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A
Hey there, listeners. Before we begin, I wanted to jump on to remind you that right now we've got our first ever subscriber sale going on. An annual subscription is 20% off, meaning you get twice the number of episodes, the videos, and more for just five bucks a month. Head over to GDPolitics.com right now to claim it. That's GDPolitics.com. all right, here's the show, guys. I have somewhat big news.
- [00:27]
B
Oh.
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C
CBS is buying GD Politics.
- [00:32]
A
For $150 million. You guys get ready. Okay, so I've been teasing this for kind of a while now, but we are rebranding, and I think it's going to happen this week. Have I showed this to you? Have I showed you the new podcast art?
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C
I don't think you have.
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A
Okay, get ready. Here we go.
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C
Oh, this is great. This is amazing.
- [00:52]
B
Very cool. It's very retro.
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C
Yeah, I'm a big fan.
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B
I love it.
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A
Hello, and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Drouke. The government has now been shut down for six days, and there's no clear end in sight, let alone any palpable urgency to reach that end. During past government shutdowns, there has at least been the sense that lawmakers are earnestly trying to find a path forward. Why not this time? Perhaps we need not look any further than the polls. The bulk of polling suggests Americans blame Republicans more than Democrats, so Democrats may not feel the pressure to fold. But historically, polling also suggests that the party making the demands that caused the shutdown, in this case Democrats, are eventually seen as responsible and fold after achieving little to no policy concessions. So Republicans aren't feeling the pressure to compromise, probably either. Today we're going to dig deeper into those surveys and try to get a sense of where things might go from here. We're also going to focus on a couple of other polls that have attracted attention recently. Yes, it is a polling heavy day. Grab that calculator. Put on those stats nerd glasses. I promise it will be fun. So the New York Times released its first national poll since April after months of newsworthy developments and political rancor resulting in. Wait for it. No discernible change in how Americans view Trump and Democrats. There's also a new poll out of Pennsylvania showing Democratic Senator John Fetterman as a relatively popular figure in the state. Just one important footnote. He is 20 points underwater with his own party's voters and 40 points above water with Republicans. So is this a roadmap for other Democrats to win over Republican voters or A one way ticket to a primary challenge on an ouster from Washington. Here with me to discuss it all is friend of the pod, Mary Radcliffe. Welcome, Mary.
- [02:50]
B
Good morning, Galen. How's it going?
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A
It's going well. We're talking about your home state senator today. Are you excited?
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B
I'm so excited you're going to finally let me talk about Pennsylvania politics.
- [02:58]
A
That was the first thing you said when you logged on today. We're like, we're talking about Pennsylvania. I was like, we are. We are. Also here with us is senior data scientist at the Washington Post and dear friend of the pod, Lenny Brauner. Welcome to the podcast.
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C
It's great to be here.
- [03:10]
A
Are you as excited to talk about Pennsylvania?
- [03:13]
C
Always. Well, maybe not quite as excited as Mary is, but, you know, also excited.
- [03:17]
A
I promise we'll get back to Europe next time in case any of your commentary on France didn't make it into the cold open.
- [03:23]
C
Sounds good to me.
- [03:24]
A
Okay. So Mary, I characterize the polling a little bit, but let's elaborate. What do surveys show so far about who is being blamed for the shutdown?
- [03:35]
B
I don't think I have seen a single survey where more people blame Democrats, Democrats than Republicans for this shutdown. There's been a bunch of polls and all of them show that voters are blaming Trump and Republicans more than Democrats. A quick note, there's a variety of wordings here. So sometimes polls will break out like do you blame Trump, Republicans or Democrats? Sometimes they lump Trump and Republicans together. There doesn't seem to be much difference between those surveys, but just a flag that it's not entirely apples and apples here. There's a not quite an orange either, but something that's a little related. But if you look at surveys since September that have asked about this even before the shutdown, asking hypothetically who voters will blame. And you just average the percent of voters that blame Trump and Republicans versus those that blame Democrats. On average you get 42% of respondents blaming Trump and Republicans and 28% blaming Democrats. So that's a margin of about 14 points in the Democrats favor. The most favorable survey to Republicans in this matter was in fact that New York Times Siena survey that you were mentioning where they had 26% blaming Trump and Republicans, 19% blaming Democrats and 33% blaming both equally. So it's a margin of 7 points. That's the most favorable that we've seen for Republicans. So it's pretty consistent.
- [04:59]
A
Yeah. Mary, you were talking about survey one wording and I was going to bring up that New York Times survey before you even mentioned it because in a lot of surveys they force you to choose one, but the New York Times lets you choose both equally as an option for who to blame and that gets the plurality of respondents. So a third of respondents said they blame both equally. Should we make much of that in the sense that other surveys aren't asking this and are getting higher numbers for Republicans?
- [05:28]
B
There are some that are asking this though. Right. So YouGov and CBS News poll that came out on Sunday, Sunday did offer both equally and it did not get the plurality. Republicans, Trump and Republicans in Congress got the plurality. So in that survey you had 39% saying Trump and Republicans, 30% saying Democrats, 31% saying both equally. So that's a margin of nine points in the Democrats favor and not a plurality on that, both equally. Notably in the YouGov CBS News poll, though, they did not offer an undecided option. They forced like the the New York Times does. The New York Times offers the option for people to say like, I actually don't know, you have CBS News didn't offer that option. So that may have pushed more people to make a choice that might have impacted that top line a little bit. But also, I mean, there's another high quality survey that came out last week from Marist. NPR and PBS News also had that both equally. And still the Trump and Republicans in Congress got the plurality in that survey as well.
- [06:26]
A
I want to talk more about that New York Times poll, both while we're talking about the shutdown and then later on as well. But first, Lenny, I want to throw it to you because this serves as a contrast with historical precedent. Typically what happens is the party that's making the demands that provokes the shutdown is seen by the public as responsible. There are some caveats here because historically that's also been Republicans. So you could say, well, historically Americans blame Republicans or you could say, historically Americans blame the party that provokes the shutdown. And either way, you'd kind of be right. But what do you make of Americans blaming Republicans in this instance when not only is it pretty clear that Democrats are the ones? I mean, maybe it's not clear to most voters, but not only are Democrats making the demands themselves, they also telegraphed this for months in advance after feeling like maybe they missed the opportunity to shut the government down last time.
- [07:23]
C
I think that's a great question. I do wonder to what extent part of this is driven by the fact that people are used to the idea that Republicans are the party that shuts down government in the past that's been the case. There was an interesting survey by KFF about how many people actually know what this fight is about or really know that these ACA subsidies are expiring. And the actual number of people, Americans that know this are pretty small. And so amongst the people that do know, maybe the percentage is higher of people that blame the Democrats. Though I think negative polarization and the fact that these people are more likely to be partisan Democrats at this point and education polarization and negative polarization working together here means that these people probably also blame Republicans. But so sort of maybe low information voters, voters that have tended towards maybe gravitating towards Trump in recent years, maybe don't even know the fact that this might, this might be happening and therefore are maybe more likely to blame Republicans because that's been historically what has happened.
- [08:21]
A
Or simply because Republicans control all levers of government as far as.
- [08:26]
C
Exactly. I mean, that's another easy sort of you think about who's controlling government. You know, that Trump won the last election, you know, maybe that Republicans are, you know, have a trifecta and then you're like, well, if the government isn't functioning well, then clearly the party is to blame that is running the government.
- [08:39]
B
I also think it's worth noting that like the Republicans and Trump in particular made a big show about publicly refusing to negotiate with Democrats on this. Right prior to the shutdown, Schumer and Jeffries were trying to get meetings with Trump and, and talk this out. And instead of doing good faith negotiations, he posted AI generated memes on social media. So I think there's also like, wait.
- [09:04]
A
You mean that isn't winning over the median voter? Mary?
- [09:06]
B
I don't think so, no. And I mean the, the Republicans themselves are telegraphing like, no, we will not compromise with you. So that may also be partly shaping how voters are perceiving this.
- [09:19]
A
Well, that makes me think about two things. One is, when it comes to who is being blamed in the public's eye, who seems to be responsible for the shutdown. Trump is making a big show of, you know, we're going to have across the board layoffs within the federal government. We're not sending money to places like New York or Chicago, other blue locales across the country. And on one hand, that may be popular with Republicans and showing that, you know, Democrats think they're going to pull one over on us, but actually we control the levers of government and we're going to make the shutdown painful if a shutdown is what they want. But it also might give America the impression that Trump is in charge of the shutdown in a way. Like, if you're the one saying, I'm not going to send money or I'm not going to fund this, or we're going to lay everyone off, you're kind of saying, like, I'm going to be doing these things.
- [10:09]
B
Honestly, it feels like that approach is of a piece with what we've seen from the Trump administration so far, right? Like picking perceived political enemies as targets. Like, we see this with the law firms and the universities and so on, where Trump is just like, unilaterally, like, I'm going to withhold money from these perceived democratic institutions until they do the things I want. It's. It's sort of of a piece, I think. So I don't know that there's much different there than what voters are already seeing from the Trump administration.
- [10:37]
A
Well, and if it is no different from what voters are already seeing from the Trump administration, we know from that New York Times polling that it's not popular. So oftentimes Americans will agree with Trump's sentiment. Right. We want stricter rules when it comes to immigration or crime or what have you. But then the methods that Trump uses are ultimately not popular.
- [10:59]
C
I mean, an example of that would be like, the immigration stuff, where people still very much trust Republicans over Democrats to be on their side of immigration more broadly. But then a majority of Americans, I think, are not happy with the administration's moves in immigration in particular. They think they're going too far on deporting people. But they're still sort of broadly speaking, aligned with them on where they think the party stands. I will, I will add, though, Galen, like you, you know, you asked whether you think like Trump, what he is signaling makes it, makes it even more likely that people will think that, you know, he wants to shut down and therefore blame Republicans. I mean, I would say a large majority of Democratic signaling has also been that they are happy to have this shutdown. So I do think it sort of goes both ways. I mean, they are more subtle than Trump is, but, you know, I think everyone is more subtle than Donald Trump.
- [11:42]
A
Well, are they that much more subtle? Because I read basically an op ed a day from Democrats arguing we should shut the government down and we should do it for this reason. No, we should shut the government down and we should do it for that reason in the month plus leading up to the shutdown, which then led to this kind of insane moment. I folks, I hope you weren't watching this as it unfolded because it's just like very online politics, which I don't think affects anything. But journalists describing the shutdown as being provoked by Democrats had Democratic spokespeople being like, this is bad reporting. This is inaccurate. Democrats are not shutting the government down. And it's like, wait, okay, Democrats. You can't telegraph this for months and show that you're remorseful for not shutting the government down months ago. And then when you actually do it, be like, no, you're all wrong. We're not shutting the government down. It felt a little like, are you telling me I can't see what I can plainly see and I can't hear what I can plainly hear?
- [12:37]
B
Yeah, the Democratic messaging has been very.
- [12:39]
A
Muddled, because then at the same time, you still have some Democratic lawmakers proudly being like, no, we did shut the government down because we want Americans to have their ACA subsidies, and what Republicans are doing to health care is unacceptable. And it's like, pick a lane, girls.
- [12:52]
C
I mean, I think they're wrestling with themselves a little bit. There are still a segment of the Democratic Party that is very much like mostly institutionalists and are unhappy with the idea that shutting down the government would be good for any sort of, you know, in any sort of situation.
- [13:05]
B
You also have other Democratic senators out there messaging on, like, the lawlessness of the Trump administration, which I think is, like, particularly difficult messaging in this circumstance, as when we talked about this a few weeks ago. Galen, one of the arguments I made is you can't just, like, shut the government down for the entire Trump administration. If you believe it to be a lawless administration. That would be the. The response. But, like, that's not going to happen. So I feel like that messaging is also confused in there.
- [13:33]
A
We got a question from a listener that gets at what we mean when we even use the word blame or what respondents to these polls understand when we use the word blame. Because on one hand, you could say, for example, Democrats are shutting the government down over ACA subsidies. They are to blame. Or you could say Republicans are phasing out ACA subsidies and they're, you know, creating new requirements and essentially cuts to Medicaid that have provoked Democrats to shut the government down. So they're to blame. So in some sense, you know, the. The listener question that we got was like, what do we even make of this polling? When it says, oh, I blame Republicans or I blame Democrats.
- [14:16]
B
To first point listener, you think way more about politics than most people.
- [14:23]
A
And.
- [14:24]
B
That'S okay, but most people are. It's for most people, it's not that deep. It's really not. Half the polling, probably more than half of what we're seeing is just knee jerk partisan responses from respondents. And that's fine. And the other half is based on like one headline that someone saw. Right. So, like, it's okay if you think about politics more than most people, but most people are not going that far on this. They haven't even read one article or listened to one podcast. They're like, Republicans are intransigent. I blame Republicans. I believe that is mostly the extent of it. They probably don't even know what they're being intransigent about. It's just that voters have learned over the past, however many shutdowns that it is Republicans who are generally intransigent. I don't know. Lenny, do you have any other thoughts?
- [15:09]
C
No, no, I think that's totally right. You know, that sort of very much related to what I said earlier. I think the, when people hear government shutdown, they assume that it is the Republicans shutting down the government, because that's been the case the last, you know, three or four times. Even though even the shutdowns that came like, that never happened, where it just came close, at least in the last 15 years, it's been, it's been mostly driven by, by Republicans. I will, I will add one more thing though, which is like, I mean, if we really want to dissect this, like, what does blame mean? I guess it's like the party most likely to take a hit if the shutdown continues or something. But I think sort of the, one of the reasons we're seeing the fact that they're barely negotiating, everyone seems pretty chill about this, is the fact that they've both learned, I mean, especially Republicans have learned that the hit doesn't last very long, if it exists at all. I mean, especially Donald Trump who shut down the government in 2018 over his like, border wall that had, I mean, I guess you could argue he lost the next presidential election. So. But I don't think he lost that election because he shut down the government two years prior to. So even if he had a hit, like, it was pretty short lived, it went away again. And so like, well, what, what, what does blame even mean? I think is sort of a question that I think these, the two parties are asking themselves and realizing that maybe there is no impact to being blamed here.
- [16:15]
B
Yeah, yeah. I would refer back to that conversation we had a couple weeks ago with Nathaniel Rakic, that both Nathaniel and I arguing on opposite sides of whether this was a good move politically for the Democrats conceded that electorally it probably won't matter.
- [16:30]
A
What does this all mean for what happens next? Like, you see people arguing, oh, you know, more Americans are blaming Republicans than Democrats. This means that Democrats have some leverage here to make their demands and hold out until Republicans say, all right, you know, maybe we will extend these Affordable Care act subsidies, which various Republicans have suggested they want to do anyway, but they just don't want to be tied to government shutdown negotiations. So everyone, pull out your crystal ball. How does this end if it does? If you're saying that it seems like neither party feels that there are incentives.
- [17:04]
B
To caving, well, the incentives will manifest over time as impacts of the shutdown grow. Right. In the early days of the shutdown, generally people are not feeling any impacts. But the longer this goes on, the more they're going to have to make changes in how the government is spending its money. You could see things like Social Security being impacted, the delivery of Medicare funds, for example. So once if it goes on too long, they have. They're going to have to do something because Americans are going to be furious.
- [17:33]
A
Wait, hold on. That conflicts a little bit with the, like, in the end, it doesn't even matter narrative.
- [17:39]
B
Well, I mean, I say in the end, it doesn't even matter. But, like, I'm comparing that, of course, to past shutdowns. The longest one we ever had was the one in 2018 and 2019 that Don Lenny was just talking about. That was 35 days. Right. So that's like the longest shutdown we've ever had. If this goes on longer than 35 days, I think we're. You. I mean, we don't know what happens in such a circumstance.
- [18:02]
A
Okay.
- [18:03]
C
You know, you said that Democrats want this passed. Republicans don't, like, aren't opposed to this passing the, the ACA subsidies, but don't want it tied to the shutdown. I think it might be instructive to look at, you know, the other shutdown that happened in 2018, which was in early 2018, which was only lasted two days. So in some case, maybe what we'll end up seeing is a combination of those two 2018 shut. But what happened there was that Democrats wanted protection passed for dreamers, and the GOP didn't want to negotiate until after funding. So actually, like a similar situation that we're running into now. And in the end, Democrats blinked and the Republicans committed to holding a vote, I think a month later or something like that. And obviously, I think this Time around, it'll stretch out a lot longer than two days. I mean, it already has. But I think something like a deal like this may be on the table, you know, once the parties start feeling pain.
- [18:49]
A
So one resolution could be they don't actually get funding for extending Affordable Care act subsidies in whatever continuing resolution gets passed, but there's an agreement that will deal with this later on, and it's been brought up on this podcast before, that in some ways, Democrats are trying to force Republicans to do something that will ultimately be politically advantageous for them. Right. If Republicans continue to refuse to extend Affordable Care act subsidies, and that ends up being the case through the next midterms, that's a point of vulnerability because Americans are going to experience significant increases for the people who purchase their plans on, you know, as individuals, on the open market. And that is presumably something that could make some voters mad, maybe mad enough to vote.
- [19:38]
B
Yeah. It could also impact people who don't purchase insurance on the open market because insurance companies may have to raise premiums on others because hospitals still have to treat people without insurance. So there's, like, potentially some ripple effects outside of the ACA marketplace as well.
- [19:54]
A
One more thing before we move on. There's been this argument that Democrats aren't really doing this for the median voter. The Democrats are doing this for the base. And you see in that New York Times poll, they asked, you know, should Democrats shut the government down if their demands are not met? A plurality of Democrats say yes, 47%. Everyone else says no. So it's like 92% of Republicans say no, obviously, but amongst independents, it's unpopular. So 60% of independents had said Democrats should not shut the government down if their demands are not met. We'll see if, over time, more voters come to realize that that is, in fact, what's happened, and then sour on Democrats, who knows? But there is the argument that at the end of the day, Democratic leadership is doing this for that 47% of Democrats. That Chuck Schumer enters this phase of politics as the least popular leader in Washington in an era of unpopular leaders, he stands out as being underwater with his own partisan voters, according to a recent Pew poll. And so Democrats are just doing this for their base. Is that what they're doing?
- [21:00]
B
Two.
- [21:00]
C
Two things. The first thing is, I mean, the polling is a little bit all over the place there, because we also had a poll at the Washington Post that asked this at the same. Got at the same question. And there it was, like three quarters of Democrats wanted the extension and was Also happy to see the government shut down. So, like, the numbers do vary a little bit there. What, you know, how many Democrats actually, actually want this to happen? The second point I wanted to make is that you said that it's mostly for the base and not for the median voter. And I think the Democrats actually want this both ways. I mean, like, one. One criticism that we have heard, for example, Nate Silver makes this criticism, is that they should have picked something that isn't like the ACA subsidies, which, you know, leaves them with something that they couldn't hit the Republicans over the head with come midterm time. This is sort of bad for them, strategically speaking, but I think they chose this partially because it's bad for them, strategically speaking. Shutting down the government is playing to their base, but picking something that the median voter can understand and is popular with the median voter is actually, you know, throwing a bone to the median voter in that sense. If they had picked something that, you know, like, I think Naysilver proposes that they picked something like tariffs, I think that would have been playing to the base on both accounts of shutting down the government and tariffs versus this is something that, I think, you know, the subsidies are popular amongst a vast majority of Americans, even amongst a large chunk of Republicans. And so, like, that. That is sort of the strategy here, which is doing something that is popular amongst the base, but picking the fight on something that is popular across the board.
- [22:19]
A
Wait, but Trump is less popular on trade than he is on health care, which is saying something because he's not popular on health care. Like, wouldn't tariffs still be a median voter appeal? Like, make this whole thing about cost of living. You know, everything is a lot less expensive. And we're trying.
- [22:34]
C
I think it's like, a lot less emotional than. Than ACA subsidies.
- [22:38]
B
I also think it is like, the ACA subsidies is something that, like, is clearly within congressional control, whereas with tariffs, you have ongoing litigation about, like, what actually is under the purview of the executive branch versus the legislative branch. So that's a much messier fight. I do want to flag one thing about the polling that you're talking about there, Lenny. One thing I think is really important to note is that the Washington Post poll was conducted after the government shut down, whereas the New York Times poll was conducted before the government shut down. And something that we consistently see in surveys is once your party is doing something, you're like, yes, I approve of that thing. When it's still like, question mark, are they going to do it? You might get more Split responses like you see in that New York Times survey. But with the Washington Post surveyed post shutdown, Democrats are like, yes, I approve of what the Democrats are doing because that is what they are doing and that's my party. So you may have some like impact on how people are viewing this because it is actually happening. Right. Something becomes popular among Republicans once Trump does it, for example.
- [23:41]
A
Also, in contrasting the New York Times and Washington Post polls, you have hit on a secret hidden good data, bad data or not data segment within this broader segment. And this will also transition us to a larger conversation about that New York Times Siena College poll. But according to Nate Cohn, who did a write up of this poll in the Times as part of the paper's experimentation to try to get the most accurate polling possible, they polled Americans both by calling them, which is how they've traditionally done it, and also texting Americans, which is a new method for them. And they found that the text sample was far more Democratic leaning than the phone call only sample. Now this is significant, obviously because we've had a decade now of polls that are overestimating support for Democrats, underestimating support for Republicans. The Times, Nate Cohen in particular has been pretty adamant about not waiting to recall vote even as other polling houses have made the shift in order to make sure they're getting the correct number of sort of Trump aligned respondents. But because the sample in the text poll was so democratically aligned, I think it favored Harris by 6 percentage points. In recall, in recall, whereas obviously we know that Trump won by, you know, a point and a half in the national popular vote. So that's sort of the sample, even after waiting for other aspects, was still skewed towards Democrats by seven and a half points. So because of that, they ended up waiting the text sample by recalled vote to try to make it reflect what is reality. And, and then once they did that, the text sample looked more like the, the phone call only sample. All that is to say we know from that experiment that in this moment it's likely that a text poll is going to get a more Democratic sample. Take that lesson and apply it to the Washington Post poll, which was very positive for Democrats. It was like everyone's blaming Republicans and all Americans want extensions of the affordable tax subsidies. That was a text only poll taken all of that together. And I know I've mentioned two polls here, good data, bad data, not data. The New York Times versus the Washington Post. And Lenny, I know this is your paper of employment, so I want to give you the opportunity to respond first here.
- [26:02]
C
So generally I would say this is not just good data, it's great data. I mean like pollster should be, should be experimenting with other methods. I mean, we currently are in a crisis of polling, you know, response rates, the issues we've been seeing around bias in recent elections. And so like, it's good to do more work on this and to try and come up with better solutions. So that's the first thing I'll say. The second thing I'll say is that the Washington Post poll, even though it was text only, did wait towards 2024 recall. And therefore, you know, if you, if you agree with what Nate wrote, you know that that fixed the issue in their poll, that it sort of moved that towards their phone poll results. Then you know, the Washington Post did address that issue and sort of we should be able to trust that poll. It is still the best poll for Democrats, but it is in no means like sort of a huge outlier compared to some of the other polls that we've been seeing on the same issue. So like, you know, I'm always of the opinion that we should be taking the average of polls and that there's no different in this case. You know, only because I work at the washing post doesn't mean I think we should be using the washing post poll over the average of the polls on this issue.
- [27:01]
A
Oh, such a mensch.
- [27:03]
B
I actually agree with Lenny. I think this is good data. I read what Nate Cohn wrote about this and I think first of all, like the differences between the phone sample and the text sample weren't so huge. You mentioned that the text sample was recalled vote of plus six Harris. The phone sample was also too Democratic in recalled vote. It was recalled vote of Harris +1, which is off by two and a half points. And there's only a five point difference there. Right. So like a five point difference. I mean this is what weighting is for, first of all, is that you're not going to get a perfect sample every time you do a survey. I also think there may, like this is a great argument for what most of our gold star like best pollsters are already doing, which is mixed methodology surveys. There may be real organic reasons why your text survey and your phone survey look different from each other. Younger people, for example, might be more willing to take a survey text or online versus over the phone. Like they don't want to talk on the phone with people. I'm not even that young and I don't want to talk on the phone with people. Right. So you Might be getting some real inorganic differences in the way people prefer to communicate. And I think a lot of our highest quality pollsters are generally mixing methodologies. So the Marist survey that was on this for example is phone and text and online opt in panel. As a third methodology here, the Washington Post poll was entirely text. But most that was a flash poll, right? It was a one day quick response sort of survey. When Washington Post does it's like more complete surveys like they're, they're larger national omnibus type surveys. They do mixed methodology. New York Times obviously is using mixed methodology like we're, this is now what I would expect from a gold star pollster is to use multiple modes to make sure that they're talking to people across demographics, across different sorts of communication methods. I, I generally if I see something that's entirely one methodology, that's like a flag to me that they probably had to wait it pretty hard. So anyway, that's my take. This is a great argument for mixed mode polling which most great pollsters are already doing.
- [29:09]
C
I'll add one more small thing which is Galen, you mentioned in the beginning or at the beginning of the segment that the sample that the New York Times got for the text poll was lean to Democratic and that might be a bias issue. Especially the Washington Post poll you mentioned also looked better for Democrats in a lot of other polls. And maybe that's the same issue. Even though the Washington Post did go through this waiting. I will say that the other possible answer here is that actually there's not more bias amongst texting, but just more variance. And so like the results are just would be jumping around more. I mean I could definitely imagine a scenario in which text polls have higher variance than phone poles. You're just, you know, have a lot more uncertainty about who you're going to end up reaching. And so I mean I just think we just need more investigation here about what's, what's going on. And that's another reason why I think it's good that you know, media organizations and pollsters are experimenting here.
- [29:55]
B
The other thing I would add here, thinking about text polling, one thing I wonder is how the wording of the invitation to the survey might impact click throughs. So like if you are texted a survey and it's like hey, we're from the New York Times, are Democrats going to be more likely to click that link and Republicans going to be like New York Times? Right.
- [30:15]
A
Well Mary, get ready because I have some primary source data on how the New York Times went about this because I I got polled by the New York Times, Siena College for their New York City mayoral race, and it did not mention the New York Times at all. The only institution mentioned was Siena College, which, for people. I mean, at least for people who are based in New York, which is what this poll was, you know, geared towards, they know, oh, it's like, it's a college upstate. It's not an elite university. It's not like an Ivy League whatever. So at least in that instance, any reference to the New York Times was removed.
- [30:50]
B
Yeah, but would that work as well for a national survey where, like, someone in Kentucky or whatever has, like, never heard of Siena College?
- [30:58]
A
Yeah, right.
- [30:58]
B
Like, if I didn't follow polling, I would never have heard of Sienna College.
- [31:01]
A
Yeah, this is true.
- [31:03]
C
Me neither, and I live in New York City.
- [31:06]
A
Okay, with all that said, we love an example of good data, nay, great data. We have one more thing to talk about when it comes to that New York Times poll, but first, a break. We're going to get back to the podcast in just a moment, but before we do, I want to remind you that conversations like this are only possible because of you, the listeners. In the seven months since FiveThirtyEight shut down, we've been able to launch and sustain a podcast that emphasizes curiosity, rigor, and a sense of humor. Because of you, become a part of that project today@gdpolitics.com in particular, do it right now because annual subscriptions are 20% off. That's just five bucks a month. You get a second weekly podcast, videos and more. But the deal goes away this Friday. To be honest, sometimes this job makes me feel like a furniture salesman over Memorial Day weekend, but it's worth it. Head to GDPolitics.com right now for our best deal on a sofa. Sorry, I mean, to get a second weekly podcast and much more for 20% off. GD politics.com all right, back to the show. As I mentioned at the top, that New York Times poll that we have been discussing was the first national poll that the paper did since April. And now Nate Cohn is going to end up getting a lot of play in this podcast. But I'm going to quote his top line takeaway from that poll, and then I want to get your thoughts. So he wrote, it can be hard to remember all the news since the last New York Times Siena University poll. I guess they changed their name. Okay. The artist formerly known as Siena College, now Siena University. So it's been hard to remember all the news since the last New York Times Sienna University poll. In April. So here's a quick list. President Trump paused many tariffs and enacted others. Elon Musk left his Department of Government Efficiency. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was brought back to the United States. Republicans passed their enormous tax and spending bill. National Guard troops were deployed to Los Angeles. The United States bombed Iran. There was an uproar over releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files. The federal government took over Washington, D.C. charlie Kirk was assassinated. Yet despite it all, unchanged is probably the best description of the findings from today's Times Siena poll. Mr. Trump's approval rating is at 43%, about the same as the 42% who approved in April. His disapproval rating is unchanged from 54%. Similarly, Democrats led by 2 percentage points in the race for Congress. That's about the same as their three point lead in April. What should we make, Lenny, we'll start with you this time of this stasis in the face of a whole lot of political upheaval.
- [33:41]
C
So the first thing I'll say is that, you know, this really isn't that new. I mean, Donald Trump has been in the media environment as sort of a presidential candidate and as a president for 10 years now. And in the first term, we also saw the fact that, you know, very little actually had an impact on his approval rating. His approval rating, you know, went down quickly in the beginning and then sort of stagnated for a while, bobbing around here and there, decrease sometimes when something important was in the news. And I'll get back to this in a second, but mostly sort of staying stable. We're seeing the same thing now. Donald Trump's approval rating went down in the beginning of his term and sort of has stabilized again. I will say though, that the New York Times poll in April was on the lower side for Trump. So if you do take a look at the averages and I took a look at both the Silver Bulletin average and the strength of numbers average, Donald Trump's approval rating has gone down from early April to now. The numbers are slightly different, but in both of them it's like around 3 to 4 percentage points. So like I said in April, the New York Times poll was one on his on Trump's lower side. Now, it's pretty much smack dab in the middle of all the of the polling average. So like there has, I think if you take a look at the average has been some change though, you know, less change than, you know, I think you could have expected. Given all the news that's happened though, to the final point here, which is political stuff. The Political discourse doesn't seem to harm him that much. You know, policy stuff does seem to harm him. You know, the Obamacare repeal in the first term, we saw a decrease in his approval rating tariffs this time around. You know, when he first announced Liberation Day that had he took a hit in his approval rating but recovered from that. So, you know, there are things that do have an actual impact in his approval rating, even if some of them are sort of like short lived. And I guess we'll just have to see, you know, if the economy does sort of weaken, as we've seen some indications of whether that will actually have a larger impact on his approval rating than some of the more like political discourse and democracy adjacent stuff that Democrats are trying to use as ways of making him less popular.
- [35:35]
A
Yeah, I think that's an important point, Lenny, and correct me if I'm wrong, but actually another point in Trump's first term where his approval rating dropped noticeably was during that 35 day government shutdown when he was demanding funding for the border wall. Right?
- [35:52]
B
Yeah, that's right, Galen. During that shutdown in, in the first Trump administration, you did see a big drop in Trump's approval rating during that, that shutdown in the first term. So that could be upcoming for us, who knows?
- [36:03]
A
Yeah, we'll be, we're going to be on approval watch. You know, we're a decade into it and we're not stopping now.
- [36:08]
C
But, but, but just to make sure people don't think we're sort of contradicting what we said earlier, like his approval rating then recovered again after shutdown ended. Right?
- [36:15]
A
Yes, yes.
- [36:16]
B
Yeah, almost right back to where it was before. No, I think this is one more point in the like, lol, nothing matters approach to politics, which is that people are just pretty dug in, in their partisan positions. Right. A lot of stuff changes and like, you know, Lenny was saying, Trump's approval rating has shifted since early April. But like, just to be very clear, I'm looking at the polling average that Elliott and I have up at strength in numbers. Yes, it's show shifted within a band of like 2 or 3 percentage points. It doesn't really change that much. Like 2 or 3 percentage points could basically in, in some cases just depend on which pulsers have recently released data because of certain methodological choices or particular sampling frame, whatever. Maybe always on the low side or always on the high side. For Trump, these changes are very, very small. So like as I said earlier, most people are not thinking about politics all that much. Right. Like it seems like a whirlwind of stuff has happened when you're, like, a close political observer and you're like this and then this and then this and then this. But, like, I don't actually know for sure how much all of that breaks through to regular, everyday people. If it does break through, is it just like, oh, I'll put that on the pile of like, I don't like Trump and he's doing something I don't like again, or I do like Trump and this is like, a bold move. I don't know. I don't know how much these things are interpreted in detail by voters.
- [37:42]
A
Yeah. That being said, this poll contained a lot of information that wasn't just, do Americans like Trump or do Americans like Democrats? And one thing that stuck out to me, because we do mention this kind of issue, polling a fair amount on this podcast, is that, you know, Gallup regularly asks, what's the most important challenge facing America today? And we get, we often cite the responses from all Americans that tend to be economic concerns. But that could be masking something that the New York Times breaks out in a bit of detail. They ask Democrats, Independents and Republicans separately, you know, what's the top issue for you right now? For Democrats, 18% of them said Mr. Trump and Republicans is the top concern. Nearly as many Republicans, 16% said that it's Democrats that are the nation's biggest problem. And independent's top concern was polarization and division. So if you were to add that into sort of compare that to Gallup individually, Republicans, Democrats, partisan division, none of them are going to rise to the top to outrank the economy as the most important issue. But if you just say, what is the percentage of Americans for whom their biggest issue is each other, all of a sudden, according to this New York Times polling, that's the biggest challenge facing the country that Americans identify, and it's even bigger than the economy. So I thought that was notable to pull out because it serves as a bit of a contrast to what we usually say, which is everyone's biggest concern is the economy. And I should also note, this is polling that's being done in the aftermath of Charlie Clark's assassination and a lot of the rancor and fallout from that. So it could be a reaction to this moment in time. But also, this is not a totally isolated moment. It's. It's reflective of something broader in American politics. So, one, you can respond to that if you like, or two, if there was another piece of data that stuck out to you in this poll that you want to Mention before we talk about Pennsylvania politics, now's your opportunity.
- [39:54]
B
I want to pick on methodology again. Galen. I'm such a dork.
- [39:58]
A
Well, good thing everyone already has their calculators and stats. And our glasses on.
- [40:03]
B
Both Gallup and the New York Times offer this most important issue as what's called an open ended question. So in that type of response, they don't provide a list of options to the voters, they just say, hey, what do you think is the most important problem? And then the voter will say something and then they write it down and then later they go through all those responses and categorize them and code them and whatever. Now, we've talked before about in the Gallup polling, how in the last couple of years the top two buckets they make for these open ended responses are economic problems and the government or poor leadership. Notably, they don't break out categories for Democrats, Trump, Republicans. Are those things included in government poor leadership in the Gallup survey? I don't know. Probably.
- [40:48]
A
Probably, yeah.
- [40:49]
B
That's the only place I can think of for them to go. So actually the Gallup survey is pretty consistent with the New York Times here in that, you know, poor leadership, the government, whatever is pretty high on the list of voter concerns. Also worth noting that in the New York Times survey they pulled inflation off as a separate category to the economy. So when you, when you add that back up into the economy, it was all, it was at 5% all by itself. So that if you put Those together, that's 21% in that survey, which is pretty close to the most recent number for the voters saying the economy is the top problem in Gallup, which is 24% in September, notably also in Gallup, that government poor leadership in September exceeds the economy at 28% by 4 points.
- [41:35]
A
Ooh, okay. So they're being expressed in different ways, but they're actually finding the same thing, which is important, which is why it's important not to just read the write up of the poll and actually go and look at the top line numbers or the cross tabs.
- [41:50]
B
Yeah, exactly. So I think, I think actually this is pretty consistent with conversations we've had in the past about the Gallup survey, how voters are saying the government or poor leadership is a big problem, sometimes the most important problem in this country.
- [42:02]
A
It'S only recently most important, like it's been the economy for a long time now, but only in the past couple months has government poor leadership or Democrats and Republicans saying each other outflanked the economy. So I think that is a New development.
- [42:17]
B
There have been, like, no, I think over the past couple of years.
- [42:20]
A
And last year, the second most important issue was immigration.
- [42:23]
B
But I think we have seen points in the last few years where it's. That government poor leadership, particularly during the first Trump administration, also popped up as a high issue in the Gallup polling. And yes, definitely this year, those two have been playing footsie for the top issue in Gallup.
- [42:39]
A
Lenny, would you like the final word?
- [42:42]
C
I don't have anything remotely as smart to say about this than what Mary said.
- [42:46]
A
I don't believe you, Lenny.
- [42:47]
C
I. I guess what I was sort of amused by is the fact that for independence, the top concern is polarization and division. Like, when we see. When we talk about independence, we often sort of make the point that those are not centrists, right? Like, there are many ways to be an independent, and only a small chunk of them are centrists. But this is kind of exactly what you would imagine the centrist person to say to this question, which is that polarization is our biggest problem. So that. That. That did amuse me, but that is not, like I said, not as. Not even remotely as insightful as Mary just said.
- [43:15]
B
I did want to flag one thing from this poll that I think is really fascinating. I've been thinking about this a lot late lately. I really should write something about it. But flip through the cross tabs and just look at the gender gap on everything. It is so stark in this survey, how far apart men and women are and how they view politics. Men are R plus 14 on the generic ballot, women plus 15, literally the opposite. Men approve of Trump, plus 3, like, net approval. Women are minus 23. It's incredible. So, you know, give yourself a little treat and spend some time flipping through the cross tabs, looking at how men and women are really occupying, like, totally different political universes. It's really interesting, and I have a lot of, like, questions about how this ultimately impacts society.
- [44:03]
A
I often say polling tells us the what, not necessarily the why. And my strongest impulse right now is to ask you for hypotheses for why that is. But I'm actually gonna say that we have to save that for a whole other podcast. Otherwise, we're not gonna get to talk about Pennsylvania. And I know that will make you deeply unhappy.
- [44:20]
B
We have to talk about Pennsylvania.
- [44:21]
A
Okay, so we're gonna come back.
- [44:22]
B
Methodology picket.
- [44:23]
A
We're gonna talk. We're gonna come back to the gender wars, the American gender wars, in favor of talking about Mr. Fetiman. So this Quinnipiac poll came out last week showing how Pennsylvania's politicians rank amongst Pennsylvanians. So Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania doing pretty well. Plus 32 with Pennsylvanians. 60% approve, 28% disapprove. Trump not so hot. Pretty actually almost extremely exactly reflective of the nation. 11 percentage points underwater. 54% disapprove, 43% approved. I think that's actually exactly what the New York Times showed as the national numbers. So Mary, congratulations on living in the most American state.
- [45:06]
B
There's a reason it's a swing state.
- [45:09]
A
Okay, then we have Dave McCormick, new Republican senator from Pennsylvania. He's allegedly four. Allegedly a Republican or allegedly from Pennsylvania. Allegedly. Or allegedly a senator or allegedly a senator. Mary's an election truther. So secretly. Okay, so put that to the side because that's not actually what we're talking about. And then we have Fetterman, who is the second most popular of the politicians that they asked about. He is plus 8, above water net approval. 46% of Pennsylvanians approve of the job that he's doing. 38% disapprove. Fantastic. Democrats would think we have a popular senator in Pennsylvania were golden. We're going to be able to hold that seat for a while. But just you wait. When you actually look at the partizan breakdown of his approval rating amongst Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, he's underwater by 21 percentage points. So 54% disapprove of his job. I'm saying so many numbers here. I apologize, I'm going to start just characterizing. So a full on majority of Democrats disapprove of the job that he's doing. And then an even bigger majority of a republic of Republicans approve of the job he's doing. 62%. And then those independents are exactly split. 43. 43. So what does this mean for Fetterman? This spawned a whole mini economy of takes on the Internet. I'm just, I'll read three of them. So yes, Ginsburg wrote vibes based politics make people so stupid. A liberal guy has a plus 40 rating amongst Republicans. If I was the DNC, I'd make him the nominee already. He'd make Reagan's 1984 victory look close. Okay, strong take. Next, strong take here we have is from Michael Fetterman facing the Kirsten cinema problem. He's most popular with Republican voters who might like him but will never vote for him over a real Republican alternative. He's also become so unpopular with Dems that he can no longer win a primary. He has three options. Change his party to Republican, change his party to Independent and have almost no path to win or. Or just retire and cash out in some APAC corporate lobbying gig. Okay, and then finally, we have a deleted tweet from Armand that says, not a Fetterman fan by any margin, but his 6221 approval amongst Republicans, while mostly voting with Democrats, does show that the idea that a Democrat can't win over Republican leaning voters is false. Those are the three genders and I'm going to ask you to pick one. No, I'm kidding. But are all of those takes bad or are any of them good?
- [47:45]
B
I tend to sympathize most if I have to pick one of the three genders with the Kirsten cinema take here. And notably Kirsten Sinema did not try to run for reelection knowing that she was deeply unpopular with Democratic voters and so didn't want to have to lose a primary and obviously felt she had no path to winning as an independent, which is probably true. I think that's probably the case for Fetterman. I think he's probably in real trouble here. Some may recall Conor Lambert, who won in a 2018 special election in Pennsylvania in the 18th district, stuck around in Congress for a few years after that, moved to the 17th district because there was a redistricting issue, and then ran in the primary in 2022 against Fetterman. The first time that Fetterman ran for. Well, I guess it's the second time that Fetterman ran for Senate, but the time that he actually won the primary, that was a close fought primary. Connor Lamb did quite well. It wasn't like a blowout by any stretch of the imagination. And, and Conor Lamb has been out there on the political circuits in recent months. He's been doing a little speaking tour. He's shown up to some events where organizers said they invited Fetterman and McCormick to do town halls and both of them declined. And so Conor Lamb is sort of filling in where those senators would have been to address the public. So there's a lot of speculation that Lamb will run again against Fetterman in a primary in 2028, or if Fetterman does not run, will run for the seat in 2028. The tough thing for, for any Pennsylvania politician, well, especially a Pittsburgh based politician like Conor Lamb, is there's not really anything for him to do until 2028. Right. There's no open seats locally that he could run for and hold some office. He's not going to challenge like a sitting incumbent for your local office. He's not going to challenge Josh Shapiro for the governorship, because as you mentioned, Josh Shapiro is quite popular, like around Pennsylvania. We had bridges that fell down in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and he fixed them both really fast. And those are like the things people know Josh Shapiro for. So very popular. So I think, you know, that's the tricky thing is how do you maintain relevance for, for three more years if you're planning to challenge Fetterman? But I suspect that's, that's what we're heading toward is either a primary challenger or Fetterman does not run again.
- [50:05]
A
Lenny, do you agree?
- [50:07]
C
I very much agree with analysis, though I do also want to add that there is part of me that sympathizes with the first tweet or maybe the third tweet. I don't remember that. A lot of this is incredibly vibes based. I mean, like Federman is a, like what his voting record is like basically a generic Democrat. I think he votes with Democrats like 85 or 90% of the time or something. I don't exactly remember the number. What he says is sort of quite different. You know, the way he talks is sort of quite different from. From where the Democratic median is. I mean, this is especially true most recently on Israel. But his voting record is still with the majority of the party so far on Israel. Majority of the Senate party, I should say. Obviously, I think the basin, you know, has, has, has moved substantially. But, you know, majority of, of Democrats in the Senate are still voting, you know, in support of Israel and so, so is Fetterman. So obviously we'll see if that does shift more over the next couple years. He will become probably more of an outlier if we take what he says at face value about his support. But so far he still is pretty much smack dab in the middle there in a lot of these things. His voting record is. The way he speaks isn't. And so like, I think a lot of this is vibes based effectively. And it is interesting to me that it works both ways, that it's not just vibes that are turning Democrats off, but vibes that are also like turning Republicans on. I guess.
- [51:19]
B
Yeah, I think a lot of it is like he said stuff that made the Democrats mad, therefore I like him as a Republican or whatever, which I.
- [51:28]
A
Think is honestly an important lesson that in this sort of politics by meme environment that we're in and we can debate how much that's actually true and when the online conversation becomes unmoored from real life and that does happen, but that you can shape people's perspective like views of you by even just like, I mean in many ways the language that you use because Democrats and Republicans occupy these separate worlds in how they communicate and their cultural references. If a Democrat who votes with Democrats all the time in the Senate steals all of the political cultural language of Republicans, they can still convince Republicans that they're on their team. Or at least not just sort of like your generic lived out Dem who you'd never vote for, right? I mean like Fetterman uses the term illegal immigration or illegal immigrant or whatever instead of undocumented. And that's already telling voters something about you in a world where the parties don't even use the same language.
- [52:28]
C
I will say though, that is not that that's not new at all. Right. I mean there's this old trope from British politics from the 19th century that what people actually want is Whig measures and Tory men. So like, you know, liberal policies executed by conservative politicians or conservative seeming politicians. So the fact that you can sort of create a brand for yourself, quite successful political brand by executing one kinds of politics, but talking and acting like a different kind of politician, I mean that's been true for hundreds of years.
- [52:53]
A
Oh we, I knew we would get in a European reference, Lenny, and I wasn't disappointed.
- [52:57]
B
What's so interesting about that is I think that you see both from Fetterman and from, from Trump to some extent, sort of a like Democratic Party as It was like 30 years ago on certain issues, like you look at tariffs and that was like, like a far left position was trade protectionism and things like that in the 90s. And then now sometime down 30 years down the road that's become a Republican position because Trump cares about it. Like I don't think anybody else in the Republican Party would have done this if it weren't for Donald Trump. But it's also one of the issues that Fetterman is on the other side of from the, the majority of the Democratic Party, right. So I feel, feel like he's just a little bit more old school Democrat than some of the what the party wants these days. I actually think Trump is a little bit old school Democrat also. So like you're saying, I don't remember the parties because it's Britain and we have had a war, so we don't have to think about them anymore. But Democratic policy from a Republican man.
- [53:58]
C
You know, another place where you can see this is, is immigration where I think a lot of Fetterman's criticism of the Biden administration immigration policies come from the left and that historically has existed as a form of criticism. I mean, like, I think Bernie Sanders doesn't like to be reminded of this, or at least he didn't like to be reminded of this in 2016 and 2020. But he used to be quite opposed to mass migration because his argument was that that undercuts wages, like the sort of left wing argument for reducing immigration. And I mean, Fetterman's criticism of the Biden administration on immigration has been very much focused on that also.
- [54:31]
A
All right, well, this is the kind of podcast that feels like it could last another hour, but I am not going to do that. And we'll just have to get back together sometime and we'll bring up some of these themes. We'll talk about the gender war in American politics, but we're going to leave it there for today. Thank you for joining me today, Lenny and Mary.
- [54:48]
B
Thanks Galen.
- [54:49]
C
Great to be here as always, great to have you.
- [54:51]
A
My name is Galen Droock. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics.com and wherever you listen to podcasts. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and access to the video for the podcast. You can also join our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for us to discuss on the show. And most importantly, you ensure that we keep making this podcast. Also, if you're so inclined, be a friend of the POD and go give us a five star rating wherever you listen. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.