Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com.
How was everyone's Thanksgiving? Wait, Jeff, were you in Mexico? No, no, no. I went to Iowa, which is not to be confused as Mexico.
Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. It's always a real splash of cold water to the face coming back from vacation and immediately diving into a podcast recording. And it will likely be even more of a return from vacation shock for one member of the House of Representatives.
The House gets back to work on Tuesday, and one of their first orders of business is expected to be a vote on whether to expel New York Representative George Santos. A House ethics report concluded earlier this month that he, quote, sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.
If he's booted, that would add him to the list of so far only five house expulsions in American history, so we're going to talk about it. We're also going to look at changing public opinion surrounding the Israel-Hamas war.
In the aftermath of the October 7th attacks, American public opinion shifted decisively in support of Israel. More than a month and a half on, amidst a four-day ceasefire and hostage and prisoner exchanges, where does opinion stand now? Also, happy Cyber Monday. Let's talk about the economy. Just for today, we're making this podcast free for anyone. The code is... Oh, just kidding. Sorry. This podcast is always free. The best cyber deal out there.
In all seriousness, though, recent economic data has been solidly positive, but polling suggests Americans still feel anything but. We'll check back in on that gap between sentiment and data. And here with me to talk about it all is politics reporter Leah Eskaranam. Welcome to the podcast, Leah. Hello. Happy post-Thanksgiving. Thank you.
Thank you. Happy post Thanksgiving to you, too. Also here with us is senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich. Welcome to the podcast, Nathaniel. Hey, Galen. Welcome back to the U.S. of A. Thank you. Thank you. I was I was in Argentina, weirdly enough, for the election, which I had no intention of doing. I booked my tickets before the runoff date was called. I feel like at this point elections are just following me wherever I go. And it's a little bit scary because
It was interesting to chat with people who largely didn't have very big reactions to what was covered as a pretty big election, at least in the Western press that I was reading. I think what I heard was Argentina is always in crisis, so there's not a lot to react to here. Also, there's a bicameral legislature, so he probably can't do that much. And if he does do the stuff, then we'll protest that. And also, he won the popular vote, Millay, the president.
libertarian who has been compared to Donald Trump, who just won the election. He won by more than 10 points. So there is not the same sort of, oh, he doesn't have a mandate from the majority kind of thing. Anyway, we're not talking about Argentina today, weirdly enough. So let's welcome our other panelists, Jeffrey Skelly, senior elections analyst. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, Galen. Are we allowed to listen to Christmas music now?
Or holiday music? Is that permissible? I was listening to Christmas music this morning while I was getting ready for the podcast. So that's my answer. If anyone has a polling-based answer, I'd be happy to entertain it as well. I am sure that YouGov America has asked when you're allowed to start listening to Christmas music. And if I had to guess, it would be as soon as Thanksgiving is over. And I hear some typing away. Nathaniel's doing the research right now.
Yes, YouGov has pulled on this. Good call, Galen. They did it in 2021. When do you want to start hearing Christmas music on the radio? The plurality of respondents said in November after Thanksgiving, 27%, followed by 17% who said in the beginning of December and a total of 20%.
Thought it should be on or before Thanksgiving. So I think we're solidly in the range where yes, it is acceptable. Is there an answer there that's just simply year-round? Yes, 5%. 5% of people said that. 9% said, I do not ever want to hear it. Wow, rude. Not even some like George Michael? I mean, seriously, people, come on. Okay, so...
I am sure that by now folks have heard about the House Ethics Report on Santos. I think the most salacious tidbit in there was that he used campaign funds on an OnlyFans subscription, aka porn, Sephora, Botox, and AirBnB.
Which, when I was reading these headlines, I did ask myself, can't you use campaign funds for image-related things like clothes or maybe even Botox?
Remember the whole, like, Sarah Palin hullabaloo about her campaign spending X amount of money on clothes, and then there was the backlash to the backlash saying that that was sexist. I mean, I'm not saying that anyone needs to wear Hermes on the campaign trail, but Leah looks like she has an answer. According to FEC.gov, the campaign cannot pay for attire for political functions, for example, a new tuxedo or dress.
But it can pay for clothing of de minimis value, which I originally read as de minimis value that is used in the campaign, such as T-shirts or caps imprinted with this campaign slogan. That is a quote from the FEC website. Interesting. Yeah, that just means of minor value or trivial value, which, you know, they probably could have used that wording instead. Lawyers wrote it and they do love Latin.
They did italicize it, too. So, like, it's clearly Latin. And, you know, let's... We can understand that. We can use context clues. It works. Okay. So, sadly, I guess Sephora, Botox, and Hermes are not of de minimis...
Sadly, for George Santos and for anyone else out there who wants to look chic on the campaign trail. In any case, Santos has already been federally indicted on fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and other charges as well. He's pleaded not guilty, but said after the ethics report that he wouldn't seek reelection.
We're just going to take a survey here. Leah, we'll start with you. Is Santos getting expelled this week? I don't like yes or no answers on outcomes. So I'm going to say I think
I think Republicans and Democrats, I think Republicans hope so. I'm not going to do a yes or no. I just can't on this one. All right. Who's braver on this podcast? Nathaniel, weigh in here. Yeah, I'll give a probabilistic answer and I will say likely yes.
As Leah said, I think both parties have an incentive to get rid of him. He's embarrassing for Republicans. Democrats would like the chance to pick up his seat. We can talk about whether Republicans maybe would be foolish to
and expel one of their own just for numeric reasons. But yeah, I think there's clearly an appetite out there to get rid of him. He's got this house ethics report now that gives them clear justification to do so. He himself said on a Twitter Spaces event the other day that he expects to get expelled. Obviously, I don't think he's a reliable narrator, but...
Just to state the obvious. But yeah, if I had to guess, I would say yes. But I think there's a lot of, if there's a lot of uncertainty, maybe I should say lean yes. But I would say it's more likely than not, but I don't have a ton of confidence. Jeff? You know, I think they really might do it. And I'll say for the record that it's a little bit of a change for me. I didn't really think we'd get to this point where an expulsion seems likely.
because Republicans have such a narrow majority in the House. But it does seem like enough Republicans may think he is so toxic a figure that it's worth risking his seat, which is a highly competitive seat, by getting rid of him. And that that's a better trade-off than keeping him around just because of their narrow majority. Just to remind everyone, because I actually forgot about this earlier, but it is a two-thirds vote
So you need two-thirds to support expulsion, but I do think it's worth noting that back on November 1st, you had most Democrats vote to expel Santos on a previous expulsion vote, and most Republicans voted against. But you did have some Republicans already voting at that point to expel him. Overall, the vote was 179 for, 213 against Santos.
And 19 present and 22 not voting. And so you need to get to two thirds. But if you have a major shift among Republicans now that this ethics committee report is out, you know, that could get you to two thirds, I think, without a ton of trouble, assuming that there is a major shift among Republicans. And it does seem like people in leadership in the House Republicans are concerned.
not opposed to expulsion. And I think that's important here. So I think it's actually relatively likely, which I do think is a change from where I previously thought things were. What calculus has changed here? Because folks said, I want to wait to see the ethics report at
etc. That was the stated position. But obviously, underlying all of this is a narrow majority. I mean, I think that if Republicans had a really healthy majority in the House, George Santos could be gone already. But that wasn't stated explicitly.
The margin is still exactly the same. We do now have this ethics report, but it's not, I mean, the details in there are salacious. It's not wildly different from the charges, which obviously you're innocent until proven guilty. But some of the pretty good evidence that was already out in the public sphere, why would the calculation change even though the margin isn't changing?
The first thing that's changed is there was a vacancy filled in the Republican conference. Celeste Malloy was elected last week in a special election to replace outgoing congressman, or I guess outgone former congressman, Republican Chris Stewart. Wasn't a competitive seat, but is another body in the conference that can act as a vote.
Two, McCarthy is not the speaker anymore, and there is not a speaker fight anymore. I don't think there's a big appetite for a speaker fight right now. And in that speaker fight, every single Republican vote counted. Every single one was critical to McCarthy keeping that majority, and that included Santos' vote. He needed Santos' vote. At this point, does Mike Johnson, the new speaker, really need that vote?
I mean, I think it's helpful to have it considering how slim the majority is. But looking at the calculus for what Santos could cost Republicans in the long run versus the minor risk of having a major legislative issue because of one less Republican in Congress, they're probably going to think, well, let's just get rid of him now.
We've mentioned a couple times the cost of George Santos for the rest of the Republican caucus. What are those perceived costs? I mean, do you think that voters perceive Republicans more generally as behaving the way that George Santos behaves? Because I think we've talked about this before, as does this scandal stick to Republicans in...
in a way that would make Republicans concerned about their own brand? And I think we said on this podcast, basically, no. But I'm curious if folks think differently or what the actual risks might be if they're different. No, I think the risk is for New York Republicans. There are six freshman Republicans in New York who represent districts that Biden carried in 2020 or would have carried in 2020 under the current lines in New York. It's not a great look for
other members of Congress representing similar areas in New York who are trying to distance themselves from the national party when Santos is right there. That said, whether or not Santos gets expelled from Congress, the chances that he runs for reelection, is on the ballot for reelection, are super slim.
because Republican Party leaders in Long Island have already or in the state have already disavowed him. It doesn't really make a difference in terms of like the electoral calculus in 2024 for him specifically. Like he's not going to be on the ballot. He said he's not running again. Right. But for the people running around him, it's just not a great look. Right.
There are these six basically New York Republicans, the majority, the U.S. House majority could absolutely go through those six seats. And it might not be, you know, a huge landslide or might not make a huge difference. But if these are narrow margins, it could be a big enough difference where like, why would you want to have Santos there as a distraction?
As I mentioned, he joins the ranks of only five U.S. House members who have been expelled, and three of those were during the Civil War because they had sided with the Confederacy. Only two, then, in the modern era. Why are so few House members expelled?
Well, lots of members resign before they get to that point. You know, in a lot of cases, you'll have someone resign after they've been convicted of a crime or it's part of a plea deal or plea agreement that they've made.
that if they did, I mean, not to say that there are a lot of these cases, but like you can think of a few where someone was Chris Collins from New York. It's like part of his plea deal resigned his seat. And it is just part of the agreement. Like,
The thing for Santos is I always thought that that was perhaps the likeliest thing that would happen is that he would eventually be convicted of something and then would resign his seat as part of some sort of plea agreement. But obviously, he may not get that chance if he gets expelled beforehand. But I think the resignation thing is a big factor here and a reason why there haven't been as many.
I mean, I do think it's worth noting, though, that like it has been extremely rare and like we're not at the point with Santos that we were at with those other two who were both convicted of bribery, I believe, and kind of related charges. And so it is kind of interesting that there is such a rush to expel him before he has been kind of, you know,
actually convicted and with the whole innocent until proven guilty thing. I think that was probably going back to your earlier question, Galen, about why
There was hesitation to expel him. I think a lot of people, you know, they said they were waiting for the House ethics report. But I do think there were and, you know, that I think may be enough to to push enough people over the edge. But I think that there is some concern among people who think that this is a bad precedent to set to expel people for just for charges rather than people who have been convicted.
And I think that's why I'm hesitant to say that this is over, just because if you have like a approval, disapproval vote and
in Congress of, you know, of Santos, I think you're going to get over two thirds disapprove. I think over two thirds have probably already disapproved on like their Twitter accounts, like released statements at this point. But the question of removing a member, especially a member who's probably not going to be on the ballot. I do sometimes wonder if there would be such a rush if he were in a less competitive position.
seat. But the more I think about it, it's not just the charges against him. It's his behavior on the Hill. I think probably members don't like working with him. It's just like there's probably a lot of unpleasantness, but that might not be enough, you know, and and I don't I don't know if it should be enough, but it might not be either way. Yeah, there are some normative questions here, and especially in such a
divided and discordant Congress at the moment, like it is, it would be a significant precedent because then people might stray. People have tried to expel members in the past and have failed, but there may become more of a sort of push to start expelling people. I, you know, I don't really know. Obviously it's hard since you need a two thirds majority to wrap up here, nuts and bolts, electoral stuff. What happens to that seat if he's expelled or if he's not expelled? Is it likely to flip in 2024?
I've got some calendar dates on here that I pulled up for the special election if you're interested. We love a calendar. Yeah, go for it. So if Santos leaves his seat, if there's a vacancy before July 1st,
of 2024, there's a special election. And in the case of a special election, county party leaders choose the nominees. After July 1st, there's an actual primary. So there's some speculation that like if it's a party leaders thing that the Democrat will
would be Tom Swasey, the former congressman who ran for governor in 2022, partially because he has connections and is established in Long Island.
And also known as a moderate quantity in the state, you know, like ran to the right of Kathy Hochul and like might fit a purple district. Yeah, absolutely. And people, you know, they know him and it's an expensive district and people already know his name. And it's like, you know, the Democrat after voting for the Republican and go, yeah, that Republican was George Santos. Like really tough luck. Just...
It's a tough one. Yeah, I don't think you could say it's like a certain seat to flip or anything. I mean, Biden did carry it by what, like seven or eight points. But I think-
You have to remember that in a lot of cases, these were the kind of seats in suburban districts that he ran ahead of other Democratic candidates on the ballot. So in a place like Long Island, down the ballot was a little more Republican than at the presidential level. And so for me, looking ahead, I also think it's worth noting that Republicans have done quite well there, now president.
presidential is not the same as midterm or other off year, but it does seem like Republicans have done well in local elections there. They did well in the midterm there on Long Island. That's the kind of seat Lee Zeldin carried when he was running for governor and keeping things close. And that's, you know, again, no guarantee of what will happen in a presidential year with presidential turnout, but it does point to like
You know, it's not any sort of like sure thing just because Biden did carry it for Democrats. All right. Let's move on to public opinion on the Israel-Hamas war.
You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com.
You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com.
We are recording this podcast on the fourth day of a four-day ceasefire during which Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners are being exchanged. And actually, I got an alert on my phone as we were beginning to record that the intention is that the ceasefire will be extended for another two days.
Leading up to the ceasefire, more than 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed in the original Hamas attack. According to Gaza's Hamas-run government, at least 13,000 Palestinians were killed in bombardments as part of Israel's response. In the immediate aftermath of the October 7th attack, as I mentioned, Americans' opinion shifted clearly in support of Israel, with a lot of that movement coming from Democrats and independents, since Republican support for Israel was already around 80%.
Leah, how would you describe the change in public opinion that we've seen since then? We are in an active situation. I mean, every day is a different news story. A lot of the polling that we've seen happened before the ceasefire. So a lot of the polling I think we've seen so far has been pretty reactive to individual events. So keeping that in mind.
In general, we've seen a decrease in support for Israel, especially among Democrats. That said, it's not necessarily that we're seeing an increase in support for Palestinians. It's more of an increase in the United States taking a more moderating role in the conflict. And obviously, there's a huge age divide within that where the younger generation, especially Democrats...
are losing faith in Biden in particular because of his support of Israel. To Leah's point, a Reuters poll from mid-November found that 32% of respondents said the U.S. should support Israel in terms of its role in the fighting, but more, 39% said that the U.S. should be a neutral mediator.
You've seen a shift in Quinnipiac polling in terms of how many people say they sympathize with Israelis versus Palestinians. So back in October, shortly after the Hamas attack, 61% sympathized with Israelis, 13% sympathized with Palestinians. Now in the most recent Quinnipiac poll, again in mid-August,
on november it's 54 sympathized with israelis 24 sympathize with palestinians so overall americans do remain largely sympathetic toward israel um but there has been a little bit of a shift um and there is i think generally an appetite for for less violence obviously you see in multiple polls the exact number does vary but um
For example, 53% said they supported a ceasefire in a morning consult poll. In the Reuters poll that I mentioned earlier, it was 68%. So, you know, I think obviously the images and news stories coming out of Israel and Gaza have, you know, taken a toll on people and they want to see an end to the violence.
Yeah.
and had been pretty clear there was reporting that we talked about previously on the podcast where some of his advisors were trying to add more sympathetic language to Palestinians in the speech that he gave in response to October 7th, and he sort of shut that down. Are things changing now in terms of his actual approach? And is it because the politics of this are changing domestically? I'm not so sure about the approach changing, but I do think that this particular conflict has...
maybe exposed or precipitated some divisions within the Democratic Party. And if you're thinking about politics in general, when there's an issue that
notably unifies one party and splits the other, that's always worth noting. A.K.A. a wedge issue. Yes, a wedge issue. Maybe there's an opportunity for the other party to somehow pick off some supporters. I don't know if that's really the case here because I think what you have is more liberal individuals tend to be more supportive of Palestine and skeptical of the Israeli government at least.
Whereas the Democratic – sort of the mainstream Democratic line is more supportive of Israel, especially those who are sort of in Biden's camp. So for instance, you actually have like primary challenges that are developing to some progressive members of the squad.
And some of those challenges have – the challengers themselves have specifically mentioned concern about the position that the squad has taken that's very anti-Israel. And in some cases, people have criticized them for maybe being anti-Semitic or what have you. Debates aside about that, the point is that there could be actual political consequences in Democratic primaries, for instance.
You know, the larger picture of Biden's situation is that you do have a lot of younger liberals, progressives out there criticizing Biden, saying that he is too pro-Israel, saying that Palestinians are getting very much the short end of the stick. You know, but I want to be careful about this because I think it's a situation where there's an obvious, like, discord between younger Democrats and older Democrats on this issue, right?
But it's interesting because I don't know how much it's actually affected Biden's overall standing among Democrats, like writ large. You know, I actually ran the numbers on this and it looked like in terms of his approval rating among Democrats overall, overall approval, job approval, basically has not changed. So how much this will have an effect on his overall standing in like a month or two, or if there's some more, if this situation comes closer to
to settling somewhere. Uh,
you know, what will the impact be is unclear to me, but I think that's worth noting. Yeah, Jeff, is the hypothesis here that the polling that we've seen suggesting that younger voters, and I think also voters of color as well, breaking with Biden on his position regarding Israel, that those voters already maybe disapproved of his performance overall, and so these numbers wouldn't change much? I mean, why wouldn't we see an overall change if there is this
backlash to Biden based on this seemingly this specific event? I think that is the hypothesis. But at the same time, you know, for instance, you might have Biden with a lower approval rating among Democrats on, say, his handling of the economy. So you have some people who said they approve of Biden overall, but they disapprove of how or somewhat disapprove or maybe even strongly disapprove of Biden's handling of issue A or issue B or issue C, but they still approve him overall. And
So I think it's difficult to sort of disentangle that. Now, this is like the issue of the moment, right? This is a big one. Maybe you could get a few people to shift their overall opinion of Biden because they're upset about this. But then again, I also don't know. Obviously, we're all talking about it, and it's a major issue, but it's like, what percentage of Americans actually
actually sort of view this as like a make or break thing is probably small. Yeah. And also, I think to your earlier point of like the reason it's hard for this to actually become a wedge issue is that the discord is on the wrong side of the spectrum for where Republicans would peel voters off. Part of the Democratic coalition may be upset with Biden, but if they don't want to vote for him, where do they go?
But I do think that's the big risk to Biden, right? This coming election is the people who don't like him very much or the people who are not impressed with him. Where do they go and third party or stay home? That could spell trouble for Biden. One other quick point just from this poll that Nathaniel mentioned, the Reuters Ipsos one, just on like
how messy this issue is and how it's not like I support, you know, one side or the other. There are a bunch of different things that people are taking into consideration here. There's an American split on whether
Israel's response has been excessive. There are questions about general support for Israel. There are questions on whether any government would do the exact same thing. All of that taken together, still 68% of people said that Israel should call a ceasefire. 57% of Americans view Israel favorably, and that includes a majority of Republicans and Democrats. There's a lot of factors to take into account.
You mentioned the turnout question, which is certainly a big concern for Democrats who tend to win a disproportionate number of younger voters. And if some of them do stay home or you can even get into sort of state by state – I mean you think about Michigan has a sizable – I think it's like 2% or 3%, but it's sizable for any state in the US –
share the population that identifies as Arab American. If people who aren't going to vote for Trump, if he is the Republican nominee, but they don't show up and vote for Biden, that's a net gain for Trump, right? So I do think that that is a serious concern for Democrats. And I guess the only sort of comparison thought here is that if Biden had taken less of a pro-Israel position, could that have actually cost him more votes?
It may have pleased more of his base, but I do wonder if that – look, Biden needs to hold together an anti-Trump coalition, and so he has to hope that at the end of the day –
Those voters who are upset with him right now who have nowhere to really go if they want to vote for someone who's going to actually win the presidential election, that they'll come home in the end. But if he angers the small number of swing voters out there who – independents do tend to be a bit more like Republicans in terms of views on Israel-Palestine –
upsetting them, maybe that pushes them away and keeps them from being part of his anti-Trump coalition again because that's how he won in 2020 was at the head of an anti-Trump coalition. So I think that's sort of the overall political calculus there, but it does bring with it clear risk in terms of where an important part of the base but not necessarily a terribly reliable part of the base sits.
All right, well, let's move on to another tricky issue to get to the bottom of in terms of polling and also in terms of Biden's appeal. That is the economy.
You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com.
As things stand today, the annualized inflation rate is 3.2%. That's down significantly from where it was last summer at an all-time high of about 9%. The unemployment rate is at 3.9%, pretty close to a historic low. And in the most recent quarter, the economy expanded by an annualized rate of 4.9%. Looking at the stock market, the S&P 500 is up more than 18% to date.
That is by basically all conventional measures, a fantastic economy. And I think this is one of the first times you can really say that without putting a bunch of caveats in there about inflation still being high, but coming down, etc, etc. Those are all pretty good numbers.
But measure the vibes, and you might think that the economy is in the crapper. In the most recent New York Times-Siena College polling, 8 in 10 Americans rated the economy as either fair or poor. And consumer sentiment surveys reflect the same. We have talked about this on the podcast before, but the numbers have changed since the last time we talked, so I want to re-evaluate.
Folks, what is going on here in this dynamic that the economy is quite strong? I think empirically you can say that. Americans are actually even spending as if they believe the economy is on solid footing. But then they say the economy is not good and they give Biden very poor marks on it. Who wants to answer the intractable question of election 2024 first? Is that you, Nathaniel? I think that's you, Nathaniel. Thanks, Galen. I
I just think that voters or Americans aren't just looking at a snapshot of the economy right now. They have a longer memory. And I think that memories of high inflation in 2022, for instance,
are fresh in people's minds still. And the fact that the inflation rate for 2023 is 4% and the inflation rate is down from whatever it was, 8% or whatever a couple of years ago, it doesn't mean that prices have fallen, right? It means that prices are rising at a slower clip. And I think that people's memory of
the prices that they're used to paying, that they want to pay, is a couple of years old or a few years old, maybe pre-pandemic. And so people still feel like things are more expensive than they're used to, more expensive, obviously, than they would like to pay. And I think that that kind of thing, and also just kind of generally, like people are asking in polls, they ask about, you know,
what do you think of Biden's handling of the economy? And like he has been handling the economy for three years now. And it isn't, I just don't think that people are necessarily grading him on this specific moment of time, but kind of the whole body of work. And I think that they see more to, uh, quibble with in, in the past couple of years, maybe than they see right now. I do think there's probably reason for optimism for Biden that assuming that the economy continues to hum along, that maybe in a year when people are actually voting, um,
Those memories will be the bad memories will be further in the rearview mirror and maybe people will have adjusted. I don't think we can count on that or that Biden can count on that. But I just think that voters are assessing Biden's handling of the economy based on a longer time horizon than just what the economy looks like right now. I accept that. And I think that's astute. I think that's important. I think that's certainly a factor.
But we also saw that even when folks were saying that the economy was bad in 2021 and 2022, they still said that their personal financial situations were good and they were still spending money as if they thought the economy was on solid footing or expected it to continue to be positive. So while I think that is an important piece of the equation, I don't know that it's all of it.
We kind of had a similar discussion on a previous podcast where we talked about like how different voters respond to different questions. And actually, we don't have to go back into that. But when you ask voters about the economy, what are they answering?
Like, what is the question they're answering? Are they answering, is your neighborhood struggling? Are your neighbors struggling? Is the country struggling? And so when you dig in a little deeper, I think you get some better data. There was a survey conducted by
by Dante Cheney at the American Communities Project, like this big study that looked at, you know, a wide range of different kind of demographic, geographic areas and people's attitudes. And one of the findings was that like most of the country thinks that the economy is rigged for the wealthy. So even if you are personally doing well, like wouldn't that
possibly be an indicator that like maybe the economy is bad. Amy Walter wrote a story about that study. And it's a really, it's a related theme. If Americans are so happy, why all the pessimism? And it's like, because people are thinking beyond, they're thinking about their current situation. They're thinking about what they perceive other people's situations to be. And they're comparing their current situation to the past. So like when you ask about the economy, it's hard to avoid like getting into,
subjective, I think, feelings based on like your overall worldview. Yeah. So to me that, you know, obviously the, the lag aspect of this, you know, if we are getting more favorable economic indicators now, you know, what will people be saying in six months is extremely important, I think, for the 2024 electoral landscape and,
At the same time, though, voters aren't just going to forget. Basically, in political science, there's this discussion of retrospective voting on the economy and so much sort of how much credit does the incumbent president get? To me, Biden has a long-running issue here is that people are going to associate the first couple years of his presidency, even if things are getting better now maybe, with higher inflation, where
Whereas during Trump's presidency until the pandemic hit, you had pretty favorable economic numbers. People felt good about the economy. And all this gets refracted through partisanship, of course. So at the end of the day, Democrats are not going to be as unfavorable about things as maybe they might be otherwise. And Republicans will be much more unfavorable than they would be otherwise or reverse that when Trump was president.
So obviously it's all just very complicated, and I think the lag part is a critical part of this because if you think about sort of when inflation started to tamp down, I guess it was probably, what, earlier this year? But at the end of the day, people are still thinking about the prices they saw two, three years ago and that they were significantly different. And so I just – it's just a question to me, and I don't have an answer, of course, is do people sort of adjust –
to the new normal? And does that lead to somewhat more favorable attitudes about Biden's handling of the economy?
Or do they not that much? Are they like so retrospective in thinking about Biden's entire first term or maybe only term that they decide, no, his economic handling is poor? Again, because like things are so partisan now, like I don't want to overstate the importance of this, but I do think that for the small part of the electorate that can move around, it is an important consideration.
Right. I think for Biden, the danger is that political perceptions of the economy may only reset when the White House turns over, right? And that if you're always going to be judged on our prices higher, you know, how much higher our prices than when Biden took office, when Trump took office, when Obama took office, or, you know, how does unemployment compare and stuff like that? That's obviously concerning for him. He needs to hope that
that they can judge it based on, you know, maybe come 2024, the last two years instead of his first four. And I do think it is worth mentioning, as Leah was getting at, like people's interpretations of sort of the economic situation, you know, the idea of like, oh, things are rigged or like,
My personal finances are okay, but the larger picture is not good. A lot can depend on just what's going on in your day-to-day life. But if you're trying to buy a house right now, things are not terribly great. Housing prices jumped a whole lot. They may be flatter now, but they jumped a whole lot and made it more difficult for people to buy a house. Mortgage rates are obviously much higher now because the Fed raised interest rates to try to
Keep the economy from overheating. So I just think there's a lot of positive economic news, I think, for the Biden administration, how much that carries and continues and how much voters actually feel that.
Is is just I mean, it's completely up in the air. And but there are enough little things like mortgage rates that I do wonder about that being a problem, because another thing I think is worth considering is what things like inflation, mortgage rates, all that stuff. We went through a long period of those things being very low.
And so people who are now trying to buy houses or are going to the grocery store regularly, most of them don't have a memory of a time when mortgage rates were very high, like back in, I don't know, like the late 80s, early 90s, and you're trying to buy a house now.
or when inflation skyrocketed in the late 70s or late 80s. There's not something like that to compare to as much for people who are now in the electric. Maybe obviously older Americans. Right, but like millennials who might be buying their first house or something like that. Exactly, but the broader, like a big chunk of the population is unfamiliar with this. Not that any of those people are on this podcast right now. Exactly. Exactly.
But yeah, I buy your point about interest rates. And actually, that gets us to the final portion of this podcast, which is a surprise game we are going to play. Guess what Americans think? Economic perception edition. And the first question is, what percentage of Americans say they have foregone a major purchase in the last year because of higher interest rates?
This is not fair. This is ridiculous. According to what poll? Conducted when? That's a good question. According to the AP. Oh, they're good. Okay. And it was conducted in late October. All right. Three, two, one. Reveal. 41%. 49%. 50%.
Jeff, you get it. It is 30% of Americans say they have forgone a major purchase over the past year because of interest rates. Next one. What percentage of American voters believe inflation will continue to rise over the next 12 months, according to Ipsos?
All right, three, two, one, reveal. 58. 61%. Nathaniel, you got it. Oh, no. Wait, exactly? It is 62%. No way. Americans say they expect...
Inflation will continue to rise over the next 12 months. So that is one for Jeff, one for Nathaniel. Leah, you're not on the board yet. I had 50%. All right. Eventually, if you keep guessing it, eventually it'll be right. I can feel it. I can feel it with the next one. What percentage of Americans describe their household's financial situation as good, according to the AP? Three, two, one, reveal.
59%. 47%. Yeah. 50%. Leah gets it. Leah has got 50% three times in a row and she has finally got it. It is 54%. You just edged out Nathaniel by one point who said it was 59%. Guys, a majority of Americans say their household financial situation is good. And eight and 10 say that the economy is bad or fair. Uh,
but we've already talked about that. Yeah, I have thoughts about, I have thoughts about that scale, by the way. I don't think fair is a very good word for, yeah. Oh,
Oh, yeah. What does fair even mean? Yeah, exactly. That's why sometimes you'll see pollsters used for approval like excellent, good, fair, poor. And I just don't think it's not comparable in the same way to like strongly approve or strongly favorable to strongly unfavorable or strongly disapprove. So anyway, that's a little fun pollster question issue thing. Yeah.
We always like to sneak in a little good or bad use of polling on this podcast. Just slide it in here. I feel like we could do some, like, Gen Z questions sometimes. Like, mid. Like, how's the economy? Mid. Is the economy mid, sus, or riz? That makes sense.
I think I misused Riz there. Riz is a noun. I don't know what Riz means. Is this economy slaying? I guess that's the gay scale. Okay. On the topic of generations, which generation holds on average the most debt at $154,683? Wait, there's another question? I thought we were done. We're not done. It's...
A three-way tie. Three, two, one. Reveal. The boomers. Gen X slash 50%. So I said I originally crossed out millennials and then wrote boomers because I was like, it's a trick question because of course millennials have the most debt. But maybe because boomers, there are more boomers. And they have all the houses and stuff like that. I figured that maybe they have the most...
I love all those explanations, but no, ma'am, Leah is right. It is Gen X. Gen X has the most debt on average. Makes sense. I also thought it was tricky. I was like, this would be too obvious if it were millennials. So I had to pick between them. Leah, you hated this little pop quiz. Hated it. You won. You won. I did well on the pop quiz with a curve. That's what just happened.
Wait, where was the curve? This is actually one of the few times I haven't thrown the game away by making the last point worth like eight points. The curve is that nobody knew any of the answers. Our answers were pretty well, uh,
for the most part, were pretty reasonable. Like, they were pretty well clumped together, you know? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Did you guys just say, America's pretty closely divided? I'm going to guess approximately 50% on every single question that Galen asks. Yep. That's my strategy. A little bit. I also was doing like, okay, well, I bet you like 80% of Republicans say it's bad. So let me just like rough this out. Like,
what would that probably work out to if it's like 80% of Republicans, 55% of independents and 20%? I'm not saying it was like that perfectly mathematical, but that was like my instinct. All right. Well, we're going to have to get a little more inventive with guess what Americans think, but we're going to leave things there for today. Thank you, Jeff, Nathaniel, and Leah. Thanks, Galen. Thank you. Thank you, Galen.
My name is Galen Droop. Tony Chow is in the control room. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Chertavian, 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 review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.
