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It's on the border. So either I'm Gen Z and the millennials make fun of me, or I'm a millennial and Gen Z makes fun of me. He's in that gray zone. Either very young millennial or very old Gen Z, depending on how you cut it. This is like the final test. Do you remember 9-11? That's a no. That's a no. Not really? Okay. No, sorry. You're a Gen Z.
Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druke. And with that, the Republican primary field has winnowed down to just former President Trump and one alternative, which is former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially got out of the race on Sunday. He said on X, quote, It's clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance. He then endorsed Trump, though perhaps not enthusiastically. He said, quote, Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, and I will honor that pledge. He has my endorsement because we can't go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear.
A year ago, DeSantis was within 10 points of Trump in our national polling average. When he dropped out on Sunday, he was polling at just 11%, a full 55 points behind Trump. So today, we're going to talk about what happened to the DeSantis campaign. We're also going to preview Tuesday's Trump versus Haley primary in New Hampshire. And we're also going to talk about the Democratic side of the ticket. There's some drama going on there. And then finally, it's been a minute, but
We do have a good or bad use of polling example for you. A poll of New Hampshire voters suggests a plurality agree with Maine's decision to take Trump off the ballot. But do they understand the 14th Amendment?
I was in New Hampshire, so in addition to looking at some polling, I also asked them. So we'll hear from some New Hampshire voters. Here with me to discuss it all is politics reporter Leah Askaranam. Welcome, Leah. Hi, Galen. Also here with us is senior elections analyst Jeffrey Skelly. Welcome, Jeffrey. Hey there, Galen. And director of data analytics, Elliot Morris. Welcome, Elliot. Hey, Galen. I'm happy to be here. And you know what? You have my endorsement as frontrunner to host this podcast until the end of time.
I'm so flattered to have your endorsement. On the scale from one to a Ron DeSantis endorsement, where would you rate your enthusiasm? Is Ron DeSantis the 10 in this scenario? I mean, we're grading on a scale. Okay, this is the scale. This is the scale. Zero is Chris Christie.
Five is Ron DeSantis. And 10 is, I was at the rally on Friday where he did it, is the Tim Scott endorsement. Is this Donald Trump country? Oh, yeah. I can't hear you. I can't hear you. Okay, so your options are Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, or Tim Scott. Galen, for me, you get the full Tim Scott endorsement.
Let's talk about Ron DeSantis. I want to just sort of get everyone's take on this. In two sentences or less, you could even use two words if you want. Why did DeSantis' campaign fail? We're going to start with you, Leah.
Okay, two sentences and not a full rant. Why did Ron DeSantis ever become an actual contender? I think is the actual question. The idea of him as a Trump alternative was kind of a manufactured narrative idea.
early on that caught on with voters. And then when it came to actually showing that he met that narrative, there wasn't anything there. There we go. All right, Elliot, you're next. Two sentences. Yeah, two sentences. I'll give you two words. Okay. Is it going to be not Trump? Not Trump, not Trump, not likable, whatever you really want to, whatever you want to pick. No, those are two very different takes, I think. Not Trump and not likable are like
In opposition, almost, I would say like the narrative is not likable, but I think the reality is not Trump. I think it might be a little bit of both. I think you get the not Trump sets him up for failure in the GOP and the not likable basically deprives him of the type of earned media coverage that sort of helps Trump catalyzed him.
I don't want to give the impression that Trump only exists because of earned media, because I don't believe that. But yeah, I think both. Okay. All right. All right. Jeffrey? I would say it's a combination of Donald Trump's continued popularity and a Republican Party that has never accepted his 2020 defeat.
and the galvanizing force of events like the indictments against Donald Trump. All right, I think we've covered a decent round of ground there. I made a list of things in order from most to least responsible for his failure in
in 2024 by number one was Trump popularity. My number two was indictments. Number three was the Ted cruzification of Ron DeSantis, which is he chose to run to the right after having some success in Florida through like the crossover appeal of some of his COVID policies. Number four is lack of star power. So likeability. And then number five is,
campaign missteps. He just doesn't have any money anymore. So at this point, he also is broke and can't continue running. Do you think I have that order correct? There are two narratives, which you alluded to earlier, Galen. One is that DeSantis wasn't likable, as Elliot mentioned. And one is that just DeSantis isn't Trump. So if your theory is
you know, Trump already had locked up the nomination before DeSantis even became a factor, then, you know, that's the most important thing. And I think in that sense, the charges against Trump were also the most important
some of the most important things because they solidified that Trump support. But if you're going into this with the idea that DeSantis actually had a chance, that Trump was weak enough to have an actual challenger, I think that's a different way of looking at it, if that makes sense. I don't know if there's anything DeSantis could have done, but certainly what he did didn't work.
All right, I'm going to ask this a somewhat different way, perhaps. Echelon Insights, I can only assume because they hate America, just conducted a 2028 Republican primary poll. Oh, God. DeSantis got 27% support. Haley got 19%. Ramaswamy got 18%. Tucker Carlson got 6%, and it went on down from there.
So, my question is here, we saw what DeSantis' campaign the first time looked like. Does a field without Trump in a hypothetical four-year future, does it look promising for him, Jeff, after everything we saw?
I mean, look, there's a long history of candidates failing sort of the first time around in their presidential bid and then going on to be the nominee the next time they ran. Some names, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney, all failed the first time.
And won the second time. To me, the other really important thing and why I think DeSantis would certainly have a real shot in 2028, assuming Trump has left the picture for that contest, is that he remains relatively popular and favorable among Republicans. It's true that he's not quite at the height of favorability among Republicans that he was earlier in the campaign.
But when he left – when he announced he was leaving yesterday, he was at plus 40 in net favorability among Republicans in our tracker.
And that was the only number really all that close to Trump, and he was the only one that at earlier points in the cycle was running basically even with Trump in net favorability in terms of the percentage who had a favorable view and the percentage who had an unfavorable view among Republicans. So I mean that's to me a big thing is that DeSantis remains pretty well-liked by Republicans. And so his failure –
comes down in large part to Trump and the things like the indictments that galvanized people to back Trump and continue to back Trump after there was this period after the midterm elections where some Republicans were sort of casting about looking for an alternative. And DeSantis was a name they knew because he was on Fox News all the time. And he remains pretty well liked. So I think thinking about 2028, yeah, he would certainly be a notable contender next time around.
What's interesting to me about some of these early primary polls, A, I don't...
It seems like you're lighting money on fire unless you're attaching it to an omnibus survey, which I'm assuming they do. This question is getting paid for by other people. It doesn't seem super useful. That's our normal understanding of these things. But I just checked. I went back and looked at polls of the 2024 Republican primary from both before Trump lost the election in 2020 and right after, so like January 1st of 2021.
And in both cases, Ron DeSantis, when he's named, gets about 8% to 10%.
in the polls. That is ultimately where he's ending up. So it's not like they're not, it's not like they're manufacturing opinion out of nowhere. Was Donald Trump on those polls? Yes. A mixture of Donald Trump. Donald Trump Jr. was a really popular option at this time. I don't know if y'all remember that because the idea was Trump would serve another term in some of these polls and then Trump Jr. would like
be the new dynasty in politics. There's lots of comparisons to the Kennedy at the time. But anyway, so maybe they're instructive. Maybe Ron DeSantis has a shot absent Trump. Or maybe, you know, maybe there's a more natural successor to Trump for this sort of ideology in American politics. And to be clear, I asked this question not by way of
starting an earnest conversation about who the Republican nominee will be in 2028, but more to tease out why Ron DeSantis may have lost. You know, if people like him enough, but he's just not Donald Trump, then
then Donald Trump is the reason he's not now the nominee. If once he dropped out, people were like, I didn't want him this year, and honestly, I never liked him, or I don't want him in the future, then it could be something more endogenous to Ron DeSantis and the likability question and the star power and all of that. The question is, like, is he a better candidate now than he was when he first entered the race? Like, has he improved significantly?
as a candidate, just from like being tested. And I think that, I mean, that's kind of what I was getting at earlier is that he hadn't really faced a significant change
I mean, it's arguable in 2018, like obviously by winning in Florida in a Democratic year, that was an accomplishment. But don't forget that at the time, Rick Scott was governor and running for Senate and spending bazillions of dollars on Republican turnout. So I think DeSantis has faced his first challenge.
real challenge. And his first real challenge was getting on a debate stage and having a national audience that wasn't, you know, Fox News, that wasn't a friendly interviewer. And I do personally think that he became a better candidate through the campaign. I think like remember, like his first couple of debates, he was
kind of make, he would make like these weird faces during debate. He still did kind of toward the end, but it was less frequent. He definitely got more confident. And I think what we see, I mean, especially with House races, there are a bunch of members of Congress who are there because of their second attempt, right? Like their first attempt didn't go well and their second attempt did. And
One of the questions that we used to ask when I worked with Nathan Gonzalez at Inside Elections, when we talked to those candidates the second time they ran is, what lessons did you learn? And if they are actually reflective on their mistakes and you can kind of see a difference in the way that they talk about their candidacy, that's usually a good sign for them in the future. So, yeah, I think he's—I think—
He's now kind of proven himself to an extent. But against Trump, he was never going to win this. All right. Well, there are now only two candidates left in the New Hampshire Republican primary. So let's talk about it.
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The New Hampshire primary is on Tuesday with voters of both major parties casting ballots, even though only one of the contests is sanctioned. So the Republican Party, which is an official primary, has come down to Trump and Haley. According to our polling average, Trump has a 14-point lead right now at the moment that we are recording midday on Monday.
He is at 50% and Haley is at 36%. Meanwhile, the National Democratic Party decided last year to make South Carolina its first in the nation primary. And if other states tried to vote earlier, their contests would be unsanctioned. So New Hampshire said, screw the DNC. Our constitution says we must go first. So we're going first anyway. So Democrats will vote, but they will award no delegates in New Hampshire. And we're going to get to all of that. But let's start with the Republican side of things.
So New Hampshire is the most competitive Republican primary of any state in the country. I'm not sure that says all that much, given where the numbers are nationally. But thinking about a 14-point gap in what we know about the volatility of primaries and polling error in primaries –
Elliot, what should we make of that? Is Haley a bit of momentum and a pulling error away from pulling even with Trump? Or is that a fantasy at this point?
So the average size polling error in historical presidential primaries for like the top three candidates is about seven points. So Haley's currently twice the average polling error behind Trump. Stranger things have happened in politics, but that is a pretty serious deficit, at least historically speaking, talking about the reliability of the polls. Also, I'll just add
When we talk about historical primaries, there's lots of contests that have one or two polls. So we should expect the polls to be a little bit more accurate when there's a ton of them. And right now, there is a ton. So I would say the odds are against her. It's not impossible. But yeah, even if she outperforms expectations by five or ten points, which would be really good, she would still, of course, be four points behind.
I think it's a pretty hard get for her to get the W. The other thing here is, of course, she doesn't win enough delegates in all likelihood to make that big of a difference. In our delegate benchmarks, we think she actually needs all of the delegates from New Hampshire because this is...
her strongest state. If you go down the primary calendar, states like Tennessee, Texas, Trump's at 70, 75 percent, Nikki Haley's at 10. So if she's not beating Trump in New Hampshire by a lot, she's not winning the nomination.
I think what you're saying is this is over. This isn't the first time that that's been said on this podcast. And I think the vibes on this podcast are that the primary is over. So I spent, you know, most of a week in New Hampshire and I talked to DeSantis supporters before DeSantis had dropped out. I think their general vibe was that it's over, but they still preferred DeSantis and they were ready to vote for Trump.
I think the vibe for a lot of people who have been following this is that it's over. So we did this before Iowa. I'm going to ask for benchmarks. How well would Nikki Haley have to perform to keep the race competitive? I put in quotation marks to keep eyes on the race until Super Tuesday. I think she needs to win it. Certainly if she gets less than 45%, I think the media will sort of and pundits will rightly write her off.
Yeah, I mean I think I'm fairly close to Elliott on this. I think if she were to narrowly lose, maybe that would be reason enough to try to hang around until South Carolina. But that's a long way from now. That's going to be about a month. And she's not on the ballot in Nevada. And I think a win, a surprising win would generate – it would just generate more interest and coverage and that month gap until –
Trump and Haley faced off in South Carolina would be interesting and she would probably still raise money and she'd have stuff to run on. Even a narrow loss probably makes it tough to raise the money she needs to sort of stay around and to stay in the race. So,
I mean she may need to win or just have a very narrow loss to even get to South Carolina, and I am under the impression that this race will not get to Super Tuesday. I don't think there's any way that Haley will beat Trump in South Carolina unless something extremely dramatic happens and changes things because the state is too conservative and evangelical in terms of its voter base in the primary.
Much just like much of the Deep South, which has been some of Trump's strongest territory for Haley to win, even if it is her home state. I just think that that's just too high a bar. So I don't think the race is going to get to Super Tuesday regardless of what happens in New Hampshire.
If it is February 24th and Nikki Haley is still in the race, that's the day of the South Carolina primary. I'd imagine it's because she either won New Hampshire or got really close. And the fact that it's a two person race makes it so that there's enough anti-Trump support in terms of like Republican funding, like Republican kind of Lincoln Project-esque funding.
You know, Republicans who just kind of whether or not it's it's possible for her to win, want to make like kind of a moral, you know, out of the principle of it, want to make the primary continue, because arguably you could say that, I mean, the primary is already over. Right. Like, I think we've said that without.
saying that. Well, maybe we've just said it. I don't know. Well, I mean, the primary is already over and yet we're covering it because it's still happening. Like those those two things are both true. And that might still be the case after New Hampshire.
Let me ask this question then. If the polls are correct in New Hampshire and there's somewhere in the range of a 14-point gap between Trump and Nikki Haley, is there any reason for the – even if Haley doesn't drop out, is there any reason for the media to continue covering the primary? If Haley does not drop out, I think you'd want to continue covering it because he would still have one major opponent left in the primary race.
Even if there's no reason to think that he's going to be troubled by it, there's still a candidate out there trying to make the case against Trump within the Republican Party context.
And that in and of itself is interesting. Of course, if Haley loses by that kind of margin in New Hampshire and she's, what, 52 years old and may still pine to have a future in the Republican Party, she may join the others in dropping out and endorsing Trump because we can't have four more years of Joe Biden. Right.
And, you know, sort of comes back to the Republican fold, if you will. So, you know, that sort of future planning and looking ahead to sort of stay in the game is
I think it's an important thing to keep in mind with all this too. Like I don't think Haley is inclined to sort of maintain a hopeless fight just to make the case against Trump in the way that like a Chris Christie would have been, of course. But even he dropped out. Yeah, but he also – yeah, but he was going to get maybe 10 percent in New Hampshire and then not be remotely interesting in pretty much any other state. And I think –
And he has no future in the Republican Party, whereas Haley could. Okay, if I were in charge of the media, what I would do... Wait, wait, wait. You mean you aren't? If I...
If I ran the media, if I were the Illuminato, I assume that's singular Illuminati, Illuminata. Illuminata? I think as a woman as Illuminata. I would think so. But can a woman be the Illuminata? I mean, I think you just outed yourself. Anyway, if it were up to me, I think that knowing how Hailey's doing is like...
is newsworthy in that if for some reason Trump cannot run, she is the candidate who is left. And also because for our purposes, for, you know, I think 538 and political analysts and people who work with data, I think it's interesting to know who's still on Nikki Haley's side as a sign of kind of the state of the Republican Party and what could happen in November in the
you know, races up and down the ballot. However, however,
I would not make it the central story. I think that reporters should be on the Trump campaign now. And I think reporters and editors and the media needs to figure out how to cover a campaign that is both very high stakes, which is the Trump campaign, and also where we're not learning that much new information every day. But...
Trump is repeating the same things that are high stakes that could have a major impact if he wins in November, which he absolutely can do. So I think we need to get a little creative. Yes, put reporters on the Haley campaign. She should be monitored. We should know what she's doing. We as analysts should discuss what she's doing. But like, yeah, Trump is the story. And I don't know if everyone's figured out how to cover him yet.
Yeah. Yeah, I kind of agree with all this. I'll just say I got some heat on Twitter over the weekend. Well, we don't mention that word on this podcast. Sorry, Elliot. Oh, X. Sorry, X. No, I don't... Okay, say your piece. I got some feedback over the weekend, let's say, that all this coverage of the primary has been for not... Ron DeSantis dropped out and it was predictable, blah, blah, blah. Why does the media even care about this? Why are they covering this as if it's a horse race? Are they just sort of like...
doing a disservice to us as a country by covering this. And I think this is wrong. Maybe if I can get on my soapbox a little bit here just for a sec. Like, this is the most consequential decision probably in the world this year. And who ends up running on the Republican Party ticket is, you know, a direct part of that coverage and has, in this case, because it's Trump, an oversized role in determining, like, the outcome for our country, for other countries.
It has to be covered. If there's not an actual race because Nikki Haley drops out and there's no choice for people to make here, yeah, maybe we don't cover it as a choice anymore. So you're just kind of left to cover the significance and the stakes. We're going to have a lot of time to do that. I do want to talk about the Democratic side of things in New Hampshire because it is pretty
pretty messy. So Joe Biden has abided by the DNC's new rules, which after all, he proposed, and he did not file to be on the New Hampshire ballot. Biden's allies have instead organized a write-in campaign with Congressman Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson being Biden's opponents in his write-in campaign.
Despite the weirdness and despite Democrats' concerns about Biden, though, the race in New Hampshire doesn't seem that competitive. So I've looked at five polls conducted in the past month. Biden's worst poll has him leading his main competition, Phillips, by 30 points. I'm curious, because we've had races in the past where a right-hand candidate is running. How reliable is the polling in a situation like this, Jeff?
Well, I think the way to look at it is sort of like how high profile it is. And obviously, this is pretty high profile. It's the president of the United States as a write-in candidate. So you'd have to think that a fair number of Democratic primary voters are going to be aware of it.
So the polling might be OK. Now, you know, you did note that there was like a 30 point margin or whatever was like the closest. But I know that Biden's share in polls in recent polling in New Hampshire sort of varied between 50 and 70 percent. And that is a.
very wide range. So I think it is worth just remembering that polling a write-in candidate is tricky because if the whole idea is that someone's going to have to be reminded maybe when they walk into the polls by some Democratic volunteer for Biden saying, remember to write in the president, and that's like their reminder. His name's not there. It's not like a person in a poll saying like, oh, are you planning to write in Biden?
as an option, it's kind of a different mechanism. So how do you actually measure that is challenging. So I think that is probably worth remembering when thinking about the uncertainty here. And I will say that it's also not a general election. There's like the famous Lisa Murkowski case in Alaska winning in 2010. But you're talking about a full-on ads being run campaign for a couple months ahead of time
And sort of like this very clear effort, whereas it's not like the Biden campaign is running ads in New Hampshire saying write in the president. And it's a much smaller electorate. But granted, it's going to be mostly registered Democrats because I would suspect that most registered independents who are going to vote in this primary are going to vote in the Republican primary. So that may work to Biden's advantage in the end because they will be more aware that this is going on.
Does Biden have much at stake in the New Hampshire primary in terms of is a strong showing for him good politically? Is a poor showing damaging? Would a straight up loss change anything about how we're thinking about the Democratic primary slash at this point, mostly about the general, Leah?
Like, objectively, no, I don't think it makes a big difference. Like, there's nothing on the line for Biden right now, right? Like, this is not a consequential race for him, and he's not paying a lot of attention to it. That said, if you want to go the argument, oh, people are, you know, not enthusiastic about Biden, and, you know, you want to talk about, like, a no-labels candidate or a third-party candidate, then sure, I can imagine that.
opponents to Biden using this or proponents of a third party candidate using the results as a message to show why there needs to be a third party alternative. So I think it could be politically weaponized, but I don't think objectively it's a massive it tells us that much about Biden's popularity. Also, Biden's popularity is not that high right now. We already know that. So it doesn't add much more information.
Yeah, I think any reasonable showing for Biden is pretty good for his campaign. A couple pieces of data here. In the 2020 Democratic primary, Biden only got 8% in New Hampshire. I remember that. He's the incumbent president, so we would, of course, assume for him, we would assume that he would get more now. But like 70%, 80% even potentially among New Hampshire Democratic primary voters should be taken, I think, as a real signal that
at least those voters as democrats who might not like joe biden or have low favorability or whatever still think he's the
only option among the set of candidates that they have to draw from. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Elliot, you mean he's the only option when competing against Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson? Evidently, that's what Democrats have decided. I mean, even in national polls, right, where we have more polls, we can run an actual average. Biden's at 72%. I think we could probably get in a little bit of, like, bad use of polling territory here if we take the Dean Phillips campaign seriously, just as somewhat of a soliloquy. The whole, like,
oh, Biden, oh, how many percent of Democrats don't want Biden to run again? Oh, they think he's bad on X policy. And then directly extrapolating from Democrats might not love Biden to Democrats are going to love me is like pretty, pretty darn egotistical. It's the type of egoism, I guess, that we would expect from presidential candidates. So it's not super surprising. But
Yeah, with faced with the reality, A, of the national polls, and then B, of any significant improvement for Biden over his 2020 New Hampshire margin. In summary, I think you come to the conclusion as any reasonable politician that like people don't want you around and they like the guy at 70%. I will say that I think the challenge for Biden is that if he doesn't clear like 60%, 60, 60% of
or something like that, I do think that it's going to lead to, you know, a lengthy round of media stories about is Biden weak and you'll have Democratic strategists, you know, not named, anonymous, talking to reporters saying, we're really worried, you know, there's just not the, I mean, it's just going to be like a round of stories, right? Now, I will say that that round of stories might end pretty quickly when Biden, you know, easily wins the South Carolina primary on February 3rd. But we're in a situation where the Republican primary might be over on
On January 23rd and the Democratic primary, while maybe technically never having started, will at least in media terms could would be continued to be covered pretty seriously up until February 3rd. At least I do wonder about that just being just sort of added fuel to the fire of, you know.
People aren't excited about Biden and it's bad that we're running Biden and just as kind of a sea of negative stories. So I don't think that any of this affects Biden winning their Democrat nomination. I mean, two thirds of states and territories filing candidate filing deadlines have passed three fourths of the delegates eligible for those states and the pledge delegates are off the table for any other candidate or something. So there's not like some last minute savior coming in for Democrats who's not named Joe Biden.
But I just do wonder about that just sort of adding more to that sort of negative storyline that we've heard and that just being sort of the dominant thing. And the thing that Biden doesn't need right now considering his position in the polls is just sort of negative coverage. He would prefer people to talk about, I don't know, the economy might be looking up or focus on Donald Trump more and what kind of things he's been saying. So that I think is maybe the potential importance of it.
I think your prediction of the anonymous Democratic sources saying that Biden's in trouble, I think that's a very strong, it's very likely that that happens. Is that, would that story be true and fair? Like, should that story be?
Is it an accurate encapsulation of the moment or is it like is it just like what basically we're talking about earlier, like what Elliot was saying? He heard people complain about like kind of over coverage of a non-issue.
Well, Leah, I think it's complicated because as you intimated earlier, I don't know that the results in New Hampshire tell us anything because it's such a small electorate and it's such a weird circumstance where no delegates are up for grabs and Biden is running as a write-in. So I don't know that having that news cycle based off of a result in New Hampshire is fair, but I think how
Having that news cycle is fair. I mean, if you look at Biden's approval rating today, he's underwater by 16 points.
Trump's favorability is underwater by nine. He's actually improved his standing in the polls over the past year or so when it comes to his favorability. And on average, Biden trails Trump in hypothetical head-to-head polling by a point or two. So, like, Democrats... And obviously, he is old, and Americans can see for themselves when he...
speaks in public, that that has had an impact on his performance. And so for the media and for, you know, Democrats who would potentially be speaking as anonymous sources or writing op-eds, yes, there's a lot. There's an awful lot to talk about. Yeah, no, I think that's, I think I agree. And I also think that there's that context you provide is what makes it
An important story that this is not it is another data point that shows us something that we already knew. And I think it's worth covering as another data point. I think the concern is that it would be written about as if it's like an explosive new development. And that's where I get a little nervous.
On edge. I don't know. And I don't know the right way to cover it, but it's where it gets a little uncomfortable, you know? Galen's story, I think the one that he just sort of wrote for the op-ed columnists at the Times seems like the right one to me. That a poor showing in New Hampshire, you know, could be part of a broader pattern of weakness for him in the, you know, it really...
raises X, Y, or Z concerns for the general election. That's fine. I think the type of hyperbole we're going to get with the campaign leaks, oh, Biden camp in Delaware, like scrambling for positive news ahead of horrible showing for Biden in November. Obviously, you're kind of getting over your skis there, but...
Yeah, I don't think that we should pretend that Biden is like in the best position for an incumbent presidential candidate ever. I don't think we're really doing that. And the criticisms of Biden from, you know, the point of view that, oh, voters might have these concerns about him and those concerns are on display to some extent in the next primary is valid. It's good. Good use of election results.
And I will say that there is some historical precedent for this kind of situation having mattered, but it was a long time ago. LBJ actually – Lyndon Johnson actually ran as a right-hand twice in 1964 and 1968 in New Hampshire. It was a very different time in terms of how our presidential primary system worked.
But obviously the 1968 case was highly notable. He got a little under 50% as a write-in. Eugene McCarthy, who was on the ballot, got 42% or so, and that was part of sort of the run of things that led to Robert Kennedy jumping into the race right after that and Johnson by the end of that month, March of 1968, announcing he wasn't running again.
But how much that is relevant to today is questionable. I mean I do think a situation where Biden got under 50 percent or something would be –
I mean I can imagine how that would be covered, which is that it would be – wow, that was a really bad performance for the incumbent president. Of course, if he lost, that would be even more notable. And so could that create some sort of crisis for Biden? I mean I don't want to rule it out entirely, but I have a hard time imagining that it would actually substantially increase.
change the course of him running or something. Because again, South Carolina is the beginning of February and there's little reason to think he wouldn't easily win that. I don't want to sound like I'm spewing crazy talk, but just check me on this.
because I want to understand what the possibilities are. At this point, no one else can really get in the race. So when we talk about an alternative to Biden or the, you know, what are Democrats going to do about Biden discourse?
What we're talking about is Biden saying, I'm actually not going to run anymore. So any of the delegates that have been pledged to me are now unbound and can vote for somebody else at the convention. That's the situation. Like if people are lobbying post New Hampshire or any time between now and August, they're
for an anyone but Biden, some kind of, you know, the op-ed cycle that we saw last fall with David Ignatius and David Axelrod and others, right, intimating that he shouldn't, I use that word twice this podcast, I guess it's now stuck in my head, suggesting that he shouldn't run again. At this point, that's what we're talking about, is Biden himself saying, you know what, I'm not running again. And then the party figuring it out from there.
Oh, absolutely. That's the situation. In fact, we had an article recently on the site sort of laying out the timeline considerations for both Biden if something were to happen and Trump if something were to happen to them, whatever that something was. Obviously, a lot of it was done with the fact – thought in mind that both of them are old and that some unexpected event could arise.
So yeah, the thought would be that a lot of delegates would go to the convention unpledged and the democrats actually don't bind.
in the same way that Republicans do. And so they would be perhaps in a position to be more – they might be in a better position to react to something because of the fact that they don't bind in quite the same way as Republican delegates do. And obviously in this situation, Kamala Harris as the vice president would loom extremely large and would be a pretty obvious candidate.
person to turn to. Literally, that's like the one constitutional duty of the vice president is to be the backup to the president.
So even if Biden were still president but wasn't running again, you have to imagine that there would be some scramble among Democrats and that Harris would maybe be sort of the safest harbor in a storm. But – or safest port in a storm. But I will say that sort of the earlier that that kind of situation arises, you do have to wonder about other potential names out there like a Gavin Newsom or somebody popping up.
uh running a campaign to try to win over delegates because the fact is that a lot of delegates will not have been chosen if it were to happen you know in the next few weeks or something because
The timing process for states when they – the contest allocates delegates. You'll have a primary. But in a lot of cases, it will be another month or so before the delegates are formally chosen based on that allocation at a caucus convention by the party or by a state committee or whatever process the state has for determining its delegates. And this is true for both Republicans and Democrats.
that it's only a few states directly elect delegates on the ballot. So, you know, a lot of times that delegate selection process happens after the allocation process that we usually think of as the primary, obviously. Makes so much sense, honestly. Love it. So great. You know, what we did is we took the longstanding caucus convention system
And in the 1970s, it's like, OK, let's let's add this pop, this stronger popular vote element. And we'll just kind of like graft them together like a very ugly plant in a greenhouse. And that's what we have, ladies and gentlemen. It's like the little shop of horrors plant. Yes. So once again, I want you to check my sense of things here, which is given everything you just said.
I think folks want to wait and see once we start covering this general election in earnest, how much the numbers that I laid out for folks change, right? Once Donald Trump is covered as the presumptive nominee and covered, you know, his rallies, the things he says, covered in a way he hasn't been covered really for three years. And with, you know, somewhat improving economic numbers and maybe more to the point economic sentiment, right?
how much do those numbers change? And then if in like two to three months from now, that dynamic hasn't changed much, I think then we get another real sort of hardcore cycle of,
should Democrats be running Biden, like the hand-wringing Dems and Disarray kind of thing? Is that like, maybe it doesn't happen in earnest after New Hampshire. It happens in earnest in like May if the numbers haven't turned around. Yeah, I think it's going to happen throughout the cycle. I think this is, I think it's going to be a big Dems and Disarray cycle.
cycle. And again, like, I don't think it's necessarily a wrong narrative, you know, given that Biden's approval rating is what, like 40% right now. But yeah, I think that's like, there's not that much else to say right now. And I think that's that, like, when I ask questions about, you know, like, well, what should be covered? What should be getting kind of the most emphasis right now? That's
Like, I think it just comes down to that. Like, what's happening? And I think Dems will be in disarray and that will be a news story. But I don't know if that's the news story. It's we need to get creative here, I guess. I'm not creative in the don't take that the wrong way. Fake news? You want us to create? Leah, come on. The Illuminata is creating fake news? You're really just giving away all of our cards here in the media. I know. Seriously. Yeah.
If I were the Illuminata, people would have listened to me a long time ago. All right, no one's listening to me. No, but I think it's like, what are the most important stories right now? What is actually happening? And it's a primary cycle different. It's an election cycle different from anything we've experienced in recent history because the Republican nominee is going to be a former president who is facing charges for...
stopping the certification of the election in which he lost. We have these traditions in campaign journalism, and that's what I'm advocating for is thinking about those traditions and thinking about adapting them for a new era. Well, speaking of exactly that, a big part of the story that we're going to be covering this year is Trump's legal liability and also what the Constitution has to say about it. And for that, we have a good or bad use of polling.
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As I mentioned, for most of the past week, I was in New Hampshire. And so I took the opportunity to bring good or bad use of polling out into the field and talk to Granite Staters. And for this, you're going to hear an audio clip play next where I describe a poll and then talk to some folks about it. Or you can head over to the FiveThirtyEight YouTube channel and you can watch Granite
as well. So let's take a listen, and then we'll dive into whether or not this was a good or bad use of polling.
We're here in New Hampshire, ahead of the state's first-in-the-nation primary. And we actually wanted to gauge New Hampshireites' thoughts about something that recently happened in a neighboring state to the north. That is, Maine. The Secretary of State there ruled that Donald Trump cannot appear on the primary ballot because of the 14th Amendment, which bars those who have engaged in insurrection from holding office.
According to a recent University of New Hampshire poll, 50% of New Hampshireites agree with the Maine Secretary of State's decision, while 42% oppose. Here's what New Hampshireites had to say. ♪
The Secretary of State of Maine recently decided to take Trump off of the ballot there. Do you agree or disagree with that decision? It's all right with me. Why? Why is that? Because he's a criminal. I think it's wrong. I mean, it don't matter what I think. It's about what the State of Maine thinks. State of Maine said, we don't want you here. You ain't going to be here. I feel that it's the right thing to do. I think that people should be able to elect whoever they want to.
And that's simple. It's supposed to be by the people, for the people, right? I believe with the 14th Amendment that he shouldn't be on the ballot.
Having said that, I think it should be because he's been convicted of something. He hasn't had a trial yet. He hasn't been convicted. I think I disagree with it. Why is that? Well, I think the voting populace should be able to make the decision for themselves. I mean, I think it's sort of like a weird precedent to set. I don't think that solves the problem. You know, if people want to vote for Trump, I feel like that's going to happen, you know? I mean, has he been charged with insurrection? No.
No. So I don't think he should be off the ballot based on the 14th Amendment, which specifies insurrection. According to that same poll, though, when asked how well they understand the 14th Amendment, 35% of New Hampshireites said they understand it very well, while 42% said they only understand it somewhat well. How well would you say you understand the 14th Amendment? I didn't even look at it. I don't look at the amendments. I don't believe in none of them.
Wait, you don't believe in the amendments but you still think he should be taken off the ballot? Yeah, because if you want to follow the Constitution like all these people say they do,
then do what it says. I don't have like a super huge understanding of it. I just know like what's in the news and what's, you know, what I've read. Are you familiar with the 14th Amendment? And I don't ask this in like a mean way. I think probably... Well, actually, I wasn't until a lot of stuff came up with the Trump thing and the insurrection. And now I understand exactly how it works. Yeah? Yeah. And so what do you think about the application? What do you think about the Secretary of State saying that it's because of the 14th Amendment?
I think they're wrong. I don't believe that it was insurrection. I don't think that that was all his fault. I just don't. You can't make people do what they don't want to do. Yes. I think everybody has a mind. And I can't force you to go break into that store, could I? I mean, I don't know how persuasive you are yet. We just met. No, I just don't think that. I think people make their own decisions.
Oh, my God. I love New Hampshire. This is why we do this. This is why. As you can tell, folks in Manchester, New Hampshire have a broad assortment of views on this issue. And if you're curious about the national polling, ABC News and Ipsos did conduct a poll in which they asked folks if they support or oppose Colorado and Maine's barring of Trump from the primary ballot. Forty nine percent said they support.
supported it and 46% said they opposed it. But here's the crux of the good or bad use of polling. I don't want to hear whether or not you thought my use of that poll was good or bad because my ego is too fragile. I'm just going to imagine that you thought it was an amazing use of polling. It was so good. It was fantastic. Thank you, Leah. But the question is, the kind of poll where you ask people if they understand something
And I'm genuinely curious here, is that a good or bad use of polling? Because like, I do think it's important context for the first part. Like, do you think that Trump should have been removed from the primary ballot in Maine? We got our answer. It's 50% yes, 42% no. But then I'm wondering, like, how many people are actually paying attention and understanding what that means and have the context for it? They ask the question, then it's 36% say they understand the 14th Amendment very well, which I don't.
There were more clips than what you heard. And like, I honestly kind of think that those 36 percent of New Hampshireites were maybe lying. I'm not really sure. I don't want to accuse too strongly. And then another 42 percent said they understand it pretty well, which would get us a grand total of like almost 80 percent of New Hampshireites saying they have a good understanding of the 14th Amendment. So is that a good or bad use of polling? Jeff, you are already shaking your head. So take it away.
I mean, I think asking people if they understand something is like, I don't, I don't want to like shoot it down. I just think,
There's a general implicit like self-bias probably to say, yeah, sure. I get it. I understand it pretty well or – oh, yeah. I've been reading a lot about that in the news. Yeah, I understand it very well. It's possible that they understand very well that there is an ongoing debate about the 14th Amendment's application to Donald Trump. But that doesn't mean suddenly that they all became constitutional scholars. I mean – so I would be – in that sense, sure. It's I think a bad use of polling. Yeah.
I think the question, like, if you actually ask people, like, okay, tell me what the 14th Amendment is. I think that's a great way to find out. But, like... That's mean. I would not have the heart to do that, having talked to folks out on this show. That's a hell of an open-ended question. I know, but, like, just as a... Okay, so this is going to be really harsh, but, like, as a woman who works in political journalism...
I've just seen firsthand so many people say they understand things that I say I don't understand when I know they understand it just as well as I do. So this is like a personal question for me where I'm like, nobody knows. Nobody's honest about what they understand and don't understand. But I have a very interesting sample size. So no, I think it's
I think it's good to ask, but I think it's better to put them on the spot and be like, all right, tell me what the 14th Amendment is. Go. Yeah. Like if someone what are you supposed to do? Be honest and tell them you don't understand. No, it's just saying there's this social desirability bias to say I understand something like we live in a we live in a culture where.
You're supposed to perform how smart you are, no matter really where you come from. Yeah, that's literally what we're doing on this podcast right now, Elliot. Yeah, why do you think people buy prestige news products so they can talk about it at cocktail parties? Oh my God, I'm going to drown myself during this podcast. Sorry. I have such feelings about this. Just...
Just say what you don't know. It's fine. All right? It's fine. But... Well, don't down yourself because you have to last at least until November. But I don't think it's a good use of polling to use that poll...
and write a literal transcription and say 36% of people know what it is. Because it's just like not a, you clearly don't understand what the poll is doing and sort of the psychology behind people answering that question. So that I don't think would be a good use of polling.
So is it a good use of polling to ask people in a poll, okay, I've asked you this question, do you support or oppose this? Now, having gotten your answer on that, do you even understand the premise of the question I asked you before? Oh, I think you should probably do it in the reverse order. Do you know what this is? How much have you heard about this? And then you'd probably want to subset it.
If you want to talk about how people feel about the 14th Amendment, you should subset to the people who actually say they know something.
But we have to do a little bit of dance, right? Because we're not supposed to question what people say too much about how they feel or what they know. But also when we're reporting on it, we kind of have to acknowledge that the polls are fallible and there's some level of difference between what people actually believe and think and what they're going to tell you. So I think if you do that well, then it's a good use of polling if you're putting it in context. But I think pollsters should be able to ask both of these questions. I just wouldn't have done it in that order, maybe.
I mean, is it you ask people how many sections are even in the 14th Amendment? And if they answer correctly, then they're wrong. But I'm saying that I don't even remember that off the top of my head. This is section three, I think, but I'm not even positive about that. This is a question in section three, and I think there are like five, but I don't honestly remember off the top of my head. There's five. And so for me, it's like if I were answering this question, I might have said somewhat well, like as an honest answer. And I...
I'd like to think that I cover the stuff and have like read a bit up on it, you know? And that's how I would feel like appropriate answering. I would not say very well. I think you just need to like rule out all the very, like everybody who says very well, just assume, just put them in the don't know anything category because they don't know what they don't
now maybe everybody's moved down a level we just assume zero percent very well and then just you know the very well has become somewhat well the somewhat well has become somewhat not well I think some somewhat wells are probably very well you know like I think they probably okay yeah
I just think the very well's are not somewhat well's. They're overconfident. They're overconfident. I think it's another useful reminder here to, like, think about what people are thinking when they're answering the poll. In this case, you know, about the 14th Amendment, um...
what are people really telling you when they tell you their attitudes or how much they've heard about it? A lot of people are telling you, oh, I saw some news coverage of this. I think I know it perfectly. Or if they're giving you an attitude, they're like, a lot of them are going to be parodying what they heard on the news or what their friend who shares the same party ID is saying. So it's just useful for us, I think,
As we go forward, we're going to see a bunch of these questions and we kind of need to think about what people are, what information people are receiving and then sampling when they're actually answering, actually answering the polls. Like take, take this stuff,
Don't discard it, but don't take it literally. It's not literal. Yeah, I actually not to play the whole like I don't believe the polls, but I was surprised when I saw this poll showing that more folks supported Trump's removal from the ballot than opposed it. I mean, in all of this polling, it's pretty close, but I just didn't expect the remove Trump from the ballot to win out.
Well, more people voted against him. Yeah, I think it's partisanship. I mean, that's yeah. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I I was surprised, too. But I think you can read it as a do you like Trump and do you not like Trump? But which which is not a constitutional question. Yes. And also not a do you like Trump or Biden question? Right. It's just a do you like Trump or do you not like Trump? And actually, how well does this track with.
Trump's favorability. So he's net negative nine percent.
I guess it tracks close, all things considered. There's some reasonable group of people who don't like him but don't want him to be barred, I guess, could be the editorial interpretation. Reasonable, he has some quotes, just so you can't cancel me. Indeed. Wait, so I just pulled up, we're going on long here, but I just pulled up a poll that I had researched back in December to try to get a sense of how many Americans could name their
state representative, their senator, their governor, whatever, for something that I was working on. And in this poll, they literally did. So they asked people, do you know who your governor is? And two thirds said yes. One third said no. And then they asked the two thirds of people who said they knew who their governor was. Who is your governor?
And they didn't go and like redo the numbers based on who got it wrong. But people included answers like Donald Trump and Mario Cuomo. And this poll was conducted in 2016. So when you do ask for the straight up open ended question, like Leah suggested, yes, there are certainly people who say that they know who clearly don't know even who their governor is. Hey, you know, someone just living in New York.
For God, it's Andrew Cuomo now and was like thinking of his dad because he was governor too, you know? No, no. But to your point, like political knowledge is always like an interesting thing to test. And there there's a lot people don't know. And like I said in the video, I don't ask. I don't say all this to be mean. Like,
God bless the person who thinks that Donald Trump is their governor. Like, maybe I would like to trade places with them. Like, it must be a very different experience to go through life that way. But it's more context to provide for how people are processing the political events that we're talking about than to be like chastise people for not knowing the 14th Amendment. That's like a given. No, I think that's...
I think the question is not like there to judge people for what they know or what they don't know, because again, we do this 24 seven. This is all we do. So we really should know this because that's our job. So it's more of a measurement of just knowing what this is than a judgment of people who don't. All right. Thank you, Leah, Elliot and Jeff for joining me today. I really appreciate it.
Thanks, Galen. Thanks for having us, Galen. Thank you.
And we will see folks back on late Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning for a New Hampshire Reaction podcast. But that's it for today. My name is Galen Druk. Tony Chow is in the control room. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Trotavian. And our intern is Jayla Everett. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts 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 a review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.
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