

9:21

She's editor for news surveys at The New York

9:23

Times and of course, the Times-Siena College polling operation

9:26

is one of the very best in the country,

9:28

actually the very best in the country, according to

9:30

our pollster ratings. Before she was

9:32

at the time, she spent eight years at

9:34

the Pew Research Center. So she definitely knows

9:36

her stuff. She shared two data points with

9:39

us, one that probably everyone is keyed into

9:41

and another that is probably more specific to

9:43

her own research. So the one

9:45

that everybody is going to be tracking is vis-a-vis

9:47

the economy. I think that that's going to be

9:49

incredibly valuable this election. There's no question that if

9:52

how people perceive the economy, not how the

9:54

economy is actually doing, but how people perceive

9:56

the economy is doing gets better, that's Going

9:59

to change the tone. It for Joe Biden. If it

10:01

a teensy very negative than that's good news

10:03

for Trump for people who want a change.

10:06

The data point that I think is most

10:08

interesting that people probably won't be tracking as

10:10

much as we have this great question that

10:12

we asked on our Battleground poll in the

10:14

fall of last year's a one year up

10:17

from the twenty Twenty Four lox and about

10:19

whether Donald Trump's policies helped or hurt you

10:21

personally and whether Joe Biden policy so to

10:23

her you personally a nap whole we saw

10:25

the majority of people saying that Trump's policies

10:28

help them, in the majority of people saying.

10:30

By. The policies for them. That

10:32

is a really interesting number to watch it that

10:34

stays the same. I think that's generally good news

10:36

for Trump. With more people so to

10:38

look back and think that by the policies help

10:41

them. I think that that's good news for Joe

10:43

Biden. but right now we have the majority of

10:45

people saying from policies help them. Even

10:48

among groups that are sort of more

10:50

traditionally democratic, you have thirty percent of

10:52

black voters. insurance, Policies and forty

10:54

plus percent of Hispanic voters.

10:57

Hispanic voters that evenly split saying sympathies

10:59

helped or hurt them women are about

11:01

evenly split soon transfer fees for to

11:03

hurt them so that's a really interesting

11:05

number to be watching. I

11:08

really like this point that route brings

11:10

up because it's unique to the fact

11:12

that we have a former and current

11:14

president both running in Twenty Twenty Fourth,

11:16

which a lot of people have called.

11:18

You know, basically having to incumbents running

11:21

And what makes that sir unique is

11:23

that we can look at the records

11:25

of both presidents. Oftentimes one of the

11:27

advantages of being an incumbent is people

11:29

can see what your record actually, as

11:32

you can point to things that you've

11:34

really done instead of perhaps the harder

11:36

jobs of asking people to imagine. What

11:38

you might be like as president. Again,

11:41

as I've traveled around the country

11:43

covering the primaries and the debate, you

11:45

hear time and time again people pointing

11:47

to specific data points or you

11:49

know we that they perceived the Trump

11:52

Presidency. It's they can talk about gas

11:54

prices, They can talk about global conflicts.

11:56

They can talk about. The. border

11:58

and what it was like during Trump's presidency.

12:01

And so in some ways, Trump

12:03

doesn't have to get people to

12:05

imagine what it will be like

12:07

for him to be president. People

12:09

already know. And whether that's perceived

12:11

through rose-colored glasses or not may

12:13

be another question, but really, folks

12:15

are going to be comparing these

12:17

two candidates based on what they

12:19

already know about them being president.

12:22

Next up is Carlos Odio, the co-founder

12:24

of ECKIS, an organization which uses polling

12:26

and research to better understand Latino voting

12:29

trends. You heard him on the podcast

12:31

as recently as last week. Previously,

12:34

Carlos served in the White House Office

12:36

of Political Affairs under President Obama. Here's

12:39

what he had to say. My favorite

12:41

question is, who cares

12:43

more about people like you? That's

12:46

at the center of what campaigns are trying

12:48

to do, convince you that I'm looking out

12:50

for you, I'm caring about you, and the

12:52

other guy's not. But

12:54

there is a tug-of-war between cares on one side and

12:56

delivers on the other. So who

12:58

cares about me? But then who do I think

13:00

is better for American workers? Who do I think gets things

13:03

done? And that's where you see,

13:05

especially in this election and this environment,

13:07

with these two candidates, Biden and Trump,

13:09

that tug-of-war playing out. Among Latinos who

13:12

we study, the baseline perception of the

13:14

parties is that Democrats care more, but

13:17

maybe have a harder time delivering on the things that

13:19

they are promising you, and that

13:21

Republicans maybe can deliver more, especially on

13:23

the economy, but don't really care about you

13:25

or your life. And you

13:27

can really understand campaigns better when you understand

13:30

each party trying to rectify

13:32

or move the line on that

13:34

particular question. So you have Democrats

13:36

in the midterms proving that

13:38

they can deliver, talking about actions they have taken

13:40

over the summer in advance of the election. On

13:43

the Republican side, you can think of a

13:45

classic example, George W. Bush, compassionate conservative, saying,

13:48

not only do I deliver, but I care

13:50

about you. And in this

13:52

election in particular, I think we have

13:54

reason to believe that people believe Biden cares

13:56

more, but that when they think through

13:58

a different lens, they think the lens. of me as

14:00

a worker, me as someone fighting for my

14:03

family, sometimes that moves

14:05

to Trump or Republicans'

14:07

advantage. As Carlos

14:09

suggests, this is going to be a particularly

14:11

salient question when it comes to Latino voters.

14:13

And now Latino voters are the group that

14:15

swung the most of any racial or ethnic

14:17

group between 2016 to 2020. That

14:21

was eight points in the direction

14:23

of Trump in 2020. And

14:26

one of the things that Carlos is

14:28

getting at here is, are folks voting

14:31

based on group identity or some of

14:33

their preferences on policies overall? We know

14:35

for a long time that there are

14:37

conservative Latino and black voters who

14:39

vote for Democrats in some ways because

14:42

of that group identity, that sense that

14:44

this is the party that is watching

14:46

out for people like me. We've

14:49

seen some of that break down over the

14:51

past several years. And one of the big

14:53

questions for 2024 is whether

14:55

it's going to continue to break down.

14:58

Now on that topic, Terrence Woodbury

15:00

is a Democratic pollster at HIT

15:02

Strategies, which focuses on surveying young

15:04

voters and voters of color, in

15:06

particular groups that, as we know,

15:08

Democrats rely on. Here's what he

15:11

told us. The data point that

15:13

we have been watching the most

15:15

closely are perceptions of political power.

15:18

Pollsters and election observers are always

15:20

trying to find ways to measure

15:23

turnout ahead of elections. Vote

15:26

likelihood and voter enthusiasm have

15:28

often served as polling metrics

15:30

to say which groups are

15:32

more or less likely to

15:34

participate in upcoming elections. But

15:37

both metrics, vote likelihood

15:40

and voter enthusiasm, grossly

15:42

misrepresent the political participation

15:45

of the voters that HIT Strategies focuses

15:47

on, that emerging electorate of young and

15:50

diverse voters, that often

15:52

engage politics less consistently. In

15:55

polls, this emerging electorate, due

15:57

to high social pressure, they

15:59

are over-representing. their vote likelihood.

16:02

And they often under represent their voter

16:04

enthusiasm because well, how many young people

16:06

and people of color do you know

16:09

have been enthusiastic about recent elections?

16:12

In fact, the young man in

16:14

Philadelphia, 2022 focus group said

16:16

to me, voting to him is like

16:18

taking out the trash. He doesn't always

16:20

want to do it, but if he doesn't do it, then

16:23

start to stink around here. That doesn't

16:25

sound like a whole lot of enthusiasm to me,

16:27

but it also doesn't sound like that young man

16:29

is not going to vote. And

16:31

so, HID strategies has discovered another proxy.

16:34

Instead of measuring vote likelihood and

16:36

voter enthusiasm, HID strategies measures perceptions

16:39

of political power, which

16:41

we have discovered much more accurately

16:43

predicts who will and will not

16:46

vote. What does that mean? On

16:49

every single poll, we ask the question,

16:52

regardless of how often you vote, how

16:54

much power do you believe your vote has to

16:56

make a difference in your community? The

16:59

higher they perceive their political power, the

17:01

less likely they are to waste that

17:04

political power by not voting. In

17:06

2022, we were asking this question

17:08

in Georgia, and 55% of black

17:10

voters in Georgia told us that

17:13

they felt extremely powerful, 55%. In

17:16

that same election, 54% of

17:18

black voters in Georgia voted. That's almost

17:20

a one-to-one correlation. But since

17:22

2022, we have seen erosion in

17:26

those perceptions of political power because

17:28

of lack of perceived progress, hyper

17:31

partisanship, or just frustration with the

17:33

political system. These perceptions

17:35

of power have dropped tremendously.

17:38

That means that campaigns that want

17:40

to mobilize this emerging electorate of

17:42

young voters and diverse voters in

17:44

this election cycle, they

17:46

need to make these voters the

17:48

heroes of the story with messages

17:51

that demonstrate how their votes are

17:53

making their communities better. In

17:56

an environment where neither of the two

17:58

major party candidates are particular... popular,

18:00

the turnout question is noteworthy. People

18:02

often say that an enthusiastic vote

18:04

and an unenthusiastic vote are worth

18:06

the same. And of course, that's

18:08

right. But the candidates still

18:10

have to get people over that line

18:13

to go and vote. And

18:15

this also segues nicely into our

18:17

next bucket of responses. Today's

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538 the numbers

19:28

not the letters

19:30

shopify.com/538. This

19:35

was the most common response amongst people

19:37

that we asked for their valuable data

19:39

point for 2024. In fact, some people

19:41

started to give this answer. And then

19:43

I said, Wait, do you have any

19:45

other data points? Like this can't just

19:47

be a whole podcast about the double

19:49

haters. This group of

19:52

voters is often called the double

19:54

haters, the double haters, unfaithful voters

19:56

that dislike both of them. Whenever

19:58

a poll has cross tabs,

20:01

that's what I want to look. The people who don't

20:04

like either candidate, who are they going for and how

20:06

many of them are going third party? At

20:09

least five people told us that

20:11

they were focused on these double

20:13

haters or double negatives. I personally

20:15

prefer double negatives. So let's hear

20:17

from these experts. Lancia Jane does

20:19

election modeling and data analysis at

20:21

the website splitticket.org, which is

20:24

a great website, by the way. We had him on

20:26

the show in the fall as part of our brain

20:28

trust of election data nerds, a

20:30

label that I use with lots of

20:32

affection. Here's Lancia. This

20:35

isn't going to be won by which

20:37

candidate is the one that voters

20:39

like the most. It's going to

20:41

be which candidate is

20:44

the one that voters dislike the least. The

20:47

ones that disapprove somewhat of Biden in 2022, per

20:49

the ANES pilot study, 21 percent of

20:53

them said Biden, 29 percent of them

20:55

said Trump and 44 percent of them

20:57

said someone else voters that didn't approve

20:59

or disapprove of Biden. Forty

21:01

two percent said that they would back Biden

21:03

and 21 percent said that they would back

21:05

Trump. So to me, what that

21:08

suggests is that the traditional presidential approval

21:10

disapproval access that we tend to see is

21:12

not as useful as it would have been

21:14

in the past. If a

21:16

voter dislikes both candidates, we see that

21:19

in 2022, a lot of them back

21:21

the president's party, even though they disliked

21:23

Biden and disliked his performance in office.

21:25

And given how unpopular Donald Trump is,

21:27

what Joe Biden will be looking for

21:30

is can you get voters that dislike

21:32

him, but also dislike Trump to

21:34

pull the lever for him once more? Now

21:37

when it comes to that question of

21:39

how the double negatives are feeling today,

21:41

we have some polling, some recent

21:43

polling from a pro Biden super PAC, Unite

21:46

the Country, which focused specifically on the battlegrounds

21:48

in the upper Midwest. Well, we don't need

21:50

to get into the debate about whether Pennsylvania

21:52

is the upper Midwest, but anyway, Michigan, Pennsylvania

21:55

and Wisconsin. And what they found was Trump

21:57

leads Biden 51 percent to

21:59

48. 8% amongst

22:01

voters who have negative feelings about

22:03

both of the candidates. Now,

22:06

if this question of how

22:08

the upper Midwest will vote

22:10

in an election where both

22:12

candidates are pretty disliked reminds

22:14

you of another recent election,

22:17

you are not alone. Adam

22:19

Geller is a Republican pollster. He also

22:22

said double negatives. In particular, he said

22:24

we should look beyond head-to-head polling among

22:26

these voters and look at how they

22:28

perceive the candidates on the issues and

22:30

their fitness for office. Adam

22:33

isn't affiliated with the Trump campaign this cycle, but

22:35

he was a pollster with Trump's 2016

22:38

campaign, and he said this election reminds

22:40

him of 2016. I

22:43

was doing some of the Trump campaign

22:45

polling in some of the Midwestern states

22:47

like Michigan and Wisconsin, and

22:49

that crosstab of unfavorable to Hillary

22:51

Clinton and unfavorable to Trump was

22:54

pretty telling. It didn't necessarily

22:57

manifest in the ballot. We weren't

22:59

looking at the ballot. We were

23:01

looking at different attributes. And so,

23:03

for example, the recent NBC poll that just

23:06

came out where they test how

23:09

each candidate, Biden or Trump, how

23:11

voters trust each of

23:13

the guys on the following issues, and it was

23:16

the economy, the border, and then

23:18

having the mental and physical capacity to

23:20

be president. Those are

23:22

really telling. Voters tend to

23:24

be a little bit more honest when

23:26

it comes to which candidate they trust

23:28

more on this particular attribute

23:31

or that particular attribute. When it comes

23:33

to the ballot, people get a little

23:35

bit defensive, get a little bit,

23:37

I'd rather not say I'm

23:39

still undecided. They may not be undecided.

23:41

If you look at the crosstab of

23:44

some of those undecided voters, you can pretty

23:46

much figure out how those undecideds are going

23:48

to distribute. That's going to be the

23:50

key piece of data I'm looking at. That's

23:53

not to say that things like presidential

23:55

job approval are less important.

23:57

Job approval is always important. It really does

23:59

correlate. with re-election. Vote

24:01

enthusiasm is always important and can

24:03

be very, very telling, although with

24:05

me, I look at vote enthusiasm

24:08

as a little bit different these days because we don't, we're

24:10

no longer in a country where everything is a

24:13

election day vote. There's so much vote

24:15

by mail and so

24:17

much ballot collection tactics

24:20

that are done. So I

24:22

think enthusiasm waters down a little bit.

24:24

There's going to be a lot of voters

24:26

who are not satisfied with their choices. We

24:29

always hear the lesser of two evils and

24:31

all that, but this large swath of voters

24:33

who is not crazy about Joe Biden, not

24:35

crazy about Donald Trump, they're going to

24:37

vote anyway. What I want to

24:39

know is among unfaved both, where

24:41

they see these candidates

24:44

on the economy, on

24:46

the border, on foreign affairs, on the

24:48

war, and who has the mental and

24:50

physical capacity to be president. Not

24:53

to do the both sides thing here, but you just

24:56

heard from a former Trump

24:58

pollster. Now you are going to

25:00

hear from a former Biden pollster.

25:03

So Linda Lake was one of Biden's two main pollsters in

25:05

2020, and her firm is

25:07

called Lake Research Partners. She gave

25:09

two answers, one of them being

25:11

the double negatives and the other

25:14

being a particular group of voters

25:16

that may fall into the category

25:18

of double negatives, but is particularly

25:21

key for Democrats. Right

25:23

now, the best news for Democrats

25:25

is that we are winning the double-haters

25:28

by six to ten points, and

25:30

that's a number we need to keep and

25:33

expand on. These are voters who are

25:35

lower information, they are

25:37

hard to break through because they don't

25:39

like either candidate, and

25:41

they often vote character as much

25:44

as issues, and they're economically insecure.

25:46

So that leads an obvious roadmap to

25:49

winning them. The second number, if

25:51

I may, is

25:53

the enthusiasm gap. Right

25:55

now, Trump voters are more

25:57

enthusiastic, not all Republicans,

26:00

but magma Republicans are

26:02

more enthusiastic than Democrats. Enthusiasm

26:04

relates to turnout. We

26:07

have very high turnout among our

26:09

activists, but we are looking

26:11

at some real problems with turnout with

26:13

cross pressured voters, younger voters

26:15

over the war in Gaza,

26:18

young African-American men targeted by

26:20

the Trump campaign, young Latinos.

26:23

There's a group of voters that I

26:25

think no one is talking enough about

26:27

that is the secret sauce to breaking

26:30

through on this enthusiasm gap. And

26:32

that is what I would call the low

26:34

income wage, low working wage voters,

26:36

the rates of wage voters, if

26:38

you will. These are

26:41

voters who come out for initiatives, for

26:43

example, that increase minimum wage or do

26:45

one fair wage. And those initiatives are

26:47

on in a number of states, including

26:49

key states like Michigan and Arizona. These

26:52

are voters who often feel that they are

26:54

not being talked to, that no one's in

26:56

touch with their lives. These are

26:58

not voters that you can do a victory lap

27:00

about how great this economy is, because they're still

27:02

really struggling. And

27:04

these voters number in the hundreds

27:07

of thousands in every key

27:09

swing state. Hundreds of

27:11

thousands of raised the wage voters

27:13

do not turn out to vote

27:16

in states where the margin is 10 to

27:18

20,000. If

27:20

we can get them out to vote, and when they

27:22

do vote, they vote Democratic, then we can ensure

27:25

a victory in this election. And

27:28

just to put some numbers to that

27:30

point about enthusiasm amongst voters, USA

27:33

Today's Suffolk University asked in a poll from

27:35

January of 2024, on a scale from one

27:37

to 10, one being very

27:42

unenthusiastic and 10 being

27:44

very enthusiastic, how

27:46

do you feel about your party's candidate?

27:50

84% of Republican primary voters gave Trump a 10.

27:55

18% of Democratic voters gave Biden a

27:57

10. Nearly

27:59

half of Democratic primary voters were at

28:01

a six or lower. So

28:04

definitely an enthusiasm gap there. We will

28:07

see how that progresses. But let's move

28:09

on to somebody who gave us an

28:11

answer that was in a similar vein

28:13

to this double negative trend, but slightly

28:15

different. Amy Walter is the publisher

28:17

and editor in chief of the Cook

28:19

Political Report and a frequent contributor to PBS

28:22

NewsHour. She's been doing political analysis for more

28:24

than 25 years. You have

28:26

likely heard of her or from

28:28

her before. She said she's looking

28:31

at the close cousin of double

28:33

haters, which is the somewhat disapprovers.

28:36

Voters that I've called the,

28:39

meh, voters, they don't

28:41

really like Joe Biden, but they don't hate

28:43

him either. And what we

28:45

saw in 2022 is that those folks,

28:47

people who said they somewhat disapproved of

28:50

Biden, actually went for Democrats by a

28:52

couple of points. Are

28:54

those somewhat disapprovers going to

28:56

show up again? Are they going to show

28:59

up for him? Just to

29:01

give you a comparison, you know,

29:03

I looked at Marist polling from 2020. Donald

29:06

Trump at this point in

29:08

the campaign was losing those somewhat

29:10

disapprovers, those met voters by

29:12

about 60 points. He ended up

29:14

losing them overall, according to exit polls, by

29:17

about 85 points. Right

29:19

now, again, according to

29:21

Marist, Biden's losing those voters

29:24

by a much smaller margin.

29:27

This fall, he was losing them just by about 15

29:29

points. Why

29:31

does this matter? Well, because we use

29:33

job approval rating sometimes as

29:35

a sort of stand-in for

29:38

whether or not that

29:40

incumbent president has enough

29:42

support to take him over

29:44

the finish line. Anything close

29:46

to where Joe Biden sits right

29:48

now would seem to be a

29:50

certain political disaster. But

29:53

what if the job approval rating we're

29:55

seeing isn't telling us the whole story,

29:58

especially if some of those people who... right

30:00

now, you know, they're pretty meh on

30:02

Biden, decide that they'd

30:04

rather support him than they would

30:07

Donald Trump. Meh

30:09

voters might break for Biden, but he

30:11

would be in a much better position

30:14

if he turned some of those somewhat

30:16

disapprovers into actual approvers. Bill

30:18

McInturff is the co-founder of Public

30:21

Opinion Strategies, a Republican-aligned research and

30:23

polling firm that has represented governors,

30:25

senators, and members of Congress for

30:27

over three decades. To

30:30

me, the most important question and

30:32

data to track in 2024 is

30:34

Joe Biden's job approval. He's

30:36

an incumbent president, he's running for reelection,

30:39

and job approval is the best predictor

30:41

of the final result. This

30:44

1992, we have a last, final

30:46

weekend number in terms of job

30:49

approval. In five different

30:51

incumbent re-elects, the

30:53

final NBC number compared to the

30:55

final actual number for the president

30:58

has been within a close margin of error. And

31:01

so right now, Joe Biden in our data is at

31:03

37%, he's around 40%, and the RCP or the FiveThirtyEight

31:09

average, that's too low. He can't win

31:11

a reelection in a two-way race, even

31:13

with some third-party vote, with that kind

31:16

of job approval. He's got to

31:18

be back up, at least in the mid-40s. There's

31:21

always a chance between Trump's troubles, you

31:23

have a Democratic convention, you may or

31:25

may not have the base. There are

31:27

certainly episodes where an incumbent president can

31:29

try to watch your job approval go out. But

31:32

if Joe Biden's job approval is still hovering around 40%,

31:34

I'm sorry, I don't say how he gets

31:38

re-elected. If his job approval is

31:40

up around 48, I think he's

31:42

the favorite, but that's a lot

31:44

of difference in between. So to

31:46

me, incumbent re-elect, most important thing,

31:48

job approval. To be

31:50

clear, there is some debate today

31:52

over how much significance we should be

31:55

placing on approval ratings. The argument is

31:57

that people are pretty down on

31:59

politics. As we know

32:01

from past recent elections, some people may

32:03

disapprove of a candidate, but may still

32:05

end up voting for that candidate or

32:08

that candidate's party. Now that's a caveat,

32:10

but if you do look back at

32:12

history, there is no precedent for a

32:14

president with Joe Biden's approval rating winning

32:16

re-election. He is currently at about 39%

32:19

in our polling average and

32:21

has not significantly improved in

32:24

months. Now we heard

32:26

from Democratic pollster, Celinda Lake, that

32:29

she is particularly interested in one

32:31

group of voters, that is people

32:33

who are motivated by economic issues

32:35

like minimum wage and will turn

32:38

out for a referendum on that

32:40

issue. The next pollster

32:42

that we talked to, Brent Buchanan,

32:44

is also interested in one particular

32:46

group within the electorate that is

32:48

key for Republicans. He's the founder

32:50

and president of Signal, a polling

32:53

and predictive analytics firm serving

32:55

Republican candidates. According to 538's pollster

32:57

rating, Signal is the most accurate

32:59

private polling firm amongst those in

33:02

our sample. Here's what he had to say.

33:04

Well, it starts with educational attainment level.

33:06

If you go back 20 years, on

33:09

college educated voters, working class folks were

33:11

the base of the Democrat party. Trump

33:14

really solidifying it has become more the base

33:16

of the Republican party. And

33:19

so we're not just looking at educational

33:21

attainment, we're actually looking at gender within

33:23

educational attainment. If you

33:25

look at where do Republicans do the

33:27

best, it's non-college educated males. And

33:30

then where do they have room for improvement?

33:32

It's non-college educated females. And this

33:34

group of voters tends to be much more inflation,

33:37

economic, crime. Other

33:40

things you've seen Republicans talk about, they're much

33:42

more sensitive to those topics. And

33:44

college educated women have kind of

33:46

become a complete inopportunity for Republicans.

33:49

So that's why we're really looking

33:51

at what are non-college educated female

33:53

voters doing. educated

34:00

white women supported the Republican Party in

34:02

the 2022 midterms by a 61-37 split.

34:08

That's compared to college educated white women

34:10

who supported the Democratic Party by a

34:12

56-42 split. Alright,

34:16

we are now at the final expert

34:18

that we reached out to for this

34:21

project, and you may have noticed something.

34:24

Not many of these folks talked about the

34:27

issues. Now, that's where

34:29

a friend of the podcast, Julia

34:31

Azari, comes in. She's a professor

34:33

of political science at Marquette University

34:35

and a frequent contributor to FiveThirtyEight.

34:37

Her research focus is on American

34:39

political parties and the presidency, and

34:42

here's what she had to say. I

34:45

will be looking at the responses to

34:47

the Gallup poll question about the most

34:49

important problem facing the United States.

34:51

I think we're in a campaign

34:53

where it's really up for grabs what the

34:56

main issues and questions are.

34:58

Most presidential campaigns are kind of a

35:00

referendum on the incumbent, and that tends

35:02

to come down to the economy. But

35:04

right now we're in kind of an

35:07

unusual situation, partly because we have

35:09

two sort of incumbent

35:11

presidents with Trump running as the

35:13

most recent past president. That

35:16

list is topped by issues like immigration, government

35:18

and leadership, and even the state

35:21

of American democracy. All of these have

35:23

different implications for the terrain on

35:25

which this campaign will be fought.

35:27

I think both parties may think

35:29

that they have some advantage in

35:31

the immigration issue, but certainly I

35:34

think Republicans will see that as

35:36

an advantage for them to emphasize

35:38

that issue. Government and leadership

35:40

could also be a referendum on

35:43

the incumbent administration, on the Biden administration,

35:45

but on the other hand, if, as

35:48

it seems the Biden campaign wants to do,

35:50

they're able to frame the issue of

35:52

the election around democracy, that could be

35:54

more favorable for them. So I think

35:56

I'm going to be watching that issue

35:58

to see what What types of campaign

36:02

frames and emphases are landing

36:04

with the American people? While

36:07

according to Gallup, the economy is

36:09

still the number one most important

36:12

issue facing the country for Americans.

36:14

Issues like immigration and democracy

36:16

and leadership, like Julia mentioned,

36:19

have risen a lot. And

36:21

in some polls, the economy is

36:23

actually no longer number one. So according

36:25

to a Quinnipiac University poll from February

36:27

2024, amongst Republicans, 38% say

36:32

that immigration is the top issue, while only 29% say

36:34

the economy. Amongst

36:37

Democrats, 39% say preserving democracy is

36:39

the top issue, while 12% say

36:42

the economy. You

36:45

can look at this, perhaps, in two different ways.

36:48

On one hand, the economy

36:50

has materially improved, and not

36:52

just it has improved on

36:55

the ground, but perceptions of the economy,

36:57

according to consumer sentiment data, have also

36:59

improved. So that's perhaps the good news

37:01

for Joe Biden. But maybe the bad

37:03

news for Joe Biden is the

37:06

things that have supplanted it are not

37:08

particularly to his advantage, at least amongst

37:10

independents and Republicans. That is to say,

37:12

immigration. It's one of the issues that

37:14

Americans have scored him the worst on

37:17

throughout his presidency. Now, as we know,

37:19

there have been ongoing discussions in Congress

37:21

about how to address border security, they

37:23

seem stalled at the moment. But this

37:25

is one of the issues that we

37:27

are certainly going to be watching over

37:30

the coming year. And on top of

37:32

that, one of Biden's biggest pitches to

37:34

folks within his own party, and perhaps

37:36

independents as well, is that democracy

37:39

is on the ballot. Now,

37:41

to what extent do voters end up

37:43

feeling that way? It's quite clear that

37:45

Democrats, many of them, are already there.

37:47

But can he win over independents with

37:49

that message? That may

37:51

be key. I'm going to

37:53

add just one more data point that

37:56

I will be watching before we conclude

37:58

this episode. And it relates to

38:00

the double negatives or double haters

38:02

question. For these folks who have

38:04

an unfavorable view of both Biden

38:07

and Trump, they can do

38:10

one of four things. They can

38:12

not vote. They can reluctantly vote

38:14

for Biden. They can reluctantly vote

38:16

for Trump. Or they

38:18

can vote third party. We

38:20

haven't heard from any of the folks that

38:22

we reached out to about that third party

38:24

number. And amongst political analysts, you oftentimes hear,

38:27

oh, you know, third party candidates got

38:29

a lot of support early on because

38:31

people are somewhat cynical or whatever. But

38:33

when the rubber hits the road and

38:35

after months of campaigning, it sets in

38:38

for folks that one of these two

38:40

major party candidates is going to win

38:42

the race. And that's when you see

38:44

a third party candidates numbers drop precipitously.

38:46

And ultimately, they get support that ranges

38:48

in the low single digits. Now that

38:50

does oftentimes happen, but that does

38:52

not always happen. 1992 with Ross Perot

38:54

is of course a prime example. But

38:56

even in 2016, we

38:59

saw a uniquely high percentage of

39:01

voters vote third party or leave

39:04

the top of their ticket blank,

39:06

even if they were voting down

39:08

ballot. As we heard, there are

39:10

some comparisons between 2016 and 2024 support

39:12

for R.K. Jr. ranges around 15 percent

39:15

today. As we progressed through

39:21

this process, I'm going to be watching how

39:24

much support he maintains along with

39:26

some of the other potential candidates

39:29

or people who have already announced.

39:31

And this gets also the point

39:33

about Biden's approval rating. You know,

39:35

he is at around 39 percent

39:37

in our polling averages in the

39:39

polls where R.F.K. Jr. gets about

39:41

15 percent. Biden's support is

39:44

right at around 39. When

39:46

you take R.F.K. Jr. out, then you get

39:48

more of those people who have an unfavorable

39:50

view of both Biden and

39:52

Trump holding their nose and just picking one.

39:55

So this all comes down to what

39:57

options these double negatives are going to have.

40:00

have. Will they not vote? Will

40:02

they reluctantly vote for Biden, reluctantly vote

40:04

for Trump, or will they vote

40:06

for a party? And with that,

40:09

it's a wrap for our most valuable

40:11

data point, at least for the beginning

40:14

of 2024. Maybe we will come back

40:16

to these folks and ask them again

40:18

throughout the year, most especially after the

40:21

election is over, we can come back

40:23

and see how these data points performed.

40:25

But that is it for today. So

40:28

thank you to everyone that we talked

40:30

to for this episode. Harry Eddon, Kristen

40:32

Soltis-Anderson, Ruth Agelnik, Carlos Odeo, Terrence Woodbury,

40:35

Lakshya Jain, Ramesh Ponnuru, Adam Geller, Celinda

40:37

Lake, Amy Walter, Bill McInterf, Brett Buchanan,

40:39

and Julia Azari. My name

40:41

is Galen Druk, Tony Chow is in the control room.

40:44

Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Tretavian, and our

40:46

intern is Jayla Everett. They all worked very hard on

40:48

this episode. So a special thank you to them. It

40:50

was a lot of work reaching out to all of

40:52

these folks. You can get in touch by emailing us

40:55

at podcasts at 538.com. You can also of course tweet

40:57

at us with any questions or comments. If you're a

40:59

fan of the show, leave us a rating or review

41:01

in the Apple Podcast Store, or tell

41:03

someone about us. And also, if you have a

41:05

data point that was not mentioned here that you

41:08

want to throw out that maybe we can bring

41:10

up on a future episode, please email us,

41:12

podcasts at 538.com. You can also tweet

41:14

at me at Galen Druk. Thank

41:17

you for listening, and we will see you soon. Transcribed

41:24

by https://otter.ai