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Leah, I feel like you've been quietly filming the Blair Witch Project over there while we've been setting up. That's what you always say. If you see me on my cell phone looking like I'm terrified, breathing with my phone all messed up, it's because I'm like sorting data in Excel and really stressed out about it. It's like there's no one after me except for numbers.
Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. We've been spending a lot of time on the campaign trail recently, but today we're going to start off with what's happening in Washington. A bipartisan group of negotiators has been hammering out a deal on border security and the details have begun to emerge, although the full text has not yet been made public.
President Biden said on Friday that the bill would give him, quote, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And that, quote, if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law. We're going to talk about the politics of the deal and whether it would change the public's view that Biden has not handled the issue of immigration well.
We're also going to play a round of Guess What Americans Think. The primary is not technically over. Nikki Haley is busy campaigning in South Carolina. But both Biden and Trump are behaving like the general election has begun. So we're going to lay down some markers at the informal start of this general election phase for how Americans are thinking about the state of the country. And later on in the show, we're also going to reveal our latest pollster ratings. Who is the best pollster in America, you might ask?
Stick around and find out. Here with me to discuss it all is politics reporter Leah Escarna. Welcome to the podcast, Leah. Hi. Also here with us is Politico senior Washington correspondent and author of Playbook, Rachel Bade. Welcome, Rachel. Glad to talk Congress and not presidential politics. Woo-hoo. Indeed, indeed. And almost like a vacation. Yes. Although I don't know that I would ever describe focusing on the politicking in Congress as a vacation. No.
It is always a good time, though. It is always a good time. Okay. Also with us is co-founder of Aikis Research, Carlos Odio. Welcome to the podcast, Carlos. Good to be back. Just here trying to get my pollster rating up. Are you rated in our pollster rating? No, no, no. Because we don't release publicly, so our transparency score is zero and there's nothing to rate us on.
Ah, okay. There you go. I mean, I just wanted to start off by saying we are one month into 2024. How's everyone feeling? Any notes so far? I went to Iowa, as you did, Galen. It was freezing. The weather was horrible. Fishtailed in my car. And after being there for just a couple days, you know, I've decided that I love Congress and I don't ever want to go out on the campaign trail again. Okay.
And I've always sort of wondered, like, would it be fun to cover presidential? And I have to, of course, for Playbook. But I got to say, man, I'm excited for the topic change today because Iowa was just brutal. Yeah. Both Iowa and New Hampshire were, I mean, as expected, great.
which is part of the reason that the tab open on my computer right next to Riverside, the recording platform that we use, is Google Flight Searches to San Juan. So we'll see if I actually make that happen or if I'm just dreaming. Let's begin with immigration and border security. And I'm going to start by laying out some of the numbers so that we have an understanding of what we mean when we talk about a migrant crisis.
We've seen a record number of apprehensions at the border during Biden's presidency, exceeding 150,000 per month for much of his tenure. For context, monthly apprehensions stayed below 50,000 for most of both Obama and Trump's presidencies and only approached 150,000 once during those 12 years.
There's a backlog of over 3 million cases in immigration courts, a number which more than doubled under Trump's presidency and has doubled again under Biden's. The Biden administration has also seen a significant increase in encounters with unaccompanied children at the border.
Biden's approval on the issue of immigration is at an all-time low, ranging from the high 20s to low 30s, depending on the poll. The issue has risen in salience for all Americans and has even surpassed the economy as the most important issue facing the country in one recent poll.
negotiators and Congress have been trying to find a bipartisan solution in recent months that would tie a border deal to aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Now, the details of that deal are just starting to emerge, but Rachel, what do we know about it so far? The first thing I would say is
is the reason we are here, like, you know, four months later after negotiators have been working on this deal for four months trying to get to this spot, is because Speaker Mike Johnson, newly elected, walked over to the Senate side of the Capitol and said, look, I know you guys want Ukraine aid, but in order to get that, I'm going to need a border deal. This was a Republican-driven idea to come up with this bipartisan deal. They wanted to sort of hold up
Ukraine assistance, which is a top priority for the Biden administration in order to elicit some sort of policy win. And so that was the whole beginning of this sort of, you know, four month scramble. I know I'm sure we're going to get to this in a minute, but now there's a lot of talk about Republicans just walking away, even though this was originally their idea. But in terms of what we know right now, we know that it's going to beef up
border security, more resources for law enforcement and officials working on the border. It is going to raise the threshold for asylum seekers, so make it harder to claim asylum. There was new reporting out over the previous weekend that DHS would get this new emergency authority to shut down the border if migrant crossings reached more than 4,000 people in one week. Per day on average for a week. On average, yes.
And it sounds like we would already be there, right? Biden, I believe Biden came out and said that under this new bill, he would be shutting down the border right away. And then if apprehensions reached 5,000 migrants a day, it would be mandatorily shut down. So there's also new power to export people, although I'm not sure that the details of that
Some changes to parole, which is basically this power that the president has to allow certain immigrants to come to the United States legally who may be, you know, basically to step to the front of the line. And then James Lankford, who is the top Republican negotiator from Oklahoma, he mentioned something on television earlier.
weekend saying that it would end what Republicans call catch and release. That's where a migrant comes up, claims asylum, they get a number, they are sort of released into the country, and then they wait for their court date, which can take forever. But sometimes they never show up and they sort of disappear in the country and become one of the, you know, 11 million undocumented immigrants here. It also would require the asylum process to take only six
months to sort of litigate rather than it can take up to 10 years right now. So it sort of speeds that up. That is sort of the bulk of it.
It used to be the case that Democrats wanted stricter border security and any reform to the asylum system to be tied to a pathway to citizenship for some people who are in the country illegally. The politics here have changed, obviously. There's no pathway to citizenship included in any of this. Carlos, why? Why have the politics of this changed?
So essentially, you have the Republicans and especially their frontrunner in the—Rachel didn't want to talk presidential politics, but I think we're going to have to get there pretty quickly. Oh, absolutely. It's very much key to all of this. Very key to all of this because, of course, what is overshadowing the whole process is that Trump has now come out very publicly and said that he wants to kill the border deal. He doesn't want to give Biden a win on this issue. You have to understand, Galen, what has changed in immigration politics is the role that it plays in the Trump administration.
and the MAGA effort. The salience has increased. As you mentioned, there was one poll, I think it was the Harris poll, Harvard-Harris poll, has now immigration for the border as the top issue for Americans, largely driven by a majority of conservatives who view it as their top issue. And if you look at the right-wing media ecosystem, this is the issue.
This is the number one issue. And so anytime the border is being talked about, it's being talked about by Republicans, conservatives, those who want to shut down the border in some way. Or now, increasingly, something like Democratic mayors, Democrats who represent border areas, who feel kind of forced to talk about it in its different ramifications. And so what has happened is,
that you now have a more immediate crisis or the perception of a crisis that has shifted the politics away from what has been the common sense both-and approach to just trying to address one of them. Of course, when you look at the actual politics of this thing, I think we can talk about that more in detail, whether the calculation by Trump and Republicans is correct or
When you actually look at the polling, what most Americans really want is a process that is orderly and humane. They want to talk about border and security there, but also talk about what do you do about people who are already here. There's support for tough talk, but there's also support for keeping the asylum system in some way, right? There was a recent Data for Progress poll that showed even with differing views on border measures, people still want an asylum system. They just want an asylum system that seems to work. They don't like the
There's no denying that the state of immigration internationally is at a point right now that's
kind of change the game for the United States and for other countries as well. Like this is a tough moment. And I do think that the fact that it's less concentrated on the southern border, partially because of
Governor Greg Abbott and even Governor Ron DeSantis, you know, bringing migrants to the Northeast and to other kind of big cities, it's become a much more visible issue for a lot of the country. When we're talking about actually getting legislation accomplished on the border, I do wonder if it's more that...
Democrats have a deal that is that is palatable to them more than the public opinion that's driving people to act or the government to act on the border. I mean, Biden's approval rating when it comes to immigration has decreased, but it's decreased significantly.
In the economy and pretty much in everything, Biden's approval rating since he's been in office has decreased. And now he has a way to address a concern that's going to be brought up during the election that's always brought up during an election. That ties it to Ukraine funding, which is a key priority. You know, I think Tim Kaine on one of the Sunday shows called it, you know, a painful compromise.
because there are areas where Democratic priorities are not being met. But it's a palatable way to pass reform at the border that does insulate Biden from some criticism. And that shows that Democrats are not ignoring the issue.
I mean, I am curious about how, why this is happening at this moment in particular. And in some ways, it comes more from the position of, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner. You know, this has been an issue for basically all of Biden's presidency, and the potency of immigration can't be denied. I mean, as you said, this is a global phenomenon. And we saw, you know, after a year or two of a migration crisis in Europe,
Many countries either elected right wing governments or their left wing governments completely switched position on the issue of immigration. Right. So, like, just to give you one example of of that dichotomy, you know, Sweden is more liberal on immigration, ends up electing a far right government. Denmark has a left wing government that adopts maybe the most hawkish position on immigration ever.
in Europe. And that's sort of how it maintains its power in part. And we've even heard Obama talk about the potency of immigration and how people feel like the idea that the border is open viscerally.
Meanwhile, Biden hasn't really talked about it that much. When he did start construction of bollard fencing at the border, he said that he was forced to do it, that he didn't really think it would work. And meanwhile, the sort of comprehensive approach to immigration reform, the idea of a compromise, right, is that you get a little bit of something that you want and you have to stomach a little bit of something that you don't want. So Democrats' position of like, well, we're only going to
pass further security at the border if we get a pathway to citizenship suggests that Democrats don't want more security at the border. Like, if that's the thing that they have to stomach in order to get the pathway to citizenship, that dynamic makes it sound like that's not what Democrats want. And meanwhile, the loudest voices in the party over the past, however, you know, eight years or so have been people talking about abolishing ICE or decriminalizing crossing the border. And so I
I would think that, you know, people talk about how Biden is relatively good at reading the political winds and trying to position himself in the middle of the party. I'm just surprised that it's taken this long for Biden to really do all that much. I don't I don't disagree with you. Go ahead, Lee. I was actually going to ask you, Rachel. I mean, do you think it's just like that Biden now has an opportunity to do it because Republicans came back with a basically with an opening because.
Mike Johnson came back and said, you know, we'll do this if you meet us halfway on or we'll meet you on Ukraine if you meet us on the border. And all of a sudden it's like, fine. I do think initially, at least, Democrats were sort of dragged into this. I don't want to say kicking and screaming, but against their own will on the matter. I mean, Biden...
Even though he sort of has this reputation as being, you know, more of a centrist Democrat, like he had the first few years of the Biden presidency, he very much surrounded himself with folks who are very well connected with progressive communities and tried at least to do a lot of things that folks on the left have been, you know, championing for a while. His clear focus was on trying to secure wins for Democrats and even for progressives.
I feel like the calculus started to shift once we, you know, we're getting closer to his reelection. Now he's thinking more about 2024. And I do think like if Ukraine had Ukraine aid wasn't needed, I don't think we would actually be having this discussion necessarily right now. I mean, maybe because they are starting to shift to 2024 in election mode. But, you know,
supporting Ukraine, it is something that Democrats and actually a lot of Republicans, like including Mitch McConnell, think that without supporting Ukraine, that the country will fall to Russia and it will be just the start of Vladimir Putin's march through Europe, potentially a World War III. Like there is a real national security concern with the lack of Ukraine assistance. And the politics of that on the Republican side have just totally shifted, you know, from just a year ago when Republicans agreed. Now Republicans
Republican voters and a majority of Republicans in the House actually oppose continuing Ukraine funding. So they don't want to take this vote. And they asked for something border a border solution, thinking that they were never going to get it, to be frank with you.
And instead, you know, Biden comes to the table, eventually starts giving them things that, you know, the progressives are going to be pissed about. Let's be frank. Like there are some things in this bill that are going to really anger the base, the Democratic base. And then at the same time, you have this perfect storm where apprehensions in December reached like 300,000 migrants worldwide.
that month. It was like a record breaking number. It fed right into, you know, as Carlos was talking about, Republicans are obsessed with this issue. They're hitting it on Fox News like all the time. And this like very much feeds into that narrative. People are starting to listen. It's not just Republican voters concerned about anymore. You know, independent voters are more worried about it. And even Democrats, after Greg Abbott did his little trick trick here where he, you know, sent migrants to work. Right. I was going
to say as much criticism as he gets from a political standpoint, and by the way, using taxpayer money to do this, like there's a whole lot of reasons why, you know, political or policy wise, this is bad and just not not a good idea. But politically, he
was able to make mayors start to pay attention to this and feed into this narrative. And over time, I think the Biden administration has really come to realize that, OK, we got to do something here. And I've even talked to some Democrats that said if this whole Ukraine border deal falls apart, they wouldn't be surprised if Biden actually tries to do some sort of executive thing
action in the coming months, just so he can show voters that he is strong on the border, that he's trying to do something to address this issue and to alleviate the concern that people have about him on this particular matter. So it's shifted, in other words, from just Ukraine to actually recognizing a political problem. Yeah. And I'd add to that,
Again, I think what drives some of the immigration experts nuts on this issue is, I'm sorry, what more are we supposed to do? Because the border has never been more militarized than it is now. There have never been this many resources thrown at the border. We have more Border Patrol agents, more technology, what have you.
Obviously, the numbers coming in are greater for a variety of reasons, really started post-COVID. But, you know, there was an effort to fund additional 1,300 additional Border Patrol agents, which is an effort that Republicans shot down recently as part of the budget process. There's been an effort to impeach Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, which, again, really is about putting the issue front and center, not
I think we could say objectively, not because there's any real substance to the case. Right. This is, again, politics. Republicans will admit that privately, too, by the way. So, yes. So, yes. Right. I mean, that's part of this is that none of this is being this all being said out loud. It's not it's not wink and nod. I mean, part of what I think has changed. Some of you, Galen, are not probably old enough to remember the BP oil spill of 2009. Oh, come on. Come on. Yeah.
I mean, I was in college at the time. When are you going to pay more attention to an oil spill than when you're like an 18-year-old in college? Well, and look, it was Obama's first term. I was actually in the White House at that point. And it was this great moment of frustration because you had this oil just flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. You're watching it in live streams all the time. And people were just frustrated because it felt like we should be able to do something. Can't we just plug it in somehow, right? And it was this sense of uncontrolled crisis.
And I think right now we have globally in the United States, a bunch of crises that feel like that, that feel like the BP oil spill. And it doesn't feel like it's actually about the solutions, right? And it opens up an opportunity for, if you recall, during the oil spill, people like Elon Musk, right? To feel like, oh, we just got to bring in somebody more creative who's going to shake things up and try something different.
And that's I think what that is the best analogy I have found for what is going on with the border, where the substance and the perception there is a great divide between those two, between those two at this moment. What I think has changed for Biden is that in some ways Trump gave an opening on the political side by putting out some of his more aggressive immigration plans. And so where for Biden and the White House,
They were trying to avoid talking about this topic at all, right? It was a very popularist approach. Like, only talk about popular things. We're not going to talk about the things that we are less liked on. And we're just going to talk about these other things. I think that's, like, the dumbest, dumbest thing ever. You reposition the issues you're bad on to make it sound like you're good on them, right? Like, it's just... I mean, whatever. I usually... I'm, like, not trying to share my opinions here, but, like, the way that... The popularist approach is...
You basically steal your opponent's most popular positions, not you don't talk about your unpopular positions and only talk about your popular ones. You take the Karl Rove method, right? You take your opponent's strength and try to turn it into one of their weaknesses. Right. Yeah. Anyway, go ahead. I don't think they saw an opening on it before. I think now they do. Yeah. And I think that's part of what's changed the politics here.
Wait, Carlos, what you're saying is that Republicans running for president recently have staked out positions that are so extreme, say, like sending troops into Mexico or even, you know, shooting folks at the border, that this allows Biden to take
more what would have been like five years ago Republican positions and have them seem like they are moderate. Is that what you're saying? Yes, and I think absolutely. It has created an opportunity. Look, there has been always, though, a kind of cap on the salience of the border, right? It worked real well with MAGA, right?
Trump, I think we give him a little too much credit on his political savvy. Sometimes I think what he does is mash buttons, right? And whichever button seems to get the most rise, he keeps mashing. And in this case, like the MAGA, his MAGA base really gets riled up by this, right? He gets this live test at every rally on this very issue. But there's always been a little bit of a cap of how much he could get them. The border didn't work for Republicans in 2018. It didn't work for them in 2020. In fact, Trump pivoted away from immigration toward the end of his real life. Didn't work for them in 2022. Their bet now is,
is that the issue moving to the cities has perhaps made Trump policies more palatable to a wider segment of the electorate. Can this break in in the suburbs, so to speak? And that's their bet. But there's another side of that, which is, well, can Biden, can Trump take advantage or will he overplay his hand? And what I think if you are Biden and Democrats, you are looking at is Trump encouraging vigilantes to go
you know, far right vigilantes to go secure the Texas border. You have ending birthright citizenship. You have mass deportation. We're going to deport 11 million people. And you have now very vocally trying to kill this very deal.
to the point where if the Senate took up H.R. 2, and Rachel, tell me if I'm wrong, if the Senate took up H.R. 2, which was the House's anti-immigrant bill today, and passed it, the House wouldn't pass it. That's pretty cynical, but you know what? I can't blame you. Trump has instructed them not to give Biden any wins in this moment. And from the little evidence I've seen just even in the last week, it seems like those kinds of moves are not popular enough
But it does require Biden to establish the contrast and talk about the issue and lean in to his positions and the more popular dimensions of his policies. Yeah, I just I was going to jump in when you started talking specifically about, you know, this opening Democrats have right now on this matter to try to turn the tables on immigration and specifically the border when it comes to people blaming Democrats. I wrote a playbook about this this morning, and I actually would say, yeah,
I'm not convinced that Trump's like hardcore border policies are what is going to turn off some of these independent voters, given that they're worried about the border. And I mean, maybe I mean, family separation was really unpopular. But but I do think that the big blunder for Republicans was saying the quiet part out loud in recent days, saying that they're going to walk away from a bipartisan border deal that they demanded because they want to give Donald Trump a win and they want to.
the crisis to continue to fester on the border. They want border towns to continue to have problems because they don't want, I mean, that Trump wants to run on this issue in 2024 and he knows Biden is struggling on the matter and he doesn't want to give Biden this win. I think Republicans being on camera, on the record, admitting this,
is going to be a huge problem for the Republican Party. I talked to a bunch of Democrats over the weekend, folks in the campaign world who were telling me that they were collecting all these clips of Republicans admitting what was really going on here, that the party was more worried about falling in line with Trump and keeping, you know, a good
campaign issue than actually helping people. They are going to be cutting ads on this. They're going to use it as an insurance policy if Republicans do end up tanking this bill and walking away. And they're going to try to sort of neutralize this matter. And you can already kind of see some of this change, this bullishness on the part of Democrats on the border happening in New York 3, which is the George Santos seat, the George Santos who was ousted from the House. Oh, we, Rachel, we've heard of George Santos before.
Tom Swasey is a congressman, the former congressman who's now running for the seat.
And he actually has been talking about the border as much as his Republican opponent. He actually crashed one of her migrant. It was like a migrant shelter press conference where she was railing about how immigrants or migrants were like overwhelming the city and people were scared and all this stuff. And he totally leaned into this issue, which is something we haven't seen Democrats do in a while. But like once again, you can see how Democrats are saying, OK, we're
Republicans just made a big blunder here. If they walk away from this deal when Biden is willing to piss off the left and like...
basically make these historic changes to asylum and a bunch of migrant and immigration borders, you know, policies that Democrats have not been willing to give freely for a long time, that this is going to, you know, change the dynamic and change the polling and people will start to blame Republicans as much as Democrats, which, by the way, the Wall Street Journal editorial board warned about this just a few days ago. So and they're not exactly known as being, you know, left leaning. So border vibe shift. You heard it here first.
Well, I wonder if it's more I mean, what I think it is, is it's less the idea that Democrats are going to all of a sudden like have the upper hand on the border and more like how much can Democrats neutralize the issue beyond the MAGA base? Because, I mean, that's like that's what Republicans have done. And this is like really in the last few months.
even with the impeachment of Mayorkas, where you're kind of hearing House Republicans speak one language and Senate Republicans speaking another, kind of divergent priorities. And I think it's kind of created a bit of chaos and an opening for Democrats to come in and look like the adults in the room who are actually, you know, who are saying, finally, you know, finally, I'll do something. Right.
about this. And I think Republicans will still have one of the reasons why Republicans can keep going to immigration as an issue to rile up the bases because, you know,
Because like, let's be honest, no matter what policies are put in place right now, like this is a there's going to be a lot of people who are trying to come into the country. And there's you know, there are ways to limit it and stem it. But like, I think Republicans will always be able to find someplace where it's not it's not being tamed enough or whether for them it's it's still an issue. That's that's not going to go away. Right.
Even if there is a even if this, you know, legislation that has yet to be introduced actually does pass. I think that it's how much can Democrats prevent this from being an issue in the suburbs? There's an analogy to what Leah just said in the 22 midterms where Republicans had this huge advantage on inflation and rising cost of living, walked into the midterms with this big advantage.
You then had in that summer push of legislation, Republicans take some votes against inflation reduction measures, Inflation Reduction Act, which then came back to bite them in the ass in those campaigns, right? The campaign ads in a place like Nevada were about Republicans voting against efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs, voting against efforts to lower the cost of baby formula.
So where Republican efforts, their excitement to take advantage of some edge they had on this issue was kind of undermined by some of the worst instincts, right? By overplaying the hand. And that's what I talk about with overplaying the hand in a moment like this.
I am curious, though, because it feels like, I mean, first of all, the Inflation Reduction Act wasn't about reducing inflation. It was a pretty name for a bill that largely had to do with green initiatives. On top of that, like, I would think that the reason that they didn't capitalize on all of the sort of negative feelings about inflation was because of Roe being overturned, as opposed to, like, they said a couple stupid things. I don't know. But more to the point on immigration, I am...
doubtful that the reason Democrats are starting to talk about this issue now is because of like
some way that like Republicans have overplayed their hands or whatever. I think they're really just recognizing that they are extremely unpopular and untrusted on the issue. I mean, when already before this crisis even began, Democrats were less trusted on the issue of immigration, right? There are certain issues that Democrats always do well on and Republicans always do well on. For Democrats, it's things like education and health care. And for Republicans, it's things like national security and
and immigration. It just goes into the party's brand. When you look at the polling, the Americans who have moved the most on the issue in a negative direction against Biden are Democrats, right? Biden started in the basement with conservatives on the issue of immigration.
But amongst independents and Democrats, we've seen the most decline, which is to say that Biden's own party thinks that he's not dealing with this issue. We've also we've talked about this polling in the past. I know Leah was on when we talked about it, which is you might say, oh, well, those are progressives who think that Biden is being too hawkish on immigration. But when you dig into the data further, there's a vanishingly small percentage of Americans who think that Biden is.
is being too conservative or too hawkish on immigration. It's like single digits. So clearly it's not that that is making people turn against Biden. I think that really they're coming to grips with the fact that this could lose them the election, to be honest. I think a little column A, a little column B. Sincerely, in that
As you said, Republicans already start an advantage here because when you're just talking about the border, it's a law and order concern. And law and order concerns tend to work to the GOP advantage. I think, again, as I said, Biden and Democrats, at least Biden, I think there are Democrats who couldn't avoid talking about this. Mark Kelly's been talking about this forever because he's a senator in Arizona. Others are in a similar boat.
Their hand was somewhat forced, right, in that, yes, some of the numbers start getting worse. But then also there was an opening around this Ukraine bill, as described by Rachel earlier. I don't think they were they were looking for opportunities for sure to address it. And one presented itself. OK, I have a question here that is somewhat academic for Democrats who feel like passing this legislation, this bipartisan legislation, right?
even though it requires them to make significant concessions, that it will help shore up their electoral prospects. Are they right? And for Republicans who fear that giving Democrats this win would undermine one of their strongest issues, are they right? Which is to say, does public opinion actually respond to legislation in the one-for-one way that politicians are behaving like it will?
You're the one who's supposed to tell us if we're in this case. I want to know that. My gut instinct is that that is right, at least on the Democrat side. I mean, obviously, they always say Democrats are terrible at messaging. And let's be honest, they are. But like, I would think that even just putting forward this bill that they, you know, co-authored with James Lankford, who's not exactly a moderate Republican. He's a, you know, a bleed red conservative senator from Oklahoma.
and trying to message that, that they're trying to do this. And it was Republicans who walked away. I don't know how much it'll change the polling on this, but my gut instinct is there is a, I agree that there is an opening here. I just don't know. But I mean, I do wonder though, that the calculation on the other side with Republicans, you know, saying, okay, we've got to walk away from this so that Trump has the issue in 2024, you know,
I mean, if Democrats are successfully able to message this, that Republicans are the ones who are allowing chaos to continue on the border. They're the ones who, you know, shut down these talks and shut down the deal. I do wonder if the benefit Trump is sort of predicting in 2024 that if he has this issue, it's better for him. I wonder if that...
isn't as, you know, robust as perhaps he thinks it is since the party's walking away. I don't know. I'm really curious about this question, too. I want to say one more thing. Because truly, like, you know, I've covered politics basically my whole career, which is not that long, but is long enough, like, since 2012. And I'm shocked at the cynicism here. Because, like, and, like, not to be Pollyanna-ish, again, like, a lot of cynical things have happened over the decade plus, but, like, this...
bill will not pass under a Trump presidency. They will not get to 60 in the Senate if Trump becomes president. The only way you get this bill passed is when Democrats are in power. It's similar to like the only way that Democrats ever got all of the spending under COVID passed was with Trump in power. If there had been a Democratic president, they would not have gotten the expanded child tax credit and just writing checks like
right and left to Americans. The only way they got that done is because the opposition was in power. McConnell has even talked about this. You know, you need split government in order to get something like this done. They will probably only get these changes to asylum law passed with a Democrat in the White House.
So not taking it at this opportunity seems wild. Like, I know they want more. I read over the weekend, I read H.R. 2 just to Carlos's point, like, to see, is this something that Biden would ever consider signing if Republicans completely refused this, you know, bipartisan bill? And it's not. Like, having read H.R. 2, Biden would never, ever sign it. Like, it would never make it through the Senate. Like, it absolutely would not. It's a very, very strict bill on immigration. But, like...
Yeah, this opportunity isn't going to come again if Trump wins election in 2024, I don't think.
Do you think it might be, Galen, that it is not a sincere effort to solve the problem at the border, perhaps? On the part of who? On the part of, well, listen, legitimate question, Rachel, but however you want to interpret it, Galen. Carlos, I think it's both. A little from column A, a little from column B to steal a wise man's argument. I think they do care about securing security.
the border. I think there are a lot like, I don't know, I would say like there are plenty of senators that I'm sure Rachel could point to that you believe truly care about resolving the issue at the border. One example would be John Cornyn. But I'm sure that like there are also people quite transparently Trump who are more focused on winning election.
Yeah, I was just going to say James Lankford in recent days is being censored by his own party in Oklahoma for even engaging in these talks like they are not going to support him financially. Like, I don't know that he's just ended his career because I don't think he's up until 2028. So he's got time to recover with his own party. But like,
He's in serious trouble right now for engaging in these talks. And the reason he's doing it is because he does actually give a damn. And you can't say the same for everyone, obviously. There's a lot of Senate Republicans and a lot of Trump allies who want the issue. But I also would say regarding McConnell, even people like McConnell, there's a split here because, like, he...
I think McConnell has been making the case, he has been making the case, that this is a historic opportunity to get a deal, to get these concessions from Democrats on the border. And he wants this deal to move forward. At the same time, McConnell is notorious for not wanting to split his Republican conference. And this is going to fracture the GOP conference in a way that we normally see McConnell avoid. So I could even see people like McConnell...
having split feelings about this because he doesn't want to, you know, Republicans to be divided on such a critical issue going into an election. My sober political analysis of the GOP coalition is that you've got people there who are there for law and order, who are there for the policy advancement. And you got ones there who are there for the politics, for the power, whatever it takes to win.
I think Trump is one of those who wants the chaos at the border. He wants it to be chaos throughout the election campaign because he wants to be the centerpiece. And I'm not saying that because I'm reading tea leaves. The man says it. I don't think it is true of all the Republicans on the Hill, but certainly who will win out in this conversation? That's a good question. I think this is a weird topic for Trump or a weird Hill for Trump to die on because he's
His base will think that there is chaos at the border in November no matter what. So this is – if this were a midterm year and Trump wasn't on the ballot, then I can imagine, you know, potentially sinking this –
this legislation, maybe that has a motivational impact on some base Republicans who need a reason to turn out because Trump is not on the ballot. But Trump is on the ballot. This is going to be, I mean, Republicans are going to turn out. We're looking at another likely high turnout general election. And it seems to me that it's just kind of injecting
internal party chaos rather than actually changing the trajectory of the election. And I will say there are exceptions, I think, for talking about Senate races. I mean, Sherrod Brown, I think, is an Ohio Democrat. He's running on kind of a tougher on immigration platform. And in New York, Democrats brand is
incredibly fragile right now, partially because of immigration. And so it would be helpful for some Democratic challengers who are going to be facing a bunch of Republicans in Biden districts. Redistricting still needs to happen there. I won't go into all of it, but the short of it is it could be helpful for some New York Democrats. But if we're talking about the
actual outcome of the general election, like it just seems like it would be such a small issue on the margins. And what you're doing instead is creating chaos within the party, which is what has cost Republicans so much in 2022 and 2020. So I don't know. It seems like Trump is kind of finding a way for him to rise while the rest of the Republican Party has to deal with his aftermath, which is
You know, never seen that before, Leah. Never. I do want to say one closing because obviously, you know, I come here as someone who polls Latinos in particular. Right. And I think that's been a part of the conversation. Right. Congressional Hispanic Caucus hasn't been part of the negotiations. It has been a tense part of this. Right. How will Latinos react to this? And I do just want to make an important point here that I don't want to get lost, which is like, look, all Americans, including Latinos, want order at the border.
So I think, will this hurt Biden among Latino voters?
No, actually, unless it is the totality of what they hear from him on immigration this year, because there are two sides of the immigration conversation. There is the law and order side. There is a reason that Trump focused as much as he did on the border in his presidency. And we didn't hear about deportations under George W. Bush and even under Obama. Immigration was really defined by these very disruptive workplace raids, people getting ripped from their communities and kicked out of the country.
And that wasn't where Trump was, right? You had family separation. Of course, that was terrible, but it was all about the border and it was law and order.
When the debate was more in terms of the other side of the issue, which is what do we do about dreamers, immigrants who were brought here to this country as kids, or when you talk about spouses of American citizens who are undocumented, have been here 10, 20 years, when you talk about other people who are our neighbors, churchgoers, fellow churchgoers who are enmeshed in our communities, it's a very different conversation. And it basically defined among Latino voters an image of both parties for about 10 years. And only when that line was blurred—
Did Republican were Republicans able to start making some additional gains? So so now we're just talking about the border and the conversations being had entirely in Republican terms. I think Trump now has created an opening by talking about mass deportation to have the other conversation. But Biden Democrats have to step into it. They have to take steps to protect dreamers. They have to take steps to protect these spouses if they want to engage and kind of relish this fight.
As politically, I think they should because you have sympathetic groups. It brings out the worst in Republicans. And so I just want to end there because we didn't talk at all about that side of the issue, right? We talked exclusively in terms of the border. And I think that is to the detriment of the issue overall in terms of solving it. There's a reason we used to talk about it in a comprehensive way because any real solution is going to be about both sides. Yeah, Carlos, that's a really good point. And thank you for catching us on that. That actually gets to, we were talking about HR2, which Republicans passed recently.
previously and whether or not Democrats would ever consider it or what is in that bill, because I mentioned I read it over the weekend. And that's the part where it becomes very clear that this is not a bill that Democrats would ever touch and probably was not written with the intent of ever seeing the light of day and becoming law. I mean,
do this sometimes pass legislation that is more symbolic, knowing that under divided government, it won't actually become law. Because, I mean, for example, it really gets into the cracking down on people who are in the country working and are undocumented. And I mean, just to put some numbers to this, about
About half of all farm workers in America are undocumented. And according to the Agriculture Department and according to some other growers and labor contractors estimates, this shows closer to 75 percent. Right. So like actually ensuring that no person who is in the country illegally is working in America and deporting all of those people would disrupt something as fundamental as
you know, how we eat the food that we eat, how we grow the food that we eat, that it's unlikely that something like this would ever see the light of day. And so that is a part of the conversation that's like not really happening as much right now because the focus is on border security. I agree. We haven't talked about the other piece of it. It's a good point, Carlos. Okay, let the games begin.
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It is the informal start of the general election, so we're going to lay down some markers for where public opinion stands on an assortment of topics. The way this works is I'll ask you what Americans think, you write down what you think the answer is on your pad of paper, and whoever gets closest wins a point. There are no prices, right rules. If you overshoot, you're fine. First question, what percentage of Americans have a favorable view of Donald Trump?
according to 538's averages. It only gets harder from here, folks. This is a pretty easy one, and I don't know the answer. All right. Three, two, one. Reveal. I said 35. I said 44. 30. All right. It goes to Leah, although a little unfair because she works at 538. The answer is 43%. Wow. Yeah.
Especially compared to Biden's approval rating or whatever is like... Yeah, his favorability has improved. What's Biden's approval rating right now? Do you want favorability or approval rating? Because those are actually two different things. Which one did we just do? We did favorability.
So favorability for Joe Biden is 40 percent. But the unfavorables are higher, which is where you get Biden favorability at net negative 15 and Trump favorability at net negative nine. All right. So that is one point for Leah. Let's move on to according to Ipsos. What percentage of Americans think the country is headed in the right direction?
For folks who aren't watching along at home, Carlos just basically put his head in his hands. Not a good number for Democrats. Not a good number for America, Rachel. That's true. Not a good number for America. Three, two, one, reveal. I said 20%. 22. I said 32. And Carlos gets it. It is 23%. All right. It is Leah one, Carlos one, 32.
Next question. This is an interesting one. I would not have been able to get this. What percentage of young voters ages 18 to 24 say they are extremely likely to vote in 2024? Oh, no. Is this a single poll or is this an average? It's not an average. You're right to ask. It is the circle poll from Tufts University. Percentage say they're extremely likely to vote.
Yes. 18 to 24 year olds. When was this poll conducted? I feel like that's the national spelling bee. Say it in a sentence. It was released in late November of 2023. I have no f***ing idea. It's a really hard one. I'm going to lose this round, guys. Oh, no, I'm just going based on vibes.
I know. I'm like, you know what? 18 to 24-year-olds are optimistic people. You know? Aren't they anymore? Yeah, Gen Z is a bunch of nihilists, right? But not when it comes to themselves. You know what? I don't want to get into this. Let's just show our numbers. It's fine. All right. Three, two, one, reveal. I'm 52. I said 40. I said 15. 15 is probably acting. It is 57%. Oh, my God. And?
Everyone underestimated, but Carlos, you got the point. Leah's face right now is like, hell no. Sorry. Like, okay, guys. But I guess in reality, what is the normal turnout that we would expect in a presidential year for 18 to 24 year olds? Carlos, to put you on the spot here.
Well, first of all, it's worth saying these questions are not highly predictive, right? Yeah, well, that's for sure. So that's part of it, right? It usually comes in lower than whatever we have here. We estimate that 50% of young people ages 18 to 29 voted in the 2020 presidential election, a remarkable 11-point increase from 2016 when it was 39%.
It was likely one of the highest rates of youth electoral participation since the voting age was lowered to 18. Wow. And that was 18 to 24 that you're beating. I said 18 to 24. This data is for 18 to 29 year olds. See, no, that's, that's different. That is different. That's, it's, I just, so I'm looking at the circle report for youth turnout in 2022. It said national youth turnout was 23%, but what age are they talking about? But that's midterms.
Yeah, I know, I know. But you especially aren't turning out in midterms. I know.
Oh, and that's still 18 to 29. So whatever. Okay. Moving on. That is one for Leah, two for Carlos. And none for Rachel. Rachel, I have a feeling we're about to get you on the board. What percentage of Republicans believe that a pregnant woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion if she wants one for any reason? That is Republicans who believe that. And this is according to a Wall Street Journal poll. For any reason. For
for any reason. And no time frame on, like, how pregnant. He doesn't put a time frame here in the question. Okay. Three, two, one. Reveal. I said 5%. I said 12%. I went to 22%. 33%.
For any reason. I think you got something wrong on that because even moderate Republicans like a Susan Collins of the world would not say that, you know, a woman should be able to get an abortion at any time because she would say or for any reason, I guess, any time, any reason. Anyway, you know what I'm saying? That can't be right.
But abortion is one of those issues where it's so where answers are so sensitive to question wording. Yeah, that's why I think we were all parsing every single word you said to us. I was thinking any time for any reason. And like there's a lot of even like semi pro-choice Republicans who would not say yes to that.
Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, this is 100% correct. This is, it is, it is, share respondents who say yes when asked if a pregnant woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion if she wants one for any reason. 33% of Republicans. Guys, make me doubt, doubt our producers here. No, I'm just saying, I'm looking at it, I'm looking at a Pew study that says 34%, and this is in May of 2023, but 34% of all Americans think it should be legal under any circumstances.
So are you saying most of the people who say it should be legal under any circumstances are Republicans? But it makes it makes sense, though. I mean, this is why this has been the issue. It has been. This is why Dobbs has loomed so large. Because it is a true wedge issue. Right. I mean, it wouldn't work to Democrats advantage if it didn't really divide Republicans.
the other party in some way. Here's broader context. For Democrats, it's 77% who say it should be legal. Independents, it's 53%. Okay, moving on. What percentage of adults say they would be dissatisfied with both Trump and Biden becoming their party's respective nominees? So this is, would you be satisfied if Trump was the Republican nominee and Biden was the Democratic nominee? And what percentage of adults said, no? I
I would be dissatisfied. So is this like a Rasmussen poll or we need sourcing? Associated Press. Associated Press. Like it's the share that would be satisfied or wouldn't be satisfied. That would be dissatisfied. It's a no labels poll. It's the AP. Come on.
Get your head out of the Twitter gutter, Carlos. I just keep reusing the same number, guys. It's a broken clock theory here. That's how I usually do it. Wait, Leah did that last time. Leah filibustered the game and guessed 30% for every single question. Okay, three, two, one, reveal. 30%. I said 60. Wait, that's so funny. It's 28%, Carlos. Really? Dissatisfied? Okay, Leah, you and I both suck. What's the party split?
Okay, so here's the party split. 43% of independents would be dissatisfied, 28% of Democrats, 20% of Republicans.
I don't know. What about those polls that are like, do you want? Those were all from like summer of 2022. I feel like I've seen polls where it's like, oh, a majority of Democrats don't want Biden or don't like Biden's age. Or I guess the wording again matters or something. It depends on the wording. It's not our fault. It's the wording. It's Galen's fault. It's English. It's not our fault.
We're just being sore losers because Carlos beat our asses. I mean, honestly, of course, Carlos beat our asses. It's like this is not. Leah, you stare at numbers all the time, too. Not like you. All right. Not like you. I only look at a segment of the electorate. I look at 15 percent of the electorate.
I'm extrapolating. I'm just praying. I'm just praying the tables never get turned on me and listeners get to see how ignorant I am of the questions that I'm actually asking. Yeah, I want to host next time just for this segment. I just want to switch places. Leah, we might be able to make that happen. OK, we got let's do two more before we call it quits today. What percentage is an Axios? But what percentage of Americans rate their financial situation as poor?
Not that they say that they're poor, but that their financial situation is poor. This is an embarrassment. What a humiliating experience. You were the one who was looking forward to the game. I was. You're like, oh, I learned so much last time. We can go back to immigration. Carlos, is that a threat? All right. Three, two, one. Reveal. I said 33. I said 30. 15. Leah gets it. It is 37%.
of Americans say their financial situation is poor. Carlos, your optimism for America failed you on that one. Yeah, you really are optimistic in all these. You got to stick to the plan. You got to stick to your, if you're going to do 30% every time. My thinking was that people wouldn't, that people don't like acknowledging it.
So it's a question of what was going to win out. People generally not liking to express themselves as being pessimistic about their own situation versus partisan polarization, where you have people who feel incentivized to say that their situation is poor. But we see this all the time. Like 70% of Americans will say that the economy is shit while like,
15% of Americans will say that their own economic situation is similarly shit. You know what I mean? This is high. 37 is high. Yeah. People are personal optimists and global pessimists is the way that I would describe Americans today. I don't know how much that's changed. Okay, so we got one more YouGov poll.
What percentage of U.S. adults say that age hurts presidents by making it more difficult to do the work the job requires? That's hard because you know what?
Age, like, what kind of age? Like 80? Like 60? Because in some respects, age is experience, and experience is leadership ability. That's a good point, Rachel, which is why I'm going to give you some more context. So this was the question. Do you think being older might make it more difficult to do the work the presidency requires, or do you think age helps presidents to have the experience and wisdom to do a good job? Ooh, yeah. Yeah.
That's an interesting... Or you could say that it has no impact. There are three options. It hurts, it helps, it has no impact. Oh. Oh. Okay, hold on. Then I'm going back to my original. I hate this game. I told you. All right. Three, two, one, reveal. I said 30%. 55%. 35%. I was really hoping to put you on the board with this one, Rachel. Leah gets it, actually. The answer is 38%. You were close, Rachel. Yeah.
I was close on a lot of these in my defense.
It's interesting because it didn't ask people to divide out the candidates, right? So you're asking people of two parties that are both running very old candidates. And so if you say one for one, you got to say it for the other two, right? So you can't just say, well, I think age helps Trump in that it gives him more experience, but it hurts Biden. You have to like sort of stick to either it helps or it hurts or it has no impact. Right.
Which is maybe unfair because age affects people differently, but that is how the question was asked. Rachel, you said the last time we played this game, you learned a lot about how Americans feel about unions. Did we learn anything from this installment of Guess What Americans Think? Besides that you don't like the game. Of course I did. It's just a very, in a very humiliating method.
But yes, a public way of learning. It's really not not not ideal. It's OK. I'm going to win next time. I have full faith in myself. Honestly, this is this is a good group. We should we should do this more often. But anyway, with that, I am going to say goodbye to you all and welcome my colleague Elliot to talk about our pollster ratings. So thank you, Leah, Carlos and Rachel. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks.
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With the general election unofficially underway, I think it's safe to say that we're going to be seeing a lot of polls come out this year. In fact, according to my colleague, Elliot Morris, he estimates that there will be approximately 1,500 polls of elections for president, senator, governor, and house between now and November. And so with that many polls, how do we make sense of the ones that are the most trustworthy or the best quality? For that,
we have FiveThirtyEight's pollster ratings, and they have just been updated to reveal the best pollsters and the worst pollsters in the country. So Elliot is joining me now, our Director of Data Analytics. Elliot, welcome to the podcast. Hey, Galen. Happy to be back. And with pollster ratings this time. Such a fun conversation. I know. It's so exciting. So do we want to...
save the reveal of the best pollsters in America for the end, or do we want to really just give it away up front and then explain from there? Let's give the red meat first, and then maybe we'll see if people stay on. We're not going to play coy with the audience. So tell me, who are the five best pollsters in America, Elliot? So according to the new ratings, five best pollsters are...
Drumroll. First, New York Times, Siena College, which might seem obvious. That's the first pollster that FiveThirtyEight's picked out over the last couple cycles. Then ABC News and The Washington Post, Marquette University Law School, which is a very long-running, high-quality live phone poll, YouGov's online opt-in panel poll, and Monmouth University, another university phone poll. The thing I think that's worth highlighting is that
The general pattern that emerged partly by construction is that a trustworthy pollster is someone who's been accurate in the past and who is very transparent. Now, it just so turns out that the people who publish more information about how they do their process, and that's how we quantify transparency, tend to be prolific, long-running polls like Marquette and Monmouth, Suffolk University, SurveyUSA, The Times, the ones I've already mentioned.
So there is a correlation between how long you've been around and how many polls you release and how good you are, which comes out in the rankings. And that's pretty good news because if all the pollsters that were releasing data were bad pollsters, then we'd be in trouble.
Yeah, I mean, Elliot, to put a finer point on this, these rankings are a bit different than how we've done it in the past at FiveThirtyEight, which is we are now including both bias and transparency in the pollster ratings or rankings, as opposed to sort of strict accuracy.
What is the difference? How did that either change the rankings as we have them, and why did we ultimately make that decision? So one thing to keep in mind is that the precise ranking, like whether or not you're first or second, is subject to a good amount of statistical noise. One thing that I uncovered in creating the rankings is that if a pollster does better in one election cycle, they could move like five or ten rankings, even if it's just a couple of extra polls, just because of how sensitive...
you know, how sensitive the models are to like more poles and noise. And that's just inherent because poles are really noisy.
So with that caveat being issued, the general structure is the same. The best pollsters are still accurate and they're still transparent. But some of the positions, some of the ranks have changed. So I think the one that sort of got pointed out to me most is that Seltzer & Company, the poll run by J. Ann Seltzer in Iowa, moved down a couple places, previously tied with the New York Times for first. We now have it ranked 13th.
But look, when you got 500 pollsters, like 13 is still really good. Now that difference comes down to how much information J. Ann Seltzer releases about her process. Primarily, she scores seven out of 10, whereas a pollster like The Times is nine out of 10. Marquette is 10 out of 10. Yeah, on transparency. And what kinds of questions are you trying to get at there? Because that is new. Yeah, it's new.
But 538 has long used a proxy for methodological rigor in the model. Previously, we had grouped pollsters into basically a high-quality and a low- or medium-quality group based on whether or not you were a member of something called the Transparency Initiative run by the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers, which is just a professional society for political pollsters and pollsters.
pollsters otherwise, market researchers.
uh or you could you know be a high quality pollster based on if you shared your actual data with cornell university's roper center which would publish the data for researchers that's pretty good because like those are positive proxy signals but they're not direct measurements so all we did this time was derive a direct measurement of your transparency and that gets stacked on top of your previous membership so you can think of this not as like a recharacterization but as a
a sort of enhanced measurement. We're adding some finesse to the grouping. And the way we do that is we send a list of questions to pollsters and they answer them accordingly, right?
We're evaluating 10 questions. Are you publishing crosstabs? Do you disclose your sampling or non-sampling error? There's a very hard rubric in your grade school, and we just count it up. If we don't have enough information from your public releases, we will just send you a questionnaire, and we'll go off of that. So it is still empirical. It's as empirical as the accuracy gradings are.
And what about bias? So that's how transparency has changed a little bit. Bias, the way that we incorporate a poll's bias into our rankings has also changed a little bit. Yeah, so what we found is that if a pollster is accurate...
then that predicts future accuracy. But if they're accurate in one election as a function of just being biased, like just four or five points to the right of every other pollster across years, then that's a very negative indicator. So you can get lucky one year by juicing your numbers, and there's basically nothing we can do about that empirically. But if year after year...
You have added, let's say, three or four points to the Democratic margin of victory in your poll with the assumption that like Democrats just don't answer polls, then you turn out to be wrong, then you're going to get punished for that.
All right. Well, is there anything else you want to point out in these poll strains? I should say they are used in our averages. So folks who may not be checking our pollster rankings on a regular basis may be checking our polling averages. And so these are still important in that process, right? Yeah. So I think people should use them in two ways. One, you should use them in the way that
538 uses them, which is like as an ingredient to aggregation. We want our polling averages to reflect more of the good data and less of bad data.
data that is empirically demonstrable to be bad, not just vibes-based. So we do that by incorporating the pollster ratings directly into the polling averages. That's not true at the moment on the website, just because we have to redo how some of the models work, but it will be true in the very near future. And second, the use case would just be in...
filtering the type of news you see about polls based on whether or not like this single news release was as pegged to a good poll.
If you see an article written up by a pollster that we have rated 300, maybe don't put too much credit in that reading of public opinion. I mean, I don't think anyone should ever really be taking single polls seriously, but to the extent that they do and that is uncontrollable by us at FiveThirtyEight, you should at the very least take the good polls more seriously. All right. Well, good words to end on. Thank you so much, Elliot. Thanks, Galen.
My name is Galen Drew. Tony Chow is in the control room. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Tortavian, and our intern is Jayla Everett. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcast at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.
