Why Biden's Unpopularity Doesn't Seem To Be Tanking Democrats 58:00

Angle the mic more directly towards your face like this. Yeah.

I think last time we did have you put it on a book. Is it on a book again this time? Yeah, I don't think I'm in a hotel room. Maybe there's a Bible or something. Let me look. The Gideons are there for you, you know, in every way. Wait, is Nate still in Vegas or is he in New York? I don't think there's a Bible.

What kind of heathen-ness state are you in? Well, if it's Vegas, that might be one place where you wouldn't have a Bible in the drawer, right? Yeah, I am in Vegas, and there's no Bible, which we have to deal with. Vegas is just living up to Sin City.

Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. There are now only six weeks until Election Day. Six weeks before we start to figure out just how much President Biden has hurt or helped his party in the midterms.

Traditionally, a president's approval rating is pretty closely tied to how his party performs. But Democrats have been overperforming Biden in the polls for months. And last week, Biden demurred slightly about his intentions to run for re-election in 2024. So is this an intentional strategy? And how much will the midterms affect Biden's thinking? We're

We're going to discuss, we'll also focus on how demographic and geographic changes are shaping one of the most competitive races in the country this fall, the Georgia Senate election. Georgia's black electorate has grown faster than any other state in the country over the past 20 years. We're going to look at how that happened and what it means for the state's politics. We'll also dive into whether or not Google search trends have anything to tell us about what's on voters' minds that the polls don't.

Here with me to discuss it all is Editor-in-Chief Nate Silver. Hey, Nate. How's it going? Hey, everybody. Also here with us is politics reporter Alex Samuels. Hey, Alex. How you doing? Hey, Galen. I'm well. How are you? I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. You know, it's Monday, but I'm fully caffeinated and we're going to do this. Also with us is elections analyst Jeffrey Skelly. Hey, Jeff. How are you? Hey, Galen. It's Monday. So I'm doing well.

All right, there we go. Nate, before we dive into our good use of data or bad use of data, I think listeners might already know because I announced it last week, but we have a live show in Washington, D.C. on October 25th. It's our first live show in a very long time. Are you excited? Yeah, I mean, I love Washington, D.C. It's my favorite city in the entire United States. Asshole. No, I love doing live shows, and D.C. is a great venue for live shows, so please come.

It is. It's really fun. It's going to be close to the midterm. So on October 25th, we're going to do a little bit of model talk. We're going to play some games. We're going to take listener questions. It will be very fun. So if you have not gotten your tickets yet, there will be a link to get those tickets in the show notes of this podcast. You can also find a link on my Twitter account, Nate's, or on the FiveThirtyEight website.

So we look forward to seeing you there. But with that, let's dive into today's good or bad use of data. And this week, it comes from Axios. In the run-up to the midterms, Axios has been tracking Google Trends data to see which political issues Americans are most likely to search for.

Last week, they published a piece highlighting how searches for abortion have fallen as interest in the border has risen. Abortion peaked as the second most searched issue in late June after the Dobbs decision. At that time, the border and immigration ranked 18th.

The latter now ranks 10th and abortion ranks 18th. Jobs has been the number one issue the entire time and nothing has supplanted it. The increase in searches about immigration come as Republican governors have sent migrants to blue locales like D.C., New York, and Martha's Vineyard. So here is the question.

Pollsters regularly ask Americans what the most important issues to them are when considering how to vote in the midterms. The rankings vary from one poll to the next, but in the last issue polling we conducted with Ipsos, the priority ranking was the following. 1. Inflation 2. Crime and gun violence 3. Political extremism 4. Climate change 5. Immigration 6. Government debt 7. Abortion

Is Axios use of Google Trends data a good or bad use of data in the sense that is it a better barometer than the actual polling that we have? Is it really adding anything? Nate, I'll let you take this first. So there are a couple of separate questions here, one of which is the use of Google Trends relative to polls and another which is how you create these different categories of issues. I'm generally a fan of Google Trends data for a couple of reasons. One, it

uh, reveals revealed preference as an economist would call it, meaning what people are actually spending their time searching for and not what they may abstractly say is important. You may abstractly say, oh, well, I think it's really important. You know, my family and health is really important. If you spend every Sunday watching football with your buddies, uh, then maybe that's not true as much in terms of how you're actually spending your time. Right? So what people search for kind of reveals in some ways they're

true identity or true selves. I mean, there are also things like you may search more for a topic in the news a lot instead of one that is important, but like there's not as much like global warming news from day to day as there might be for some other topics, right? It's a long-term kind of thing. But in general, I'm a fan. I do think though, like creating these categories is,

kind of problematic and that pollsters maybe don't spend enough time thinking about it. Whether you have a separate category for the economy and inflation is important, for example, right? Or you kind of say, oh, social issues and abortion might overlap. Also, sometimes the questions they use kind of

make assumptions about, like, they'll say, like, oh, the crisis at the border, the threat to democracy. So they kind of presume the answer in the question. It's actually kind of an example of begging the question, as that term means formally. So you have to be very careful with kind of what your categories are, and it's probably best looked at if you look at several of these polls or metrics that, like, look at them in combination and not treat anyone as being gospel. All right, okay. That's a pretty...

comprehensive answer. Alex, is this a good use of data or bad use of data in your book? I said bad use of data. I was in my research, I just looked at the Google Trends help page, which says pretty plainly that Google Trends is not a scientific poll and should not be treated as such. As Nate got at, it simply reflects the specific interests of a specific topic.

at a specific point in time. And a spike in a topic doesn't mean that that topic is winning, it doesn't mean that it's popular even. What it does convey though is that users were searching about a topic for some unspecified reason. And until we know what that reason is, which we can't glean from Google Trends data alone, I think polling is always going to be a superior barometer when considering Americans' feelings towards something.

All right. Okay. So we have two different takes so far. Jeffrey, where do you fall on this? Yeah. I mean, I think I'm partial to bad use of polling. One of my initial problems with it was that they just don't have any data from August 8th to September 4th as a part of their analysis, which is, you know, like four weeks of data. So who knows exactly where things were shifting during that period? Seems like an important question or part of the question in terms of a recent trend that

On top of that, I think my other concern is that they framed it very much with the focus on immigration, especially in light of Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, these Republican governors, and sending migrants either via bus or by flight to liberal places in the country.

And I think the inherent problem with sort of framing it around that is that plenty of people who do not agree with the choice to do that could be searching, you know, hate searching almost about this particular issue. So what I'm saying is it doesn't necessarily reveal any sort of preference sort of to Alex's point about what the attitudes of the people who are searching this actually are.

Doesn't issue polling have the same challenge in that when you ask voters, you know, what's the most important issue to you in this election?

When someone says border and immigration, you don't necessarily know what they're saying. When someone says abortion, you don't necessarily know what they're saying either. It could be, I really care about abortion and I want abortion to be banned nationally. Or it could be, I really care about abortion and I want abortion to be legal nationally. Yeah, but the problem there is, I mean, the comparison you're making, the thing is with Google Trends, I can't get a crosstab of what Democratic search, people who lean Democratic search and people who lean Republican search are.

which can tell you a lot. It's like, oh, if Republicans say they care about abortion a lot, it's not hard because of other information we have about Republican positions on abortion to figure out what their attitudes might be, or obviously in the wake of the Dobbs decision to the fact that, oh, Democrats in polls are more worried about abortion than they were previously. It's not real hard to intuit what's going on there. But with Google Trends, can't do that. I don't have any follow-ups to figure out

more nuanced aspects of issue positions and whatnot. It's like that's just not possible with that data, or at least not with what Google is willing to share. If I were to guess, I would say people were probably panic Googling post-Dobbs, and now they have a better sense of the landscape there. Stuff regarding abortion, at least at the statewide level, isn't changing as fast now. And for most of the summer, laws were actively going into effect. And

And unless you were following the fallout from Dobbs pretty closely, it probably wasn't clear where abortion was legal. And now I think things have settled down now as the Google Trends data sort of got at. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter politically or that it won't be top of mind for voters heading into the midterms. Nate, so some challenges to your good use of data allocation. How do you define it? I mean, first of all,

There are different ways for people to express preferences and attitudes and beliefs, and you want to look at more ways rather than fewer. The fact that people might be searching for abortion because they're concerned about, what if I get pregnant unexpectedly? What can I do? That certainly seems to me like it's a revealed preference where people actually do care a lot about abortion.

I mean, I agree in the abstract that maybe people are like, you don't know their motivations for searching, but you also don't know, like when you ask in a poll, like an NBC poll said, oh, um,

threats to democracy, right? And this is interpreted as, oh, there's all these kind of liberals are finally coming around and expressing, which I think are valid concerns about Republicans invalidating elections after the fact, right? Election denialism. However, a lot of Republicans pick that answer because they think the election was stolen in 2020, right? They are wrong about that, but like, that's where that answer reveals their preference too. So I don't know. I mean, like,

You know, immigration is an issue where if you look at the balance of different surveys, I think people are more negative on immigration and more concerned about it than you'd get by reading like the elite prestige media. So to me, that's like not a very good example of a case where these polls are off. To me, like that would reveal that. I mean, inflation was like this when there were people denying all the importance of inflation before it became so obvious. Right. So these polls can actually express inflation.

cases where people care more about an issue than it might get covered in like kind of elite liberal mainstream media. So speaking of elite media, The New York Times, of course, recently released its latest midterm polling and it dug into this question. And Republicans have a 14 point advantage over Democrats when it comes to the question of illegal immigration. And the parties are even on the issue of legal immigration.

So that does suggest that if immigration in general becomes a more salient issue, potentially it could help Republicans. In that same polling, 62% of Americans said abortion should always or mostly be legal. So the numbers on immigration are better for Republicans.

We talked about one data point, basically the Google trend search. But Jeffrey, I know that we have conducted another round of issue polling with Ipsos that we're going to be releasing later this week. Have we seen in that polling a change in terms of how important these two issues are to Americans, abortion and immigration?

Right. So in our polling just after the Dobbs decision, the share of people who said that they viewed abortion as like a top issue facing the country definitely jumped. It jumped from 9 to 19 percent from our previous poll. Now, our polling is a little different because we allow people to pick up to 3 percent.

options in terms of issues that they think are important for the country. Abortion has now come down a bit since then. It's among all respondents down to 11%, but it's much higher among Democrats than say Republicans. And then, you know, to speak of another issue that was brought up here was like immigration. Well, immigration consistently in our polling

has been very much a Republican issue. Republicans are the ones that are answering immigration as an important issue facing the country. But the number has hardly changed. It's been between 32 and 38 percent in every wave of Republicans saying immigration, and just under 20 percent overall in most of the polls. So it's been very consistent in that way.

So at least as far as this polling is concerned, immigration is a more salient issue to Americans than abortion. Yeah, I think so. So there are a few things that come to mind with this that I think complicate our understanding of it a little bit. Because, you know, we've been we've been citing that New York Times-Siena College poll a lot because they do good work. But, you know, even if a lot of people aren't answering abortion necessarily as like a top issue that they care about,

You will notice that in that poll, as just a comparison point, slightly more respondents said that they viewed the Republican Party as extreme than the Democratic Party. And if you look under independence, it was a strong plurality of independents said they viewed the Republican Party as more extreme. So to me, the importance of the abortion issue is not so much that people are naming it as the top issue or one of the top issues, but

for them personally or for the country, is it playing into attitudes about the parties? And I think that's where this issue is different from a lot of midterms in that the issue of abortion has created circumstances for people to view the Republican Party as more extreme. Now, there are other things that could go into that, obviously, in the aftermath of January 6th. But for me, that's an important part of this. And it's not so much just about what people are naming as an important issue, but how

their views of the parties have been affected by things that are going on. To wrap up here, Nate, how are you processing what this sort of change in priority or change in salience means heading into the midterms? Because I think it was like back in June when we talked about the outcome of the Dobbs decision, we're like, oh, this seems like a big deal. It's also unclear whether this will be a big deal in five months. Now we're getting, now we're much closer to the election.

First of all, I agree with Jeff's point that it kind of gets into attitudes about the parties. And also, abortion's a very rare instance where the party that's out of power...

had a huge influence on an issue despite not controlling Congress or the presidency, right? The Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade is a huge deal, one of the most important decisions of the past 50 years. And so it serves in a more substantive way to remind voters of what the stakes are than supposed future threats, right? Oh, the next election, well, you elect these election deniers, it'll be stolen. Well, that might be true, but it hasn't happened yet. And also the people who make those claims, I think,

are correctly worried about that, also are, you know, often cry wolf about other things that may not be as legitimate. So to have an actual case in hand of this thing that most Americans think is a fundamental right for women, to have that taken away when the other party is supposedly out of power, that's a very important and unusual change. And it kind of reinforces concerns about the GOP and the Supreme Court in a way that a future harm might not.

Yeah, I think that's like a really excellent point because there's this concept of like thermostatic public opinion. And it's like if one party has got control and they pass it like full control, like Democrats do obviously very narrowly, but they have full control right now. It's like they pass a bunch of things that their party wants, but voters begin to feel like, oh, the country's drifting too far in that direction now.

And then, you know, there's a reaction, which is often, you know, the midterm election. I mean, there are other things that go into that. But in this case, you had this sort of shock to thermostatic public opinion coming from kind of an unexpected direction in this case, which is from the party that's not in power. And that's, as Nate says, very unusual. So has that created, you know, sort of a different set of conditions than we would normally expect in a midterm environment? Yeah.

All right. So to come back to the beginning question at hand, a good or bad use of data. It sounded like we had two bad uses of data and one good use of data. Has anyone been convinced throughout the course of this conversation that this is, in fact, the opposite? And that's going to be a no.

I was going to say no, but I do actually really like Google Trends data, and I do think there are really good uses of it. I know Nate recently used it for sort of talking about how Trump has remained in the news, and I think that was a really excellent use of that data when thinking about politics as a whole and what's going on. So there are really good uses of Google Trends data, so I'm not trying to poo-poo that, generally speaking. I think that's true. I also think it's a really good point that

We don't know necessarily the significance from a partisan perspective of Google Trends data. I did an interview last week with Max Fisher, who wrote a book about social media. And one of the points in the book is

that I took issue with was basically saying, you know, there was so much more shared about Donald Trump. There was so much more like news about Donald Trump on social media than there was about Joe Biden. This shows that this social media, maybe even Google Trends, whatever, can

be biased and promote Republican ideas or promote misinformation about X or Y or whatever. And it's like a lot of people are searching about this stuff because they're mad about it. And one of Biden's strategies was to stay out of the limelight and make the election a referendum on Trump. And I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that Biden's campaign would not have preferred Biden being a higher search trend feature than Trump in the run up to the 2020 election.

So it's important when you see these trends to think about, OK, why might this be peaking? It may not be the most obvious reason at first. Yeah, Galen, this is funny you bring that up, the 2020 election, because I actually remember in 2016 doing some research on Google Trends and Clinton and Trump, and it tended to be whoever was in the news more, their polling numbers tended to slide more.

And then when they reversed who was in the news more, you know, the candidate that wasn't in the news as much to go up. That was that was not like that's fascinating. I don't know about statistical significance on that. I ran some tests later that that sort of said, eh, maybe. But nonetheless, it was an interesting pattern that that appeared.

So when both candidates are underwater with the public, you just want to stay out of the news and let the other unpopular candidate do the talking and that'll maybe increase your poll numbers. I mean, in theory, in theory, yes. All right. Well, speaking of potentially unpopular candidates, let's move on to Biden and the midterms.

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All right, let's talk about what President Biden has said about his intentions to run for re-election and how that ties into the 2022 midterms. So when first asked in March of 2021, here's what Biden said about his plans to run for re-election. Yes, my plan is to run for re-election. That's my expectation. A week ago, he was asked on 60 Minutes about his plans, and here's what he said then.

Look, if I were to say to you, I'm running again, all of a sudden, a whole range of things come into play that I have requirements I have to change and move and do. In terms of election laws? In terms of election laws. And it's much too early to make that kind of decision. I'm a great respecter of fate. And so what I'm doing is I'm doing my job, and we're going to do that job, and within the timeframe that makes sense after this next election cycle here, going into next year, make a judgment on what to do.

You say that it's much too early to make that decision. I take it the decision has not been made in your own head. Look, my intentions I said to begin with is that I would run again, but it's just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen.

So Alex, let's start with you. Why, less than two months before the midterms, is Biden saying that a re-election run is just an intention and, quote, remains to be seen? It could be because he sees himself as a drag on members of his own party, which I think is evident from his low approval ratings compared with how Democrats are performing on a generic congressional ballot.

And, you know, there's only so far that you can swim above water. And if Biden is 10 to 12 points behind a Senate or House candidate in a competitive race and Biden ends up dragging those people down, he might see that as a sign to step back and let someone else run. And I think, you know, Jeff, Nathaniel, Sarah Frostenson and I kind of asked this question a few weeks ago of if Biden doesn't run, who is the obvious like Democrat to replace him? And I don't think

any of us came up with a clear answer there, but

I think the split that we're seeing on Biden's approval versus the generic congressional ballot, you know, it kind of speaks to the range of outcomes that could happen this this November. You know, it could be a Republican sweep. It could be Democrats holding on to both chambers or it could be something in the middle. And I think the better the results are for congressional Democrats, I think the more likely it is then that Biden decides to run for reelection in twenty twenty four.

So we should dig into whether that is the takeaway that Biden should take away. But let's put some numbers to what you said. So Biden's current approval rating is 43%. His disapproval rating is 53%. He's 10 points underwater. Meanwhile, on the generic ballot, the question that asks whether you plan to vote for a Republican or Democrat in the midterms, Democrats are leading Republicans by 1.3 points, according to the 538 average today. So Nate and Jeff, I'm curious, do you...

agree that this is just a potential strategy on behalf of President Biden to background himself more during this midterm cycle because Democrats seem to be outperforming him? Yeah, that seems pretty logical to me, right? You know, if it becomes a referendum on Biden, approve or disapprove, Democrats do worse with that question than the choice between their party and the Republican Party. And I guess really kind of like,

Either way, if Biden says something definitive either way, that creates a big story about Biden and distracts from abortion and other issues that Democrats think that they that they have a good shot of persuading people over. I'm not sure I agree whether the midterms themselves will affect Biden's decision. That's a separate point that we can maybe debate later on this segment.

So I think there are a couple things going on here. It's like on the one hand, presidents aren't usually – or first-term elected presidents aren't usually getting asked repeatedly if they plan to run again because usually the default expectation is yes, they are running again. Biden is unique to some extent in this way. In fact, I would say he is unique. He's the oldest person ever elected president, and so there is real –

real uncertainty about whether he's going to run again. And that to me is like why this question keeps coming up maybe more often than it has in the past. I mean, I know with Reagan, there were some questions, but I think just like Biden, given his age, is getting this question even more than past presidents. At the same time, there is all, so in that sense, it's like, well, let's not give a definitive answer to Nate's point about like, we don't need this to become a page one story, page A one story.

The other thing going on is that presidents don't actually usually, I mean, candidates of any stripe don't usually formally declare their campaign intentions until after the midterm election. So even incumbent presidents, like for example, everybody knew Obama was going to run again, but he formally announced he was running again in April of 2011. So for Biden, there's also just like,

There's like no need to rush making a formal decision on that. It's just that you also have this extra wrinkle of, well, people are actually a lot more interested in that question than maybe they have been for other first term incumbents, because it's a real uncertainty. It's a real question. Do you think Biden's being asked so frequently? I know his age is probably a factor, but the fact that Trump is kind of teasing a 2024 run, too, do you think that's part of the reason why Biden's being asked about this more as well?

I mean, campaigns are starting earlier and earlier, and Trump kind of already sort of running for 2024 is part of that. But yeah, I think, I mean, the elephant in the room is Biden's age. He is going to turn 80 in November. So he would be 82 at the start of his second term if reelected. That's quite old, right? You don't find a lot of governors historically who have been that old, not to mention presidents. You don't find a lot of CEOs, people in executive positions who are

who are that old, it's completely appropriate for the media to focus on it. I think if the media doesn't focus enough on the effects of, you know, you appoint one guy who's commander in chief, who has a huge amount of power in the American political system, you know, I think the media should spend more time on candidates' mental fitness. So yeah, I mean, yes, I think his age is obviously part of that. But nonetheless, we're still left with this fact that

For months, Democrats have been outperforming Biden. Historically, a party's performance is pretty closely tied to a president, the president who's in the White House's approval rating. That has not been the case. It's not been the case for months. We questioned when this became a trend, when we started getting a lot of generic ballot polling, whether the two numbers would converge over time. We're now a month and a half out from the election. They still have not converged. Why is that?

So set aside strategy. Like, why are we seeing the somewhat unique situation with the numbers? First of all, I think the relationship between presidential approval and midterm results is not actually all that important.

historically, but that's a kind of data question we can get into later. I mean, we can. Yeah, I feel like we've addressed it strong directionally, but maybe not so much if you get a seat seat. Yeah, no, I get what Nate's saying. It's like if you're going by like seat counts, like there is a lot of variation and you have to consider like where were the parties at going into the election where, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So I directionally, yes, but maybe not so much in terms of like magnitude.

And directionally, in this case, Biden is underwater and Democrats are above. Look, I feel like election analysts or whatever you want to call them or journalists more broadly, like don't give people enough credit. People are able to say, I'm not thrilled with Biden, but I don't like the alternative. Right. Like, that's not that sophisticated. But you listen to like cliche written journal. It's like, oh, it's all about Biden.

But it does seem unique. Nate, do you disagree that this election seems unique compared to others in terms of the split between the party and the incumbent? Because I think it does seem unique, and I'm trying to understand why that is. Well, every election is unique in its own way, right? I don't think it's the most interesting thing about this election. Okay. Not that there's, like, teams in this, but I would lean toward Team Galen. Wow, yes, yes. I don't know. Nate and I have been at odds this entire podcast. So what I will say is that

But Republicans have elected a number of controversial or just like candidates endorsed by Trump in a number of battleground states, you know, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and in the House, too. I think Democrats have had some success propping up candidates viewed as too extreme for a general election. So it is possible that voters don't want these more controversial Republicans in office. They'd rather see Democrats elected.

but then are more kind of mixed or split on whether they want Biden to seek a second term. I mean, 2024 is so far out from now. So much could happen in between then. I think the immediate is that maybe they don't want these controversial or disliked Republicans in office, but are kind of split again on Biden's political future. I feel like that's compatible with what both Nate and I are saying in a way. But yes, like voters are...

smart enough, obviously, to distinguish between an individual president and two parties. But at the same time, this is a somewhat unique situation. So let me frame this another way, Nate, and see if I can get you to play ball with me. So

We have seen protest movements basically against the last, I think, four presidents. We had the resistance against Trump. We had the Tea Party against Obama. We had the anti-war movement against Bush. We had the Republican Revolution in 1994 against Clinton. For some reason, we haven't really seen a grassroots protest movement spring up in opposition to Biden.

And I am curious if there is something about Biden that just is not particularly getting people amped up. People aren't thinking about him very much. And so he takes up less oxygen in the political space. And maybe it's easier for voters to say Biden is one thing. Set him aside. I'm going to look at the two parties.

That could be pure punditry. I don't know. But there seems to be some kind of unique situation going on here. Do you agree with that at least, Nate? Yeah. Well, I mean, unique. I don't like that word unique, Galen. Okay. I don't like that word unique. Okay, fine. There's a situation. Every election people think is unique, right? Okay. We're describing why this election is this election and not a different election. I mean, I think it's certainly relevant to point out that Biden...

is not as preoccupying to people as, as yeah, as other recent presidents. And maybe that explains why there's some type of, you know, apparent disconnect, but I just don't think this disconnect is something that is all that strange. I mean, it's not a presidential election. It's a congressional election, right? It would be strange if, uh, if in 2024, uh,

Biden was really unpopular and the other candidate was really popular, but somehow Biden was winning anyway. That would be strange, right? But this is an election for Congress. It's not that weird that, like, congressional preferences are not perfectly aligned with presidential preferences. And yeah, maybe it's easier when Biden doesn't suck up all the oxygen in the room in the way that Donald Trump or even an Obama or Bill Clinton did. Sure. You know, so when I think about this midterm election scenario,

I see sort of both points. Like, Galen, you are right. If Democrats were to do something like gain seats in the House, which, you know, at this point still seems more unlikely than not, but if they were to and Biden's approval rating were in the low to mid 40s,

That would certainly be striking and unusual because usually when the president's party has made very small gains like in 1998 or 2002 or even very small losses like in 1962, like the president's approval rating was very high. And so like it was easy to point to that as a part of the reason why the president's party did well.

If Biden's approval rating is that low and Democrats are in that position where they, you know, lose five seats like that would six seats or something like that would be for a midterm election, a real win for the president's party. That I mean, that that'll be really striking. And I think that gets what comes to me is is that.

What we were talking about in the previous segment has to be part of this, which is the Dobbs decision and sort of how that has altered the usual sort of out-party advantage. At the end of the day, the election is still in November. We don't know exactly how things are going to play out. But it's not a coincidence that our generic ballot number flipped from Republicans having an edge to Democrats having a very slight edge last

After the Dobbs decision, I think, you know, it shook up the electoral environment in a way that is atypical for a midterm. And whereas you can point to like 9-11 and the impending Iraq war with Bush's popularity before the 2002 midterm and Republican overreach. So maybe there actually is a similarity there in a way between 1998 and

And in 2022, in terms of the concept of Republican overreach, maybe costing Republicans in this case, the Republican overreach came from the Supreme Court, not necessarily from one of the chambers in Congress or Congress as a whole.

But in that case, Clinton was very popular and they were impeaching him and it came off as Republican overreach. So, you know, it would be very different, obviously, if Democrats gained this time or what have you. But but I you know, at the same time, it's all about Republican overreach. I could see, you know, some of that. So to Nate's point, unique is maybe not the right word. OK, fair enough. So you're not unique, but striking. Yeah.

Sure. Yeah. Or at least atypical. I don't know. Anyway, let's typical. I think it's reasonable. Let's put semantics aside.

And of course, there are still six weeks left. You know, there are still new developments in the economy. Interest rates are rising. The economy may be slowing. There are all sorts of different things that could happen. We're not even in October yet. We haven't even had time for an October surprise. So obviously, no one is counting any chickens before they're hatched. It's just that so far, after months of speculating that those two numbers might converge...

Either Biden might become more popular, and he has become a little bit more popular, or that Democrats' position in the generic ballot would decrease. We still see this gap. Anyway, I thought it was notable. But to wrap up this segment, what are we seeing on the ground in terms of how candidates are positioning themselves vis-a-vis Biden in competitive races? Do they seem to see him as a liability or an asset? Neither. Neither.

I mean, it seems mixed. You'll see lots of campaign ads in swingy districts where there's a Democratic incumbent and they'll say,

you know, such and such against the Republican agenda. I fought against this, but then there'll be like, and I broke with the Biden administration to dah, dah, dah, dah. So like, this is, you know, this is something you see and it's not weird. And like a lot of midterm environments for the president's party's candidate to sort of try to separate themselves, try to be their own man or woman or what have you.

uh, in, in their race. Um, uh, so, you know, in that sense, it's not that strange. I will say though, that, you know, Biden recently campaigned in like Pennsylvania, for instance, and now maybe that's cause Scranton is there and we know Scranton and Joe are, are, are, they're real tight. So, um,

you know maybe that played a role in it but it was interesting to me that biden was out doing some campaign stuff uh you know but at the same time like i could point to examples like i uh i you know i i lived in charlottesville virginia for a long time and president obama actually came and campaigned for the then sitting member of uh the house from there in 2010 right before the election uh tom perriello the democrat democratic incumbent there

And so it's like even in that case, Obama, who wasn't terribly popular heading into the 2010 election, was on the ground doing stuff. So

It's like it just kind of depends. It's like you maybe you bring the president if you're the president's party to places where, you know, there are lots of Democrats in this case or Republicans when Trump was president to try to rally the base. But in your campaign ads, when you're trying to get in touch with like people watching the 11 o'clock news, you're trying to show yourself being a separate, you know, separate from the from the president of your party.

Yeah, I feel like every time I read a story about Democrats dodging Biden, I feel like Tim Ryan, who's running in the Ohio Senate race,

He's always mentioned. And I think on the one hand, it makes sense. You know, Ryan's running a statewide race there and Biden lost Ohio to Trump by about eight points in 2020. And I think Ryan's spokesperson went so far as to even tell ABC News that their campaign had had not asked the White House nor Biden to campaign with Ryan and had no plans to do so.

But one example that's been particularly striking to me, and I know we'll talk about Georgia a little bit,

later in the podcast is Senator Raphael Warnock. You know, according to ABC, again, Warnock wouldn't say when pressed if he supports Biden coming to Georgia to campaign for them. And that, of course, stands in pretty stark contrast to last year when Biden campaigned for both Warnock and John Ossoff in their respective runoff races.

So we will see what ends up happening there. Maybe that is a good indicator to watch how Biden views himself as a figure in the Democratic Party, whether he ends up in Georgia. Nate, final thoughts on this? I think I've expressed all the thoughts I have, Galen. All the thoughts? I'm not going to manufacture new thoughts. You still have a couple of thoughts, don't you? No, I'm done.

I haven't convinced you that this is... Have I convinced you that while this may not be unique, it is atypical?

What's atypical is that Democrats might have a pretty good midterm despite being the party that controls the presidency. To me, that's the interesting story. If it happens and we don't know what's going to happen, there's still lots of uncertainty. That to me is kind of the headline and the disconnect between Biden's – I guess sometimes when this happens, it's because you've had a very popular president like Clinton or Bush, right? Yeah.

Biden would not be that. So maybe that is a little bit more unique, Galen. Exactly. That's what I've been trying to say, Nate. I'm glad you could come around to my position. But he could also say something about American politics overall, which is that you're probably not going to have presidential approval in the 60s. And...

In a world where like everything is squashed, both in terms of how much they can sour on a political candidate and how much they can sort of. Okay. So here's one more thought, which is, you know, I do wonder how much of this is kind of soft disapproval of Biden over his kind of age and kind of mannerisms. Right. And less because like the policies he's enacted are for the most part.

reasonably popular. We can debate individually. But when you're constrained by having only 50 senators, two of whom are Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, then you can't do sweeping progressive change to the extent the left might want. And so, you know, people might, I don't know, it's hard to know. But I, you know, I think there are people who disapprove of Biden because he's old, and that might not translate into a reason to vote Republican in the midterms.

All right. Well, there we have it. As you previewed, Alex, let's move on and talk about Georgia and our colleague Elena is going to be joining us. So Jeff, we're going to say goodbye to you. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jeff. Hey, thanks for having me. It was fun as always.

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Georgia is back in the spotlight again. The governor's race is featuring a rematch from 2018 between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams, and Herschel Walker is challenging Raphael Warnock for his Senate seat in one of the closest races in the country. In fact, as we discussed on Model Talk, there is some chance, maybe 10% chance or so, that Georgia could once again decide control of the Senate in a runoff.

This all comes after Georgia delivered somewhat surprising victories to Democrats in three statewide races in 2020. So why has Georgia become so competitive after almost 30 years of Republican domination? In a story on our website today, Alex and our colleague Elena Mejia dug into some of the demographic and geographic changes that have been taking place, particularly amongst Black voters. And Elena is joining us now to discuss. Welcome to the podcast, Elena. Hi, Galen. Thank you.

It's so great to have you. So let's start with you. Can you tell us about some of the demographic changes that have happened in Georgia over the past 20 years?

We've seen Georgia and more specifically Atlanta as this sort of epicenter of Black migration in the South and more generally in the country. Black voting age population growth in the last 20 years has, you know, increased throughout Southern states, but Georgia definitely leads the country in the changing share of the Black electorate when we compare 2000 and 2020 census data. In urban counties, for example, the urban areas around Atlanta specifically

Like in Cobb and Gwinnett counties, these two counties have seen an increase of over 200,000 Black Americans 18 years or older in the last 20 years. And then I think that more interestingly, some suburban counties have definitely just pretty much transformed their electorate. You know, places like Clayton, Rockdale, Henry, Douglas, all suburban counties, all super important places.

counties for Democrats. For example, Rockdale's black electorate has increased by 40 percentage points. 20 years ago, there were just a little bit over 8,000 voting age black Americans living there. And now in 2020, that number went up to 40,000. So, you know, that's a huge spike. That's a huge percent increase. And so that trend holds in other Atlanta suburbs as well.

And so when you put this all together, the black electorate has grown faster in Georgia than in any other state. I think you came to the conclusion that in 20 years, the black electorate grew by what, three and a half percent in Georgia? Yeah.

Yeah, correct. Three and a half percent. So it's definitely, you know, in terms of percentage point increase, Georgia definitely leads the country. If you look at raw numbers specifically, Texas obviously is first. It's leading the country. But I think that, you know, Georgia is pretty interesting because, you know, it's over, I think, close to 800,000 black Americans that are now, you know, calling Georgia and most specifically Atlanta area home.

And so I think that that's been a huge, huge increase that has definitely been, you know, I think a pivotal factor in the state's politics as well. What do we attribute this to? I think the idea of the reverse Great Migration is gaining traction a bit. But what are the dynamics underneath those numbers? And what exactly is the reverse Great Migration?

Yeah, so I think it's definitely like a number of factors. It's a combination of things. Black Americans were fleeing segregation and racism, you know, during the Jim Crow era, starting in the 1910s. They were, you know, trying to look for this sort of concept of the promised land in the North, looking for jobs in, you know, more industrialized cities like Chicago or, you know, maybe New York or Detroit. But, you know, also northern cities like

had their own form of segregation in terms of housing. Redlining, you know, as we've reported before, was also a huge factor. White flight also isolated Black neighborhoods from investment. So, you know, starting in the 70s, you see this sort of

reversal of this great migration as black people started moving black south and as we, you know, started seeing more southern black communities grow a lot, you know, demographers have said that black Americans are moving back south, preferring the south over northern cities, you know, they're looking for, I

I think cultural roots and familiar ties, but also, and perhaps more significantly better job opportunities in the South's growing black middle class and with young and highly educated black migrants leading this movement. So I think it's been really important in Southern states, not only, you know, demographically, but also it's been really transforming exactly who lives in the suburbs, who lives in now these more urban densely populated areas. And so it's been like a really significant factor

I think across the Northern and Southern region and a little bit in the West, but it's really been really noticeable in the North versus South dynamics. - Yeah, Alex, how do we see this? I mean, there's always multiple factors going on here. We've seen changes in the education levels in the Atlanta area across different groups of voters, but how has the migration that we're talking about affected the past couple elections in Georgia?

Yeah, so Elena got at this earlier when she was talking about Atlanta, but in 2020 specifically, the counties in Atlanta's metro areas that saw the biggest increases in the number of Black Americans casting their ballots also saw the strongest shift towards Biden and were quite instrumental in helping him win that year.

You know, I'm just looking at the numbers in our story, but over 136,000 more black voters showed up in 2020 than in 2016. And these shifts were essential to helping Biden win. And so in the Senate elections, meanwhile, at least in Warnock's January 2020 win, I think that win could be credited in part to almost every single suburb in the state shifting further to the left from November to

with nearly 92% of November's black voters turning out again in January. And another thing that Warnock benefited from were some Republican-heavy parts of the state not turning out to vote in January. But both Warnock and Ossoff, Georgia's other Democratic senator, improved on Biden's margins, particularly in counties with the largest shares of black voters.

So looking back at 2020, Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue were not popular with black voters. They only got 4% and 7% of the black vote, respectively. Of course, the Republican Party has nominated Herschel Walker to run against Raphael Warnock.

Herschel Walker is African-American. He's, for that matter, a sports celebrity. Have we seen in the polling so far that Republicans have been able to sort of shift this trend at all and get more black support by running a black candidate, essentially?

So according to the polls, even with, you know, a Republican candidate, a Black candidate on the ballot, it doesn't seem as though that's energizing Black voters towards the GOP pretty much at all. You know, 92% of Black voters are still saying that they would support Warnock over Walker. So it doesn't really seem as of now that Republicans are successfully tapping into that Black electorate. And I also think that, you know, there's...

you know, having a black Senate candidate might certainly energize voters of color and black voters, but, you know, turnout in the runoff was 92% of the turnout in 2020. So that definitely can be in a way due to having Warnock on the ticket. But, you know, Georgia has also been tilting left for a while. And it's really not all due to whether a black candidate is on the ballot. I mean,

They also did turn out for OSA, for example, and that they also gave him a Senate seat. And, you know, since 2016, even like Clinton has actually actually improved on Obama's margins in some important counties in Atlanta. She actually flipped Quinn at Henry and Cobb, which are really important for Democrats.

And then Biden came in and not only he won these counties, but he comfortably won them by double margins. And you see 40,000 more Black voters going into the polls in these counties than in 2016 when Clinton was on the ballot. So I think that there's definitely the factor of energizing voters with Black candidates on the ticket. But I do think that it's also important to

remember sort of how big of an impact this anti-Trump sentiment has upon the black electorate. And, you know, Herschel Walker is, of course, endorsed by Trump as well. So I think the GOP is in a tough spot because, you know, at least I think for the last few elections, it's clear that black voters have been instrumental for Democrats. And, you know, it's been really important in some counties even before Abrams or Warnock were on the ticket.

So in some situations, Republicans may be in a tough spot, but in other situations, perhaps not. So looking at our 2022 forecast, Brian Kemp, the current incumbent Republican governor, has an 85% chance of winning reelection against Stacey Abrams. Warnock, as we've been discussing, has a 55% chance of winning against Herschel Walker. That's a pretty tight race. Nate, I'm curious, what do you make of the difference there? Why such a big gap?

Well, I mean, Warnock is an incumbent and Stacey Abrams isn't, whereas Brian Kemp is the incumbent in that race. And he's an incumbent in a meaningful way, Kemp, in that he has created some distance between him and Trump and kind of the election deniers. He beat David Perdue in the primary there, right? And so this is the type of incumbent who has shown, even though in most areas, I mean, Kemp is pretty right-wing in many areas, right? But you kind of create a...

image or a reputation as being more moderate. You get to stand in the center. I guess people are happy enough about the direction of Georgia. People are still moving there. The economy is fairly good that he benefits from that incumbency status is my simple answer, I guess.

And what about Warnock? In a midterm environment, you might expect a recently elected Democrat to maybe even be doing worse. You know, like Georgia recently flipped. It was kind of part of the backlash to Trump. But Warnock seems to be polling consistently, if only slightly, ahead of Walker.

And we've talked about this a bit before, but I mean, Walker and Kemp are just completely different political candidates, right?

And since announcing his run for office, Walker has been dogged by these not-so-great headlines for allegedly not disclosing all of his children, exaggerating his business and academic record, etc. And Warnock is fairly popular in the state as well. So I think that could be one reason why we're seeing Warnock with margins that are typically better than how Abrams is doing with Kemp. Yeah.

All right, well, let's leave things there. Thank you, Alex, Alina, and Nate. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

My name is Galen Drew. Sophia Leibovitz is in the control room. Chadwick Matlin is our editorial director and Emily Vanesky is our intern. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at 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'll see you soon.