For the first time, Kamala Harris’ favorability rating has crossed into positive territory in FiveThirtyEight’s latest polling averages. That’s a crucial threshold, as Harris is introducing herself to votes within a highly compressed timetable. But there’s still work to do: Harris has not yet fully rebuilt the coalition that ousted Donald Trump in 2020. We talked to Nick Ahamed, deputy executive director of the Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA, who walks us through the group’s own interesting...
Sep 18, 2024•20 min
In a reference to the apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump over the weekend, the former president unleashed a long rant on social media blaming it all on Democrats. He insisted that because of Democratic rhetoric about Trump, the “bullets are flying, and it will only get worse.” Trump is systematically recasting any and all criticism of his attacks on democracy as incitement to violence—and in this, he’s fully backed up by other Republicans. We talked to Corey Brettschneider, a po...
Sep 16, 2024•22 min
Over the weekend, Donald Trump’s rage over his debate fiasco appeared to get darker. In one splenetic social media post after another, he fumed he actually won the debate, while erupting repeatedly at ABC News’ moderation of it. All this comes as a whole bunch of new polling shows that Kamala Harris has made some surprising post-debate gains against Trump. We talked to veteran Democratic pollster Celinda Lake about the deeper causes for optimism inside the new data, what Harris still needs to do...
Sep 16, 2024•23 min
At this week’s debate, Donald Trump spread the deranged lie that immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Tensions are escalating and terror is spreading: Haitian immigrants living there say they fear for their safety, and on Thursday, Springfield’s City Hall was evacuated due to a bomb threat. What if these searing tensions are exactly what Trump and his MAGA allies want? Not that they want violence, but rather that they see supercharged social rifts as desirable? We talked to ...
Sep 13, 2024•22 min
After Kamala Harris’s shellacking of Donald Trump at the debate, Trump ventured on to Fox News, where he attacked the moderators as deeply biased against him. Incredibly, he even said their network, ABC News, should have its broadcasting license revoked. This is really a show of weakness: what enraged him is that real scrutiny was applied to the lies he can air unchallenged on right wing media. We talked to Media Matters senior fellow Matt Gertz—author of a new piece on Trump’s debate struggles—...
Sep 12, 2024•27 min
In recent days, the Trump campaign, J.D. Vance and other prominent MAGA figures have pushed a repulsive falsehood: That Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets. Though this was decisively debunked, Vance issued a long, twisted rant on social media calling on supprters to keep pushing versions of the lie. This saga exposes something disturbing about MAGA dehumanization campaigns. We talked to Matthew Sheffield, a writer and podcaster at Flux and former member of the conservative movement who ...
Sep 11, 2024•27 min
On Tuesday night, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will face off in their first debate. It goes without saying that the stakes are very high, as polls now show the two of them effectively tied, with perhaps a slight edge to Harris. Yet some analysts out there have made good arguments holding that the pieces really are in place for her to win this thing. We talked to Lakshya Jain of the data firm Split Ticket, who digs into what Harris has to accomplish at the debate—and why he’s cautiously optimis...
Sep 10, 2024•29 min
In an unhinged weekend rant on social media, Donald Trump made his most expansive threats yet to prosecute his enemies if he wins. He also flatly threatened at a rally to unleash “bloody” mass removals of migrants. Meanwhile, new polls show a very tight race. So why isn’t Trump paying a political price for running on explicit threats of authoritarian rule? We talked to A.B. Stoddard—a columnist for The Bulwark and a clear-eyed Trump critic—who explains how he is priming his supporters for violen...
Sep 09, 2024•27 min
During an event billed as a speech about the economy, Donald Trump was addled and confused, rambled incoherently, and launched into strange non sequiturs. Yet The New York Times’s initial news story made the event sound far more normal than it was. Is the press doing an adequate job of analyzing Trump’s deteriorating mental state? We think the answer is an emphatic “no.” We talked to former reporter Meredith Shiner—author of a recent piece for The New Republic about the successes of GOP media re...
Sep 06, 2024•26 min
In a rant on Sean Hannity’s radio show, Donald Trump floated a new absurdity about his campaign’s use of Arlington National Cemetery as a political setting. He declared that there had been no conflict whatsoever there, even though the Army flatly confirmed that an employee had been shoved aside by Trump’s campaign goons. We think this turn in the story exposes something dark about MAGA. So we talked to David Kurtz, the executive editor of Talking Points memo and author of several good pieces on ...
Sep 05, 2024•23 min
In a striking piece, Politico reports that many GOP operatives are alarmed about a new dynamic in the presidential race. It’s that the surge in enthusiasm among Democrats for Kamala Harris’s candidacy is driving a big disparity in fundraising between the parties, leaving GOP Senate and House candidates underfunded and in danger. As Politico puts it: “Panic is starting to set in.” To gauge how serious this is, we talked to veteran organizer Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the progressive group Indi...
Sep 04, 2024•26 min
Over the weekend, Donald Trump did a long, bizarre Fox News interview, flatly declaring he had a “right” to interfere in the last presidential election. He also mused that “God” may have chosen Trump to fix our “sick” country,” and seethed about an “enemy within” that’s out to get him. It’s unhinged stuff that gets at a bigger story: Trump’s feeding of his MAGA audience’s various pathologies has been getting darker and uglier. We talked to writer Anne Lutz Fernandez—author of a good new piece at...
Sep 03, 2024•20 min
By now you’ve heard that Donald Trump’s campaign aides had a physical confrontation with an official at Arlington National Cemetery who tried to prevent them from filming in a restricted area, which apparently violated the law. This scandal worsened Thursday when the Army sharply rebuked his campaign. Democratic Senators are getting involved, which could bring a fuller accounting. We talked to political scientist Jonathan Bernstein—author of a good new piece about this saga—who details how Team ...
Aug 30, 2024•22 min
Kamala Harris’s campaign just released a harsh new ad attacking Donald Trump, Project 2025, and his threat to prosecute enemies for “revenge.” Notably, the ad frontally goes after Trump’s naked corruption with real force. Which raises a question: Why aren’t we seeing more discussion of Trump’s corruption in this campaign? We talked to David Sirota, editor-in-chief of The Lever and narrator of Master Plan, an ambitious new podcast about 50 years of corruption in Washington. Sirota explains how Tr...
Aug 29, 2024•34 min
It’s often said that Kamala Harris’s entry into the race has transformed this campaign. But does this also mean that Harris has a real chance at changing the composition of the electorate, by bringing more low-propensity Democratic voters into the process? A new analysis finds striking surges in voter registration among Dem-leaning voter groups during the week of July 21st, after President Biden left the race and endorsed Harris. We talked to the author of that analysis’ author, Tom Bonier of th...
Aug 28, 2024•18 min
Donald Trump keeps throwing his own advisers under the bus. The latest example: The battle between the campaigns over the upcoming debate. First Trump’s campaign insisted mics must be muted for the candidate who isn’t speaking. Then Trump himself said he’s just fine with unmuted mics throughout. We think this gets at a larger dynamic: With Trump still struggling with Kamala Harris’s surge, Trump clearly doubts that his own advisers have any idea how to fight back. We talked to veteran Democratic...
Aug 27, 2024•41 min
Over the weekend, Politico reported that Donald Trump has privately suggested to advisers that he knows he’s in danger of losing without dramatic changes to his campaign. Trump also raged over reports that he called in to Fox News during Kamala Harris’s convention speech to deliver an on-air response, whining that Fox had called him instead. We think Trump is rattled because the aura of his inevitable victory has been shattered. We talked to global affairs expert Asha Rangappa—author of a good n...
Aug 26, 2024•22 min
At the Democratic convention in Chicago, many of the speakers—from Barack and Michelle Obama to Tim Walz—have warned Democrats not to get complacent about a Kamala Harris victory. Yet something subtle is also going on here. Democrats are keeping complacency at bay—without letting Donald Trump balloon into a psychologically frightening figure in their minds. Democrats are going into this election with the correct level of guarded confidence. We talked to Brian Beutler, who has a good piece on all...
Aug 23, 2024•27 min
After Barack and Michelle Obama ripped into Donald Trump at the Democratic convention, it unleashed a flood responses from the former president. He ranted that the Obamas had called him names, blamed his advisers for constraining him, and vowed to unleash more personal attacks on Kamala Harris. We think Trump is rattled by the likelihood that the convention is currently uniting the anti-MAGA coalition. We talked to data analyst Lakshya Jain—co-author of a good Politico Magazine piece about new n...
Aug 22, 2024•28 min
According to a new report in The Hill, GOP aides and strategists fear that Donald Trump’s inability to adjust to Kamala Harris’s surge is shifting the Senate map against them. That’s striking, given how heavily the Senate map is tilted towards Republicans. So we checked in with Justin Barasky, a veteran Democratic operative who has worked on many Senate races over the years and is now involved in contests in Ohio and Arizona. He helps us break down the map, and assesses how realistic these GOP f...
Aug 21, 2024•20 min
Some of the biggest far right figures on the internet are deeply worried that Donald Trump is in danger of losing the election to Kamala Harris—perhaps by a large margin. The Washington Post reports that these extremists are now turning on the Trump campaign, which could fracture the MAGA movement in the race’s final stretch. We talked to Jared Holt, a senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who closely tracks the far right, about what this moment reveals about the MAGA right w...
Aug 20, 2024•27 min
Two major new polls of the presidential race released over the weekend show fresh gains for Kamala Harris—and illustrate how she is now putting the Sun Belt states fully in play. That gives her multiple routes to an electoral college victory over Donald Trump. So is Harris on her way to reversing Trump’s gains among Latinos and young voters? What does a winning Harris coalition look like, anyway? We talked to Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something, which recruits young candidates for sta...
Aug 19, 2024•23 min
Because Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is under a month old, Democrats see next week’s nominating convention as a unique opening to do more than usual to define her in the minds of swing voters. But there’s another opportunity here as well: A successful convention will deeply rattle Trump, and when he fears he’s losing, he does himself tremendous additional harm. We talked to veteran journalist Ronald Brownstein, who has a new piece for The Atlantic on the task ahead for Harris in Chicago...
Aug 16, 2024•31 min
In some good findings for Kamala Harris, the Cook Political Report’s new polls find her leading Donald Trump or tied with him in six of the seven key swing states. Other polls show her doing surprisingly well among key demographics like noncollege whites and Latinos. So far, despite GOP attacks on Harris as a crazy leftist, she appears to be widely perceived as broadly acceptable. We talked to Reed Galen, a veteran former Republican strategist working to win over centrist voters to Harris for th...
Aug 15, 2024•30 min
In recent days, Fox News personalities have begun urging Donald Trump to get more “disciplined.” Many seem to fear Trump is in trouble, as evidence mounts that his sleazy, racist attacks on Kamala Harris are backfiring. Yet Trump’s Fox allies aren’t telling him to stop smearing Harris with falsehoods; they’re just telling him to adopt a more civil tone in doing so. We talked to Steve Benen, author of a new book about the GOP called Ministry of Truth, who explains how the Fox News panic shows the...
Aug 14, 2024•21 min
To defeat Donald Trump, Kamala Harris must do far better among young voters than President Biden did. Guess what: An important new poll of young voters finds that Harris’ entry has dramatically shifted their preferences in her favor and against Trump. Which confirms a larger story: The Democratic-leaning constituencies who had drifted toward Trump now may be swinging to Harris, exposing a weakness in his previous support. We talked to John Della Volpe, an expert in the youth vote who conducted t...
Aug 13, 2024•24 min
Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that Donald Trump is deeply unsettled about Kamala Harris’s successful launch, even as polls show her edging into a small lead. His anger has led him to escalate the private conspiracy-mongering about Democrats supposedly cheating in the election. We talked to Amanda Carpenter—a leading Never Trump conservative and an editor at Protect Democracy—about why it’s so disturbing that Trump is already laying the groundwork to overturn a loss, a novel way h...
Aug 12, 2024•24 min
With Republicans running from Donald Trump’s ugly attack on Kamala Harris’ blackness, new reports paint a picture of a party that is deeply worried about Trump’s chances. Meanwhile, Trump is raging about another piece of bad news for him: that reporter Evan Gershkovich is getting released from Russian captivity. We talked to Stuart Stevens, an operative with extensive experience in Republican politics who has forcefully renounced his former party, about why the GOP is suddenly hitting the panic ...
Aug 02, 2024•35 min
Donald Trump’s public statements about Kamala Harris are getting weirder. After Harris had a huge showing at a Georgia rally, he erupted, claiming that “Crazy Kamala Harris” had relied on a concert to draw the crowd. Then, speaking to black journalists, Trump melted down spectacularly while suggesting that Harris had long disavowed her black identity. The connecting thread here: the Trump-MAGA worldview doesn’t allow for any real grasp of how Harris is viewed by the American mainstream. We talke...
Aug 01, 2024•24 min
Donald Trump’ campaign just rolled out a new multimillion dollar ad campaign that blasts Kamala Harris on immigration. Oddly, it does so in part by mocking her dancing. That might seem like typical MAGA buffoonery. But underlying the link that the ad draws between Harris’s dancing and her handling of immigration is a bigger argument that demands a serious Democratic response. We talked to Douglas Rivlin, a senior official at the advocacy group America’s Voice who has deep experience on the immig...
Jul 31, 2024•29 min
