Dem
50
GOP
50
One of those weeks with an unusually broad mix of questions, we'd say.
Also, if you want another hint for the headline theme, we'll note that race car driver Tony Stewart and Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Williams would surely both approve of our choice this week.
B.H. in Frankfort, IL, asks: A recent article by Charlie P. Pierce commented on Donald Trump's deteriorating mental state and concluded the piece with this: "If this is an elaborate scheme eventually to get Peter Thiel's pet venture capitalist Clampett into the presidency via the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, it's succeeding beautifully."
Well, there's another plot twist. How worried should we be?(V) & (Z) answer: Your question is based on the proposition that J.D. Vance is worse than Donald Trump. We'll accept that proposition for purposes of discussion, without going into whether we agree or disagree.
And we would say that this is a low-probability event. To invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment requires a majority of the Cabinet, and Trump is going to stock the Cabinet with Trump loyalists, not Vance loyalists. Even if that insurance policy doesn't hold, Congress ultimately gets to weigh in when Trump objects. And until we learn otherwise, we operate under the assumption that Congress is scared stiff of Trump and what he might say to his acolytes. So, Trump actually has a double insurance policy when it comes to being removed.
M.M. in El Paso, TX, asks: When my wife, a Fox News devotee, did not say anything about the presidential debate, I knew (without wasting the time to watch), that Donald Trump had not done well. When you do not mention the Kamala Harris Fox interview, should I reach the same conclusion regarding her performance?
(V) & (Z) answer: Obviously, you sent this in before we published a piece including nearly 3,000 words on the Fox interview
in any event, surely any reader of the site knows that our coverage decisions aren't guided by this particular calculation. If we weren't willing to write about bad news for Democrats, we would have skipped the Biden debate, instead of producing something like 30,000 total words on the subject. If we weren't willing to write about bad news for Republicans, we would have skipped Donald Trump's legal problems, instead of producing, what, 1 million words on the subject?
The Monday and Thursday posts are generally written by (V), who lives in the Netherlands. If an obvious story seems to be missing, particularly on one of those two days, it's probably because it was breaking news late Sunday or late Wednesday. Beyond that, the most common reasons we might not write about some subject are that we've decided that it's not especially important ,or that we just don't have anything useful to say about it, or both.
P.R. in Arvada, CO, asks: After the Kamala Harris interview, Donald Trump was on Fox and Friends, attacking them for hosting Harris and telling them they are writing his terrible jokes. What caught my eye, though, was him sitting on a small dark towel on the white sofa. Is there something to the rumors that he, how shall we say, is unable to control his bowels?
(V) & (Z) answer: A lot of people have said this about Trump, including people who have interacted with him personally. So, we think the claim that he needs... extra garments is more likely to be true than not.
However, the "black towel" story, which spread across the Internet like wildfire, is not evidence of that. You can view the video of him sitting down (see here, for example), and what he's sitting on is very clearly the tails of his oversized suit jacket.
J.H. in Flint, MI, asks: Donald Trump's recent public appearances have been disasters. But the polls don't seem to be moving at all in response. Is there really no one changing their minds in response to this? Is presidential polling unable to detect these changes? Is there another explanation?
(V) & (Z) answer: Keep in mind that a fairly small percentage of the voting public is tuning in for a Fox town hall, or an event on Univision, or an interview with Bloomberg. Those things are inside baseball, and the folks watching them are mostly high-information political junkies, nearly all of whom will have made up their minds about their votes, and about Trump, long ago.
R.M.S. in Lebanon, CT, asks: This week, you criticized Donald Trump's interview with Bloomberg News, and expressed skepticism that his tariff proposals would work to strengthen the U.S. economy. You observed that the cost of tariffs get passed along to the U.S. consumers, and savvy businesspeople are often able to find workarounds to get imports into the country while avoiding tariffs.
However, it has widely been reported by many people, including yourselves, that China engages in unfair and abhorrent business practices that put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage. For example, Sheffield Hallam University in the U.K. recently published a report documenting how China uses forced labor of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a system of prison camps to manufacture solar panels. China denies the report, but I do not believe them for a second. These panels are imported to the U.S. and other countries at a price that is much lower than the U.S. labor market could produce.
Since you don't think tariffs will work against China, what do you think the U.S. can do to make our businesses more competitive with China's and encourage more manufacturing here?(V) & (Z) answer: We must reject your premise. We never wrote that all tariffs are bad, we wrote that Donald Trump's approach to tariffs is bad.
To use our second M*A*S*H analogy in a week, there is an episode where the surgeons need a very delicate piece of surgical equipment, and they try to find someone to make it for them. This item (a clamp) is obviously not useful in most operations, or they would already have it. However, in the right circumstances, it's essential to saving a patient's arm or leg.
Tariffs do work, if applied with care and precision. Trump's problem is that he treats them as a panacea, and threatens to use them like a flamethrower. That's a wrongheaded approach, and any economist or historian will tell you so. They are much more like that delicate clamp the surgeons develop.
Beyond carefully poking holes in Chinese export markets, which the Biden administration has done with far greater skill than the Trump administration, finding ways to cut the Chinese out of the equation entirely is clearly a good path to pursue, when it's plausible. For example, the CHIPS Act and efforts to bring microchip production back into the United States as much as possible, are a very positive step in the right direction.
P.M. in Edenton, NC, asks: I am reading through this article. It is addressing something that is of grave importance; indeed, the single most important issue for me, which I never see discussed anywhere in relation to this election.
The world has seen relative peace for the last 80 years thanks to America's leadership in international affairs. The fact that people like Steve Bannon are striving to make America more isolationist really frightens me, as the last time that viewpoint prevailed, it led directly to the Second World War—and global society will not survive another one (if you haven't seen them, watch both The Day After and Threads, and you'll see the true results of a nuclear conflict).
My question is: If Donald Trump is re-elected, how much damage could he really do in this area? Could he seriously withdraw America from its role in world leadership, thereby opening the door for another nation (China, Russia) to fill that gap? America is not perfect, but its role in world leadership/peacekeeping benefits everyone, and Mrs. P.M. (a Filipino citizen) has said that the Philippines would rather see America in charge of the world over another nation. I sense that people in many other countries would say the same, too.(V) & (Z) answer: This is a serious concern, and one that, you are right, doesn't get talked about enough.
There is, of course, serious long-term damage that Trump could do with 4 years of Trumpy, isolationist foreign policy. For example, if he withdraws from the Paris Accord, and otherwise fails to engage with global warming, or if he does things that cause the various allies of the U.S. to start working with each other, and cutting the (unreliable) Americans out of the picture. However, these things would not fully manifest for years or decades until after Trump's presidency was over.
So, let's talk about what could happen DURING his presidency. We have noted, many times, that the Constitution is silent on what it takes to end a treaty. Can the president do it unilaterally? Is the consent of the Senate required, as when the treaty is first ratified? Who knows? And Trump isn't going to bother to worry about it, he's just going to do what he wants. So, withdrawal from NATO (which technically requires a one-year advance warning) and from other agreements is very possible. This would create a vacuum, and nature abhors a vacuum.
The real thing to be nervous about, and it is a risk regardless of exactly what Trump does, is what we will call the World War I scenario. In the modern age (the last 150 years), the world's diplomatic relationships are like a very precarious house of cards. A small shock here, a small disturbance there, and it's pretty easy for part (or all) of the house to collapse. At the start of World War I, nobody quite foresaw that a relatively minor incident (the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand) would plunge most of Europe into war in the span of a week. But the house of cards was extra-precarious by the early 1910s, and the assassination was enough to topple it.
Our point here is that if Trump withdraws the U.S. from global leadership, or even appears to be doing so, that is a blow to the house of cards. And as various players, including various hostiles, move to fill the vacuum, almost anything could happen. For example, what if China decides that they finally have a chance to grab Taiwan, because they believe Trump won't say "boo"? That alone could create a domino effect in Asia, and Asia is a place where a great many nations have had their fingers on the trigger (including the nuclear trigger) for years or decades. A war there could pull in any of North Korea, South Korea, Japan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and/or Iran. And such a war could make World Wars I and II look like a Sunday picnic.
S.D. in St. Paul, MN, asks: In a couple of posts, you have mentioned that of the Palestinians killed by Israel "half are believed to be members of Hamas" and "half of the dead are non-combatants." Can you share your source(s) for these estimates?
(V) & (Z) answer: There are numerous neutral organizations compiling casualty figures; the most common source used by Western media is the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. There is also a very thorough Wikipedia article entitled Casualties of the Israel-Hamas war, which runs down all the various people and entities that are trying to figure out the numbers.
R.C. in Des Moines, IA, asks: I appreciate the reasons M.S. in Newton gave for why they are voting for Trump. They seemed to be implying that the refusal of most countries to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital is "arbitrary." I find this comment to be disingenuous. Aren't there definite, and not arbitrary, reasons going back to the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan why most countries do not have embassies in Jerusalem? Could you please shed some light on this?
(V) & (Z) answer: You are correct. Because Jerusalem is a very important city to all of the three Abrahamic religions, it was initially supposed to be an "international city" not controlled by anyone. By the late 1940s, West Jerusalem was controlled by Israel and East Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan. In 1967, following the Six-Day War, the entire city came under Israeli control.
Broadly speaking, most nations of the world consider East Jerusalem, in particular, to be an occupied territory. Some even go so far as to recognize it as the rightful capital of Palestine. So, it is not so simple as M.S. in Newton made it seem. It's not like moving the U.S. capital from Washington, DC to, say, Miami. And for Donald Trump to declare that Jerusalem is the rightful capital of Israel is to take a very strong stance on a very touchy issue that dates back for generations.
D.G. in Pittsburgh, PA, asks: Just 2 years ago, all three blue-wall states were swept by Democratic governors. Two of the elections were blowouts: Josh Shapiro won Pennsylvania by 15 points and Gretchen Whitmer won Michigan by 12 points. And Tony Evers won Wisconsin by 3 points.
These polls showing a close race in Pennsylvania and Michigan make no sense. Who are these people who voted for Josh Shapiro in 2022 and are voting for Donald Trump in 2024? Who voted for Gretchen Whitmer in 2022 and is voting for Trump in 2024? I have a hard time believing that these two states are as close as the polls say they are. So tell me, why should we believe that these states are going to be close?(V) & (Z) answer: There is a pretty simple, and certainly plausible, explanation: Trump excites people who otherwise do not vote and gets them to the polls when he is on the ballot. To take one example, there were 5,366,179 votes cast in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial election in 2022. There were 6,915,283 votes cast in the 2020 presidential election. Those (roughly) 1.6 million additional people could skew very Trumpy.
We're not saying this is definitely what is happening, as we share your sense that maybe the numbers in those states don't pass the smell test. But it's certainly possible that Trump makes the states competitive, even when Trumpism does not.
J.H. in Minneapolis, MN, asks: Redfield & Wilton Strategies finds Sen. Amy Klobuchar (DFL-MN) polling at only 42%. She won her re-election in 2018 with over 60% of the vote, smashing her Republican opponent. She remains hugely popular in Minnesota and consistently has cross-party appeal.
These findings make me wonder if their methodologies might be way out of whack. If so, can we trust any of their polls?(V) & (Z) answer: Redfield & Wilton is not a great pollster. And their polls are mostly being sponsored by... the British newspaper The Telegraph. These are not things that leave us brimming with confidence in their numbers.
However, the example you cite is not quite as wonky as it seems. The same poll had Klobuchar's opponent, Royce White (R), at 35%, giving the Senator a 7-point lead, with 3% voting for minor candidates and 20% undecided. Clearly, the pollster is letting anyone who is not 100%, ironclad certain of their choice be "undecided." This almost certainly introduces bias, since it is likely that the undecideds lean strongly to Klobuchar (as suggested by polls that are less accepting of undecided responses, or don't accept them at all). Still, it would be much worse if Redfield & Wilton had the race tied, as opposed to still having Klobuchar with a healthy lead.
D.S. in Davis, CA, asks: Is there any way to know demographic breakdown of users of betting markets? For example, the gender breakdown?
(V) & (Z) answer: There has been a fair bit of research into this, primarily commissioned by state governments that are trying to curtail problem gambling (see a pretty good rundown of the various published papers, provided by the New York Council on Public Gambling, here). There is slight variance among the numbers, but most researchers put the share of female gamblers right around 30%.
R.M.H. in Chula Vista, CA, asks: You wrote: "Pollsters make no secret of the fact that their methods have a margin of error of 3-4%." I understand that the margin of error is due primarily to the number of samples and the electorate models.
However, the various tabulations you show are the result of averaging numerous polls. If the polls are independent (which I realize is not necessarily true) wouldn't the margin of error be reduced by the number of polls averaged? Even if the polls are correlated in some sense (dates, samples, coverage), shouldn't there be some reduction in the margin of error?(V) & (Z) answer: If polling were just a math problem, yes, but it is not.
Imagine you want to determine the length of the average word in English. You get the full Webster's Dictionary, which has 470,000 words. Five hundred times you pick a random number from 1 to 470,000 and write down how long that word is. Then you get three friends to repeat the experiment and you average the results. Now your sample is 2,000 words instead of 500, so your margin of error will half as big (MoE is inversely proportional to the square root of the sample size). Assuming you can count letters in a word, the only factor is the sample size.
With polling there are other factors. How representative is your sample? Did you under- or oversample any important demographic? Is you secret sauce for likely voters any good? Is this year's electorate going to be much like the 2020 one? And whole bunch of other methodological questions. Averaging multiple polls does give a smaller MoE and quadrupling the sample does cut the MoE in half, but the problem we are seeing is that the difference in results is due to different methodologies, models of the electorate, etc., not due to samples that are too small. That said, if we average four polls and one of them has a methodology that is way off base, it's results count for only 0.25, so averaging should help.
T.A.O from Minneapolis, MN, asks: I frequently encounter expressions like "The GOP knows from internal polling that Trump's in trouble," and even Electoral-Vote.com's occasional references to "internal polling," suggesting that each party's polling data is somehow more accurate than polls released to the public. I don't understand how this could be the case, without there being some polling techniques and know-how the parties have that other professionals do not. Why wouldn't those superior methods leak out (especially if both parties somehow acquired them from somewhere)? Can you explain this reverence for internal polling?
(V) & (Z) answer: The parties use really good professional pollsters who do this for a living and have been doing so for years. Having run 1,000 polls in the past teaches you stuff that newbies may have to learn the hard way (e.g., if you want to include young mothers in the sample, do not call at 7 p.m. on a Thursday). The pros may also try to adjust their model of the electorate in real time, depending on what they have learned this year; the amateurs may just use the 2020 electorate. The pros are going multichannel, sending URLs or QR codes to people as text messages and asking them to do the survey online at their leisure. Some pros pick people at random from voter registration lists, so they know these people have some interest in voting.
Some of the small colleges may mean well and are doing their best, but they don't have the experience and expertise the pros have. Some of the public polling is done by organizations that are fine, like Mason-Dixon and SurveyUSA and colleges that have been this for years, like Siena College and Quinnipiac, but a lot of the public pollsters are not very experienced or well-funded (you need statisticians, people who are good at modeling, psychologists, and much more).
Just to give one example, people who do this a lot know that the answers to these questions will be different:
- Will you vote for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump?
- Will you vote for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris?
- Will you vote for the Democrat Kamala Harris or the Republican Donald Trump?
- Who will you vote for in November for president?
- If the election were held today, who would you vote for?
It matters if the horse race question is early on in the survey or later on and what comes before it. Asking if Jan. 6 was real before the horse race question changes the results because it reminds people about Jan. 6. The pros understand all this stuff and more as they have run many experiments trying many questions and formats and comparing the results. Many of the smaller and newer pollsters just don't have this level of detailed expertise, even if they are trying really hard to be fair.
There's also one other thing. Because the internal pollsters have a different task than the public pollsters, the internal pollsters often ask additional questions, like "Would it affect your vote if you learned that Donald Trump supports ending income taxes on tips?" With that information in hand, they not only know where their candidate stands, they can make a pretty good guess about whether there's room for improvement. If they conclude their candidate is not only behind, but that there's no particular path for them to win some more voters over, then they know better than the public pollsters that their candidate is in trouble.
K.E. in Newport, RI, asks: You haven't said anything about this recently, but there was a small but pivotal slice of the U.S. electorate in 2016 and 2020 called Sanders-Trump voters. These are people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the presidential primaries, but voted for Donald Trump in the general election. In 2016, they were about 12% of the Sanders vote and almost certainly led to Hillary Clinton's defeat.
How big of a factor are these people in 2024, and what could Kamala Harris possibly do to win them over?(V) & (Z) answer: The Sanders-Trump dynamic was unusual, and was rooted in the similarities between the two men. Both have a populistic message about how the system is broken, the little man is getting screwed, and substantial change is required. However, they disagreed as to the main culprit (capitalists vs. immigrants), and further, Trump was willing to say and do things (racist things, undemocratic things, etc.) that Sanders finds abhorrent.
The Sanders voters who moved to Trump did so because they cared more about the message that the system is broken than they did about the details. We doubt that there is some meaningful contingent of those voters available to Harris to win back to the Democratic banner. The Sanders voters who warmed up to Trump are now committed Trumpers. The Sanders voters who did not warm up to Trump, and who believe both parties are irredeemably corrupt and misguided, are now voting third-party, or not voting at all.
S.B. in Winslow, ME, asks: I remain amazed that this election is close. I can't think of a single candidate so stained with immorality and crime who could win one election, let alone a second one.
I'm 100% behind Kamala Harris for this election. At first, I didn't know what to think in the whirlwind change-up from Joe Biden to her as the Democratic candidate, but after listening to her and watching her, I'm sold. But I'm deeply in the blue team these days.
My question is this: If the Democratic candidate had been a white male, do you feel the election would still be this close? I can't help but feel there is still a deeply ingrained undercurrent of racism and misogyny that runs beyond the torrential flood of it that MAGA foments.(V) & (Z) answer: There are undoubtedly voters for whom a woman or, more specifically, a non-white woman, is a bridge too far. Some of those folks will vote for Donald Trump in this election, some will vote third-party, and some will sit this one out. That said, there are also voters—especially young people, and more especially young, Black women—who are energized by Harris' candidacy, and who will get to the polls even if they have to crawl over broken glass when previously they maybe would have taken a pass.
All of this is to say, we really won't be able to answer your question in any substantive way until after the election, once we have the results and the exit polls. That said, the Democrats DID have a white male candidate, and he was polling worse than Harris is now. True, that might not have happened with a white man lacking Joe Biden's old-age baggage, like Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). On the other hand, Newsom might have turned off voters due to being smarmy, or a "California liberal" or the former spouse of Kimberly Guilfoyle, or any of a dozen other reasons. There's just no way to know for sure, short of running the election 100 times with a bunch of different candidates.
J.C. in Madison, NJ, asks: Is there any one individual that you can think of that, if they said they were supporting and voting for Kamala Harris, could sway any of the MAGA voters? Maybe that could be the October Surprise?
(V) & (Z) answer: We don't think the MAGA voters are persuadable at this point; it's Trump or bust for them. But for other folks who are "undecided" or otherwise engaging in some version of fence-sitting? We can think of a few folks who could influence them. Here's a top five, from least impactful to most (in our estimation).
- George W. Bush: As we have written, Bush is staying silent on the election. But if he said that not only is he voting Harris but that, based on his experience, he believes democracy cannot survive another Trump term, some Trump voters would take that under advisement.
- Francis I: The Pope cannot vote for Donald Trump, so we are slightly modifying the terms of your question. However, if he came out and announced, in no uncertain terms, that there is only one candidate for observant Catholics, and that candidate is Kamala Harris, it would move some votes.
- A High-Profile Fox Personality: When Walter Cronkite came out against the Vietnam War in early 1968, it was a killer for Lyndon B. Johnson because Cronkite had previously been strongly supportive of the war effort. If a Sean Hannity or a Laura Ingraham announced "I just can't do it anymore," and spent the remainder of the election cycle using their show to make the case for Harris, that would open some eyes.
- A Trump Family Insider: By insider, we mean inner-circle insider, most obviously Ivanka (or, failing that, Melania). And this would depend a lot on exactly how they framed their public pronunciation. If they just came out and slammed the former president (like, say, his niece Mary has done), it might just come off as sour grapes. But if they came out and said, "We still love and respect dad/Donald, but we're around him on a daily basis, and so we know he is just not capable of serving another 4 years," that would be big news.
- J.D. Vance: Now THIS would be an October Surprise. If Vance were to call a press conference and say, "Obviously, I would very much like to be vice-president. However, I've come to know former president Trump as he is today, and I cannot in good conscience stand by and allow him to re-assume the toughest job in the world. It's just too dangerous for the U.S and the world," that would probably end the campaign.
We do not believe, for a minute, that any of these people WILL come out against Trump. But if they did, it would probably have an impact.
R.P. in Northfield, IL, asks: At the DNC, Michelle Obama stated that she would be campaigning for Kamala Harris. Why do you suppose that she has, so far, not been out on the road for her?
(V) & (Z) answer: We are not so sure Obama actually made that promise, as much as she implied that she was making that promise, since she hates campaigning.
But assuming she did intend to make that promise, we can think of two reasons she would not have fulfilled it yet. The first is that she's waiting until the end, to maximize her impact, and to give the campaign a last-moment shot in the arm. The second is that there some sort of external factor has changed the equation—maybe some sort of health problem, or credible information that she would be targeted by an assassin, or something like that.
Please be clear that these are just guesses, and we have no information whatsoever.
J.M. in Silver Spring, MD, asks: You wrote about the SBA running out of money for relief operations and noted that if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) failed to call the House back into session, that he and the GOP would "assume the very real risk that 3 weeks before an election, voters, and in particular voters in three swing/swingy states, conclude the Republican Party is a bunch of heartless bastards unconcerned about the suffering of everyday people."
I want to put this together with the question from this past Saturday from J.B. in Hutto where you expounded upon the political risks that Biden would take on if he called Congress into an emergency session.
So I ask: Do you think that, if Johnson is uncooperative, this gives Biden the political capital he needs to make that move and get away with it.(V) & (Z) answer: Yes, but we still don't think Biden will do it. He's spent nearly 4 years making clear that he doesn't have a taste for these sorts of dramatic "shot across the bow" maneuvers. Further, he is subject to some of the same political considerations Johnson is, and does not particularly want to take vulnerable Democrats off the campaign trail for a round of political theater.
S.M. in St. Louis, MO, asks: Now that the Supreme Court has granted immunity for his actions in presidential matters, can you imagine Joe Biden using it to influence the outcome of the election? Maybe not as flagrant as Trump would but in a more subtle manner?
(V) & (Z) answer: No. As we note above, Biden does not have a taste for these sorts of shenanigans. Further, he is a believer in democracy, and represents a political party that still believes in democracy. When one major faction decides democracy isn't for them, as with the South during the Civil War, or the Trumpublicans, that is nonetheless survivable for the country. If both sides reach that conclusion, then game over.
Biden and his administration will make aggressive use of the options that are available to them, and are legal. For example, the DoJ surely has pre-written a bunch of briefs in anticipation of Trump lawsuits like the ones in 2020. But we do not believe that Biden will decide that "L'État, c'est moi" and that he will play dirty in order to deliver the election to Harris.
K.B. in Edgewater, NJ, asks: You wrote: "If [Senator Susan Collins] took a job in a Harris administration, Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) would appoint her replacement. This scenario is not likely, but is possible."
Would this be less likely from Collins' side or Harris's side and why?(V) & (Z) answer: Harris would take the deal in a heartbeat. First, flipping the Senate would be a development worth its weight in (Egyptian?) gold. Second, most Democrats pick at least one Republican for their cabinets anyhow, and this would check that box. Third, Collins would be a perfectly capable Cabinet member, and would not be at risk of saying or doing kooky things (like, say, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-WI, might if Harris tried to make a deal like this with him). She has served as chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and would make a perfectly good secretary of that department and Collins and Harris both know that.
So, Collins is most certainly the hold-up when it comes to this arrangement.
L.L.G. in Thornton, CO, asks: Based on your recent item about welfare recipients, since I am retired and receiving at least 25% of my income from my Social Security benefit check every month, you consider me a WELFARE RECIPIENT? Wow! And I thought I earned that money. If, indeed, you are counting retirees in your 53% figure, your analysis, at best, is misleading.
(V) & (Z) answer: First, it is not really our analysis and definitely not our wording. We were passing along news from Axios, who wrote up a a study from a think tank called the Economic Information Group.
Second, the real term here is "transfer payments," as in "the government collects money from some people, and transfers it to other people." The term "welfare" came into use in the 1940s, because it was more instructive for non-economists, and then that was turned into a dirty word in the 1980s by St. Ronnie of Reagan (as we noted).
Third, our analysis, such as it is, is basically incontrovertible. The point is that a lot of Republican voters are being kept afloat by the government, which is made possible by tax (and other) revenue from blue states. And yet, those Republican voters (and their elected representatives) excoriate that same government, and those same blue states. This is hypocritical.
N.M.D. in Duluth, MN, asks: My question is about Donald Trump's classified documents. My first thought when I heard about him having the documents and refusing to return them was that he wanted them for leverage—with the intent to sell them to the highest bidder—whether that be a crazy billionaire like Elon Musk or MBS or a country like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia or North Korea.
Is this a reasonable concern?(V) & (Z) answer: Yes.
We will start by saying that we have 100% confidence Donald Trump actually stole classified documents. We've seen the evidence with our own eyes. On top of that, the fact that his apparent lackey Aileen Cannon dismissed the case on the flimsiest of technicalities tells us it was airtight.
We can think of only two reasons he would have stolen the documents (and they might both be correct). The first is ego. It could be that, by taking them, it allowed him to maintain his fantasy that he was still president. Or, it just might have been to show off to visitors.
The second is money. Trump cares a great deal about money, and he might also have cash flow problems. Foreign governments and mega-billionaires have very deep pockets, and there's potential there to make more money than Trump will make from selling a million Trump Bibles, or 10,000 Trump-branded "Swiss" watches. He's shown no compunction about profiting off the presidency, ethical or no, and there's no reason to believe that this "opportunity" would trouble him.
S.S.L. in Battle Creek, MI, asks: Please respond to something I hear from the right: "Trump just has a big personality and likes to keep people guessing, but he won't actually hurt more people than any other Republican politician. Aren't concerns about him exaggerated?"
(V) & (Z) answer: This statement is laughable. There have been 45 presidents of the United States (please do not write in and correct us; Joe Biden is #46, but Grover Cleveland was both #22 and #24). Of those 45, 44 regarded themselves as presidents for all Americans. They may have interpreted that mandate differently, but they all regarded themselves as representing the entire body politic.
Trump is, thus far, unique in that he only regards himself as the leader of the people who voted for him. He's already shown he's willing to inflict harm on those he deems unfriendly, whether it's withholding hurricane aid to Puerto Rico, or refusing to help California after the wildfires, or siccing his followers on Congress. He's also shown he's willing to inflict harm at random, if it helps protect his ego and his self-image, as with his management of the COVID pandemic and his promulgation of ineffective and harmful remedies.
There MAY be a few other Republicans who are as willing as Trump to follow his lead in this way (Josh Hawley leaps to mind). However, this is not the case with most Republicans. To claim otherwise is gaslighting.
J.I. in Hicksville, NY, asks: Howard Stern asked Kamala Harris if she would flee the country in the event of a Trump victory. She did not exactly rule it out. What advice would you give her and other prominent Trump critics such as Mitt Romney, based on historical analogies? Is there likely to be plenty of time to pack up and get out or could things go downhill fast?
(V) & (Z) answer: At risk of Reductio ad Hitlerum, the obvious historical analogue here is Jewish people in Europe in the 1930s. Some of them saw the writing on the wall, and got out. Some of them hoped they could keep their lives and their businesses and their jobs and their communities, and by the time they knew they had guessed wrong, it was too late.
The good news for Harris and other Trump enemies is that he is rather less effective than most absolutist types, and would struggle to pull off the kinds of things that an Adolf Hitler or a Joseph Stalin had no trouble pulling off. Also, high-profile people tend to have added levels of protection when it comes to these things; if Albert Einstein was not Albert Einstein or Sigmund Freud wasn't Sigmund Freud, they might not have made it out.
If we were going to give advice, it would be this: Spend all your time in deep-blue states.
B.P. in La Habra, CA, asks: I've noticed for a while that the political separatism and echo chambers have resulted in some shibboleths from the red team that clue me in immediately to their partisan stance when I hear them. I first noticed back in 2016 when my own father (born in 1943, and once an anti-Nixon letter writer) mentioned his concerns with "Crooked Hillary." I instantly knew where he was getting his television news.
More recently, "Democrat Party," "Let's go, Brandon," and "KaMALLa" come to mind.
One that has been clanging against my own increasingly curmudgeonly ears has been the inability of some politicians to properly pronounce "fentanyl." It's "fentanILL," not "fentanOLL." Is this another one, or is the error widespread on both the red and blue teams?(V) & (Z) answer: We don't believe there is anything partisan here, because we don't see the partisan value in it (in contrast to, say, mocking Kamala Harris' name), and because we've heard many pronunciations from politicians of both parties.
The main problem, we think, is that by the general rules of English pronunciation, "fentanyl" is in a gray area. It does not help that there is a related chemical substance, "fentanol," which some people might hear being pronounced correctly, but then assume that the person is talking about, and correctly pronouncing "fentanyl."
O.R. in Milan, Italy, asks: Prompted by your item on ads, here's something I've been meaning to ask for a long time: Are the ads by the Lincoln Project actually aired? And if so, where? Has anyone seen them on TV or in their news feeds?
I am trying to figure out if they reach low-information voters (who I suspect are unlikely to actively look for them).(V) & (Z) answer: Although the Lincoln Project makes heavy use of the Internet and viral marketing techniques, they do air their ads on TV. First (Z) has seen them, commonly during programming that has a right-leaning skew (sports, History Channel, John Wayne movies). Second, ispot.tv tracks the airing of TV ads, and has a substantial list of Lincoln Project ads, and exactly how many times they have been broadcast.
R.H.D. in Webster, NY, asks: The last time the Mets and Dodgers met in the NLCS was in 1988. That was the same year an incumbent vice president ran for the top job (and he won in a landslide). In fact, that was the last time any presidential candidate had an EV total north of 400. Two questions for you: (1) Will we ever see anyone receive 400 EVs in our lifetime again? and (2) What do you consider to be the minimum EVs needed for it to be a landslide?
(V) & (Z) answer: Depending on how old a reader is, another 400 EV performance is likely in their lifetime. Things change fast; don't forget we're only about 10 years removed from a time when the Democrats had 65 Senate seats.
As to a landslide, we'd say that being in the top third of most lopsided electoral victories is probably the cutoff. As chance would have it, that works out to "Any president who got at least 80% of the electoral votes." Seems about right to us.
P.F. in Fairbanks, AK, asks: Based on your item about Kamala Harris releasing her medical records, and your assumption that she appears to be truthful, I wonder: In today's world, how plausible is a scenario analogous to President Bartlet on The West Wing; he was able to suppress the fact that he had MS until late in his presidency?
Yes, I know The West Wing was scripted, but still...(V) & (Z) answer: Very plausible. First, people are often in denial about things like this, particularly if they have strong motivation for behaving that way. Second, it is not especially difficult to hide a president in the White House, and to let others basically run the government as needed. It happened with Woodrow Wilson for sure. It happened with Franklin Pierce and Calvin Coolidge, who suffered from crippling depression. It may have happened with Ronald Reagan and/or Joe Biden.
O.R. in Milan, Italy, asks: Out of curiosity I went to the Indiana BVM. And my mouth stayed open in surprise at the second sentence: "You cannot hold both an identification card and a driver's license at the same time, even if one is issued by another state."
Can you please explain the logic behind this?
In Italy a passport, an ID card and a driver's licence are all valid IDs and not mutually exclusive.(V) & (Z) answer: The states that have this law on the books are generally states that are (or were) under Republican control. And when the Republicans were running the show, they passed the law based on the notion that having two IDs facilitates voter (and other types of) fraud by allowing two different people to represent themselves as the same person (e.g., Bob votes in one location, and Bob's doppelganger votes at another, with both showing ID "proving" they are Bob).
Whether it actually works like that, well, we are skeptical. But that's the concern.
J.L. in Los Angelas, CA, asks: John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Johh F. Kennedy. John Warnock Hinckley, Jr. tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan. Trump's first would-be assassin was Thomas Matthew Crooks, and his second would-be assassin was Ryan Wesley Routh. My question is: Why are presidential assassins referred to in the news media and history books by all three of their names wheres the presidents they shoot (or shoot at) are referred to typically by only two names?
(V) & (Z) answer: Presidents are referred to by whatever name they choose as their public identity. And most of them did not use their middle name, either because they did not have one, or because their middle name did not comport with the way they wanted to represent themselves. "Ronald Reagan" is alliterative and more mellifluous than "Ronald Wilson Reagan." "Barack Hussein Obama" reminds people of an attack line that was regularly used against him (i.e., secret Muslim). Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were known by diminutives of their given names, and that does not work well with middle names, which tend to be a part of formal usage (How good do "Jimmy Earl Carter" or "Bill Jefferson Clinton" sound?).
Assassins (and, for that matter, serial killers) are known by three names, in the media, so as to protect people with the same name. In other words, stupid people might try to somehow punish the Thomas Crooks they know, not realizing that there are many people with that name. However, they are much less likely to lash out at the Thomas Crooks they know if the alleged assassin is known as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Needless to say, this convention is not necessary for the purposes of history books, but by the time the history books are written, the three-name version has generally caught on (although there are cases where the person was already known by three names, among them Booth).
F.S. in Cologne, Germany, asks: You wrote: "There is no example of a true radical, especially a true radical by European standards, who has secured a major-party presidential nomination in the United States. Barry Goldwater, William Jennings Bryan and Donald Trump are as radical as it gets when it comes to reactionary movements, while Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson are as radical as it gets when it comes to progressive movements."
So why is there no example of a true radical who has secured a major-party presidential nomination in the United States? And would Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson be as successful today as they were during their presidencies (both regarding accomplishments and their electoral success) if they were president today? I mean, they were won landslides in their elections and they got a lot of important legislation through Congress.(V) & (Z) answer: Radicals, pretty much by definition, do not enjoy majority support. So, they tend to achieve power in one (or both) of two ways: (1) They end up with leadership of the largest faction in a highly fragmented, multi-party government, or (2) they seize power with backing from military forces. Neither condition has yet been met in American history, particularly since the U.S. system is carefully designed to favor candidates with broad support.
FDR and LBJ would not be as successful today. First, the modern media would be a big problem for them, as their controversial actions would generate ten times the carping today than in their time. Second, the U.S. is as polarized today as it has been since the Civil War; there's little potential for broad, bipartisan support. Third, both men enjoyed huge Democratic majorities in Congress when they took office. There was none of this "Joe Manchin is the second most powerful man in the country" stuff. Fourth, the Senate filibuster was a "break glass in case of emergency" tool in the 1930s and 1960s, not the pro forma matter it is today.
Add it all up, and while both presidents were gifted leaders and political wheeler-dealers, they also had a much easier glide path to getting legislation through Congress than any president today.
J.R.A. in St Petersburg, FL, asks: In your reply to F.S. in Cologne, you use the word "radical" number of times, and you appear to be using it in a non-polarized way, simply describing the magnitude of somebody's belief or words or actions.
It has always been my understanding that "radical" is a polarity word—it means, very specifically, "way off to the left," a companion word to "reactionary" which means "way off to the right."
Have I misunderstood the field of play, or was that just a loose usage?(V) & (Z) answer: A radical wants dramatic, systematic changes to the government, the economy, and society at large. To quote Wikipedia, only because that site reflects general usage: "Radical politics denotes the intent to transform or replace the fundamental principles of a society or political system, often through social change, structural change, revolution or radical reform."
That Americans tend to conflate "radical" with "left-wing" is largely a product of Republican messaging meant to convince voters that all Democrats are radicals, and all radicals are Democrats. There are absolutely right-wing radicals (say, the John Birch Society).
Note also that it is possible to be a radical reactionary. That's a pretty good description of Napoleon, for example.
P.M. in Lausanne, Switzerland, asks: I was wondering what you thought of Slate's recent article "Suddenly, the Electoral College Is Posing a Problem for Trump."
Obviously, the Electoral College still favors Trump, so this would seem to fall into the clickbait category that you mentioned. Beyond that, what do you make of their basic argument that the Electoral College is a fundamentally racist system, both in the past and nowadays?(V) & (Z) answer: As to the modern political argument made by the piece (which is by one of Slate's best writers), we'll put that aside for now, since we might be writing about it later this week or next week. In short, for those who are interested, the proposition is that Donald Trump is maintaining his share of the popular vote because he's picked up votes in non-swingy states at the expense of votes in swing states. So, his Electoral College advantage is not so much an advantage anymore.
As to the racism of the Electoral College, it's really beyond dispute. The Electoral College was primarily created at the insistence of the Southern states, who wanted an outsized voice in choosing presidents. It worked well, as 9 of the first 13 presidents were Southern slaveholders, while #14 and #15 were very South-friendly Northerners (also known as "doughfaces").
Today, of course, the great majority of Black voters are Democrats. Among the states with a Black population that is above average, only two are actually swingy (Georgia and Michigan) and another two are sorta swingy (North Carolina and Florida). Consequently, Black voters don't have much input into the outcome of presidential elections. Some, but not as much as their numbers would justify, since Black folks tend to live either in deep-blue states, or in deep-red states.
S.N. in Spark, NV, asks: I have a "simple" question. If slavery had never been introduced into the American colonies, how might the Southern colonies/states have developed economically?
(V) & (Z) answer: You are supposing a situation that is basically impossible.
Slavery is a terrible basis for an economy, as it's a very difficult system to maintain. As it turns out, people do not want to be slaves, and it is costly and difficult to make them behave otherwise. This being the case, the South tried just about every other option (Native Americans, indentured servants, wage labor) before turning to slavery. And the reason the other options did not work is either that the people couldn't do the work and survive, or they wouldn't do the work for the wages and other incentives being offered.
If we grant your supposition, then the South would have ended up with some other variant of a feudal system. Maybe a more classic feudal system (one of which lasted in Russia until the early 1900s) or maybe something built around sharecropping. Whatever happened, it almost certainly would have meant a severely restricted underclass of Black laborers.
B.B. in Pembroke, NH, asks: Let's say Abraham Lincoln was not elected, thus meaning that the Civil War never happened. Also assume there's no way we would have slaves today. How and when would slavery have ceased?
(V) & (Z) answer: If Lincoln had not been elected, then a slave-friendly president would have been (presumably Stephen Douglas). Then, at the next election, a Republican would have won, and there would have been a civil war. Or, failing that, the next one after that. In other words, Lincoln only triggered the Civil War in the same way that Pearl Harbor triggered World War II (for the U.S.). It was going to happen, the only question was which match would light the fuse.
The more probable scenario in which slavery survives is if the Confederacy holds on long enough that the federal government recognized its independence. And, in that case, slavery probably would have been wiped out by World War I. That war swept away the remnants of the old order, including the morality and the economic systems that made slavery possible. More specifically, the strains imposed by the war would likely have created the circumstances for a wide-scale rebellion/revolution, not unlike what happened with Russia and its gasping-for-breath pre-industrial agricultural system.
J.H. in Boston, MA, asks: You wrote: "[The Mexican-American War] quickly served to destabilize the union, and made Civil War all but inevitable."
I have never heard that before and have never seen a line drawn between the two wars. Can you expound a little?(V) & (Z) answer: The Missouri Compromise, adopted in 1820, implemented a system meant to keep the peace. In brief: (1) states were to be admitted in pairs, one slave and one free, and (2) a line was drawn across the country (36° 30' latitude) that would henceforth dictate if a new state was free (north of the line) or slave (south of the line).
The Missouri Compromise was already showing its age when the Mexican-American War was fought (1846-48), as folks on both sides of the slavery debate thought it needed to go. Meanwhile, the War added a bunch of territory to the union, most importantly (for purposes of this question) California. Just weeks later, gold was discovered in California, and within a year of the end of the Mexican-American War, the California gold rush was underway.
Thanks to the gold rush, California qualified for statehood essentially overnight, and it submitted a state constitution to Congress asking for admission as a non-slave state. The problem was that there was no slave state ready to join with it (minimum 50,000 population required) and, besides, the Missouri Compromise line goes right through California.
So, due to the efforts of the aforementioned Stephen Douglas, a deal was worked out, and a new approach to the slavery question called popular sovereignty was implemented, first for the Utah and New Mexico territories in 1850, then for all future territories in 1854. The basic idea was that when a state was ready for statehood, it would vote on whether to have a pro-slavery or anti-slavery state constitution. In other words, instead of Congress deciding, the people would decide.
The first test of this new approach came in Kansas in 1856, and it could not have gone worse. The "citizens" of Kansas (and we put "citizens" in quotations, because a lot of Missourians crossed the border to cast illegal votes) qualified for statehood, and ended up adopting not one, not two, not three but four different state constitutions, three anti-slavery, one pro-slavery. Congress couldn't navigate the dispute, and partisans on both sides went to war with each other. This is known as "Bleeding Kansas" and/or "The Little Civil War."
This sequence of events had two effects: (1) Tensions were grossly inflamed, and (2) it put to rest the last real chance of a compromise on the slavery issue.
This narrative is obviously a bit condensed, but that is essentially how the Mexican-American War laid the groundwork for the Civil War.
M.A. in Knoxville, TN, asks: With his Dred Scott decision Roger Taney cemented his reputation as "an incompetent, tone-deaf, partisan hack," as you put it. I'm curious if there's any evidence he was aware of what he'd done to his reputation and how he felt about it prior to his eventual death? Or did he somehow manage to remain oblivious to what he'd done to his own reputation?
(V) & (Z) answer: He certainly knew that he had become something of a national joke or pariah, and... he didn't give a damn. He was nearing the end of his life when he issued the Dred Scott decision (7 years left), and he spent his remaining days on the bench producing the exact same sort of jurisprudence he'd always produced and, from 1861-64, butting heads with the Lincoln administration. Sometimes, Taney was on the minority side of a dispute with Lincoln (as in the case deciding whether or not the Union blockade of Southern ports was legal; the court found it was). Sometimes, Taney was on the winning side of a dispute, and Lincoln just ignored him (as with Ex Parte Merryman). As chance would have it, Taney died on the same date his home state of Maryland outlawed slavery (October 12, 1864). Poetic justice?
J.C. in Trenton, NJ, asks: I've wondered, with all the crazy rulings coming from the SCOTUS lately, if future Courts will say something along the lines of "Yes, there's a precedent, but it's a Roberts precedent... (so we can just ignore it)."
So, your item "Don't Say We Didn't Warn You, John Roberts," got me wondering: How did subsequent Supreme Courts treat rulings from Taney's court (beyond Dred Scott)?(V) & (Z) answer: It does not work quite like that. There are so many tricky questions out there, and relatively little Supreme Court jurisprudence (they only take 100 or so cases a year), that it's just not plausible to ignore an entire era in the Court's history.
That said, Taney's political and intellectual approach made sense when he was appointed to the Supreme Court (he was a Jacksonian Democrat, appointed by... Andrew Jackson). However, it was already outdated by the end of his life, and was almost completely obsolete by the turn of the 20th century. He still had his fans (Antonin Scalia, famously), but Taney's tenure as chief justice is actually notable for the lack of really enduring decisions. It is entirely plausible that the Roberts Court, espousing a worldview that looks to be on its way out, will be similarly neutered long-term—not by disdain, per se, but because their rulings aren't relevant.
J.R.A. in St. Petersburg, FL, asks: Oh come on, with your audience? You really thought you'd get away with that?
An acronym is a word, like laser or scuba, which has actually been assimilated into the language as a word, which started off as a pronounceable initialism. Non-pronounceable initialisms never get assimilated as actual words - nobody except fictional cops ever refers to FBI members as fibbies, for example.
A common mistake to make, but it is one of my favorite hobby horses. Sorry to call you out on it.(V) & (Z) answer: If you do a site like this one, you learn very quickly that just about everyone has a handful of linguistic and grammatical bugaboos that they care a lot about. We got many e-mails complaining about our use of the word "acronym."
It is true that some definitions of that word do not allow for some of the examples we used. It is also true that the dictionary is on our side. For example, here is Merriam-Webster's definition:
a word (such as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term
also: an abbreviation (such as FBI) formed from initial lettersFinally, and most importantly, it is true that we were constructing a puzzle, and puzzles allow for a bit of looseness in usage, in service of a better puzzle. We got hundreds of correct responses, most of which used the word "acronym," so clearly the readers got what we were going for.
B.C. in Phoenix, AZ, asks: High praise for the duo at Electoral-Vote.com for the conduct of the informative, civil debate between P.B. in St. Louis and O.E. in Greenville regarding the fall of the Soviet Union and the attendant wars and atrocities.
But it brings up a serious question for my fellow readers and I: Would you two consider moderating a presidential debate, or is "slitting my wrists" a more desirable option?(V) & (Z) answer: They would never ask us, of course, but we would certainly say "yes" if they did.
In most or all cases, the people chosen for the job have to be at least somewhat mindful of: (1) their bosses, (2) their viewers/readers, and (3) their ongoing relationships with the politicians. This constrains them, we think. We do not have these constraints, as we don't have bosses, we are not at risk of losing our jobs if readers are unhappy, and we don't have relationships with politicians.
What we do have is vast experience as teachers. So, we almost certainly know better than journalists do how to ask questions in a context that is closer to a classroom than it is a press conference. So, we think we could do a pretty good (maybe even better) job, and we'd embrace the chance to put that to the test.
J.C. in Biñan, Laguna, Philippines, asks: I was wondering if you'd been able to check if O.E. of Greenville had spoofed their IP?
(V) & (Z) answer: Presumably, the implication here is that O.E. is secretly a Russian troll?
In any event, we probably could do SOME detective work of this sort, but we never would, because it's a pain in the rear, and ultimately not really conclusive.
We are quite certain that O.E. is not a Russian troll, or any other sort of troll. They have been writing in for 5 years or so, and have sent dozens of messages, most of which have nothing to do with Russia or anything of interest to that nation and its leader. Further, Russian trolls (especially the ones working today) do not speak English especially well, and there are usually telltale signs of their chicanery (improper use of articles, for example).
J.E. in San Jose, CA, asks: I appreciate your continued and repeated offer to hear from underrepresented groups on the site, most recently "the Palestinian/Arab perspective."
Cynically, I wonder if someone could write a fake perspective on these actions. How do you vet such letters to determine they are genuine? If I wanted to put one over on you, I would spend a lot of time crafting the misinformation just right, for the purpose of misleading the readership.(V) & (Z) answer: We might get fooled, but not very often. First, we are trained academics, and are pretty good at reading critically and identifying people who are full of it. Second, as we allude to in the previous answer, we have a full archive of the messages a person has previously sent us (for example, you've checked in with us 180 times, the first coming on June 6, 2020). That often gives us a basis for judging how legitimate a correspondent is.
S.K. in Sunnyvale, CA, asks: Apropos of the recent discussion on contributor e-mail forwarding, I was curious: Do you have any distinct readers/contributors with the same initials and city?
(V) & (Z) answer: It happens occasionally, with common initial combinations (M.M., J.S., J.M., etc.), usually in really big cities (most obviously New York City). But it doesn't happen that much.
M.D. in San Tan Valley, AZ, asks: I've been a fan of your website for the past 20 years. I actually like the fact that you post a few "complaints" from the Sunday mailbag that show not everyone is a fan of your website and analysis. My question is, since Trump made the journey down the escalator to now, do you have a percentage of how much the "complaints" have increased since then compared to previous elections you've covered before 2016?
(V) & (Z) answer: Well, we didn't make our mailboxes public until Trumpism was in full swing, so we don't really have a great basis for comparison.
What we can tell you, such as it is, is that Trumpy trolls are a pretty small minority. And, in general, if we do not feed them (by responding to them), they go away pretty quickly. There are a few Trumpy folks who make a point of checking in with obnoxious messages on a regular basis (one fellow is on a roughly 2-month cycle), but they are rare.
That said, we'll probably have one of those in the complaints department tomorrow.
A.Q. in Ithaca, NY, asks: I'm probably misunderstanding something, but at the top of your main page, next to the electoral vote projections for Harris and Trump, you have numbers for the Senate, 50 for each party. Do I gather correctly that is the current makeup of the Senate, not your projections for November?
(V) & (Z) answer: First of all, the Senate is currently 51 Democrats and independents, 49 Republicans. Second, that is indeed our projection. If you click on the "Click for Senate" link, you will see that we have Montana and West Virginia flipping to the Republicans, but Dan Osborn (I) winning in Nebraska. And 51-2+1 = 50. Of course, it is not certain Osborn would caucus with the Democrats, but he is a union leader and Republicans don't like unions very much. The price he might try to extract for his vote would probably be acceptable to the Democrats but not the Republicans.
D.D. in Carversville, PA, asks: Since you mentioned that only one of you can watch Fox live because of your respective geographic locations, I wanted to ask how each of you watch election results and major political events. Do each of you have multiple screens/televisions, or are you channel rotaters? Do you ever supplement that by concurrently reading a live blog (for example, The New York Times)?
(V) & (Z) answer: We are mostly channel rotaters. And while we do follow a few liveblogs, we mostly pay attention to the actual results being reported. We also usually have help from a couple of West Coast readers. (V) can get CNN and of course all the Websites, including ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, Fox, NYT, WaPo, AP, and more. He has a 32" monitor with many virtual desktops and dozens of windows open to all the major media outlets.
P.L. in Los Angeles, CA, asks: Would you be willing to publish your personal predictions for the outcomes of the presidential and congressional elections? In other words, do your expectations differ from that of your polling aggregate?
(V) & (Z) answer: We did this in 2020, on the day of the election, and we will presumably do it again this year.