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cover of episode The Presidential Election Has Become An Unpopularity Contest

The Presidential Election Has Become An Unpopularity Contest

2024/4/1
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FiveThirtyEight Politics

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Galen Druk
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Jeffrey Skelly
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Kayleigh Rogers
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Nathaniel Rakich
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Galen Druk:根据FiveThirtyEight的分析,2024年总统大选的候选人是自1970年代民调开始以来第二不受欢迎的组合,仅次于2016年的特朗普和希拉里。这引发了人们对今年第三党候选人投票率是否会上升的讨论。 Nathaniel Rakich:目前特朗普和拜登的净好感度分别为-10和-15,加起来平均为-12,是历史上第二低的。这反映了美国民众普遍对政治现状的不满。 Kayleigh Rogers:虽然历史上第三党候选人的得票率通常不高,但今年罗伯特·肯尼迪三世的高知名度和资金优势可能会改变这一局面。他的民调支持率可能被高估,但仍有可能获得6%甚至更高的得票率。 Jeffrey Skelly:虽然罗伯特·肯尼迪三世目前只在一个州的选票上,但他很可能最终出现在所有州的选票上。自由意志党目前在38个州的选票上,是所有第三党中进展最快的。 Galen Druk:2016年第三党候选人获得6%的选票,是自罗斯·佩罗以来最高的。今年是否会再次出现类似情况,以及这是否会影响大选结果,值得关注。

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Anyone doing anything for the eclipse? Yeah. One week from today? Oh, yeah. It was supposed to be no cloud cover at all next Monday, and it just updated. I'm in the zero to 20 right now. I'm like, I hope it stays that way. Please stay that way. I'm in 20 to 40. So if after Labor Day is when we're supposed to look at head-to-head election polling, after what point are we supposed to look at weather for the eclipse?

I would say within three days. Yeah, I mean, it gets more accurate the closer you get, obviously. Oh, OK. Thanks, Nathaniel. Good hashtag analysis. Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast. I'm Galen Druk. According to a FiveThirtyEight analysis, the current presidential candidates are the second least popular duo to run for president since pollsters started asking about presidential favorability in the 1970s.

The least popular ever were Trump and Clinton in 2016. And that year, third party candidates received 6% of the vote, the highest percentage since Ross Perot. So should we expect a similar third party vote this year?

And of the third party options, who is actually gaining ballot access, which is, of course, the baseline for even being able to receive votes. We're going to talk about it. We are also going to take a look at how the parties are positioning themselves on the issue of abortion heading into the general elections.

The legality of the abortion medication Mifepristone was challenged at the Supreme Court last week, an effort supported by Republicans. But according to one recent poll, a slim majority of Republican voters actually support the use of the medication.

And the census is changing. For the first time in 27 years, the government is adding a category to the survey, Middle Eastern and North African. And race and ethnicity categories are going to be combined. So is this a good or bad use of survey design? Here with me to discuss it all is senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich. Welcome to the podcast, Nathaniel. Hey, Galen. Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure. Also here with us is politics reporter Kayleigh Rogers. Welcome to the podcast, Kayleigh. Hi, Galen.

Hey, and also with us is senior elections analyst Jeffrey Skelly. Hey, Jeff. Good morning, Galen. So before we dive into everything I just discussed, I actually have a surprise game of Guess What Americans Think, which I have not told you all about. So get ready, grab a piece of paper and a pen while I introduce the segment.

In January, passengers on an Alaska Airlines flight were shocked when a side panel of their Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet blew off, opening a gaping hole that sucked out phones and other items into the troposphere.

Galen, this is not good for my flight anxiety. This entire segment is bad for me, man. Can I just say, I'm taking Alaska Airlines in a couple of weeks, so thanks, Galen. Oh, I would never fly a MAX. You gotta check the plane. Buckle in, y'all. Buckle in, y'all. This is exactly what this segment is about. Great. Since then, Boeing has faced...

Increased scrutiny. A six-week audit by the Federal Aviation Administration found, quote, multiple instances of quality control failures by Boeing and one of its suppliers. Current and former Boeing employees have blamed the company's desire to make planes more quickly.

So, has coverage of Boeing's safety failures changed the way that Americans feel about flying? To answer that, we're going to turn to guess what Americans think. So, here we go. Here's the first question. According to a March YouGov survey, what percentage of Americans say they are either afraid or at least bothered by flying?

And to just clarify, because I know you love to clarify survey design here. We do. The potential options that respondents could pick from are, how do you feel about flying? Afraid of it? Bothers you slightly? Don't know? Not at all afraid? And so for this metric, I'm asking you the combination of afraid of it and bothers you. All right. Three, two, one. Reveal.

36%. 47%. 63%. Jeffrey's got it. It is 50% of Americans say that they are at least bothered by flying, and that breaks down to 20% who say afraid of it, and 30% who say bothered by it. And 44% of Americans say they are not at all afraid. 6% don't know. Perhaps these are people who don't fly.

All right, that's what people say now. The next question is, what did folks say to the same question back in January before this FAA investigation? What was the, sorry, was it exactly 50%? Exactly 50% now.

All right. Three, two, one, reveal. 50%. 41. 47% again is my guess. I said the exact same thing. Oh, people are trying to be like coy here. They think I'm really just messing with them. Like it hasn't changed at all. Okay. Well, no.

41 is a change. Well, Kaylee's the only one who changed. Nathaniel guessed the same number. Okay, Jeffrey also guessed the same number. My guess is the same as my previous guess. I see. The points go to the more earnest response, which is Kaylee. 42% said back in January that they were afraid. You guessed 41%. All right, so folks...

We're not actually going to play an entire game of Guess What Americans Think. Thank you for playing along, Jeffrey, Kaylee, you tied. I'm sorry, Nathaniel, your trophy is not in the mail. But here's my question. An eight-point shift, percentage point shift, from January to March on the question of how Americans feel about flying. And I told you the breakdown before. So in terms of straight-up afraid of it, back in January, 14% versus 20% now bothers you slightly. It was 28% versus 11%.

30% now. So overall, an eight-point shift. Where would you categorize this on the spectrum between noise and meaningful change in how Americans feel about flying?

Well, what was the margin of error? It's usually like three something, I think, in YouGov polls. That seems like a significant shift. I mean, well, it's not like huge in terms of magnitude, but it seems like it's statistically significant. And that doesn't surprise me. You know, that was something that was in the news for a bit. And, you know, it doesn't surprise me that there were a few people who maybe it tipped over the edge, but the overall...

kind of feel of the overall picture of Americans' views on flying hasn't significantly changed. But yeah, that sounds about right to me. I'd be curious to see how resilient this is, if it's just like a reaction to this new cycle and then goes back to the norm. It sounds just in that break that it might

Most of the movement was from people who were already uncomfortable with flying and now they report that they actually are fearful, which again isn't that surprising. You're already uncomfortable and then you read these new stories about like sometimes the door falls off and you might be a little more scared.

Yeah, to Kaylee's point, I think that's exactly it. Is there like a shock to public opinion that slightly has raised fears about flying? But will that just diminish and it will go sort of back to where it was, like revert to the mean in a few months if there are no further stories, no further –

incidents and people just sort of return to the norm. Yes, that is a great point. And in fact, I have data to back up that suggestion. So this question has been asked going back at least 40 years, and we see two significant changes in this data. 9-11. So actually, that is not one of them, according to this data, at least. Really?

There was already an uptick in people afraid of flying, according to this data, and maybe they don't ask it frequently enough to really catch 9-11. But one of the biggest changes is actually in 1996 when a TWA flight crashed off the coast of Long Island, killing all 230 people on board. So we see a significant shift there that endures for a while, and it's only after 9-11 that...

We see that dissipate. We see another uptick in the number of people afraid or at least bothered by the idea of flying in March 2015. Is it that the flight, the Asian air flight that disappeared? So these happen around similar times. I think the Malaysian flight happened in 2014, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah.

That had endless coverage. Also, though, this 2015 flight, the Germanwings flight that was caused by a copilot deliberately flying the plane into a mountainside. And that led to a 30-year low in the number of Americans who said they were not afraid to fly at all. But then it had reverted back up to most people not being afraid of flying before this. Yeah.

Hey, it remains the safest way to travel long distances. And I'd like to tell my lizard brain that. I do think that's interesting because like, right, like in my lifetime, I feel like there have been kind of distinct eras of this. Like there was this time, I feel like in like the late 90s, early 2000s, right, when plane disasters felt...

Not common, but like they were in the news, right? There was TWA. I think there was like a Concorde crash in like 2000 or something like that. There was obviously 9-11. And there were things that kind of dominated the news when they happened. But we're currently in the middle of like this like unprecedented streak of air safety. Like there hasn't been a fatality in commercial like airlining in the U.S. since 2009, which is a remarkable success story and should be.

I'm knocking on wood. Yeah, right. But like should be noted, I think. And it is interesting to see how public opinion does and doesn't kind of match the statistics kind of in a way that's like similar to like other things like, you know, perception of the economy or like crime or something like that. Yeah, for sure. I'll say I use...

I used to be afraid of flying and I'm not anymore. And this, I was not afraid of flying, then I became afraid of flying for most of my 20s, and now I'm not afraid of flying anymore. And news events don't actually change that. I think it's just sort of all around perceptive because, you know, we all know that when it comes to a rational perspective, you're more likely to die on your way to the airport than you are in flight.

But sometimes it's hard to force those statistics to override the anxiety that's in your brain. That's not how the amygdala works. No, no, it's not. I for sure I was good until I was about 30.

Like never bothered by flying. And then I got real, I've been very, very since then. Time to pour some glasses of wine. Pop some pills is really the trick. Take an edible. Yeah. Oh, I don't know how that would go. That's going to be, that's going to be a repeat of bridesmaids. Jeffrey's going to see an Amish woman on the wing of the plane. But with that folks, let's move on to good or bad use of survey design.

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Last Thursday, the Office for Management and Budget updated the way the U.S. Census collects information on race and ethnicity. Now, questions about race and ethnicity will be combined into one question where respondents can select all that apply instead of just one category. And Middle Eastern and North African descent will be added as an option. Previously, critics have taken issue with how both people of Middle Eastern descent and Hispanics are recorded in the census.

People of Middle Eastern descent were instructed to mark themselves as white, and in the 2020 census, about 43% of Hispanics did not report their race or classified themselves as some other race because Hispanic has been included as an ethnicity and not as a race.

These changes could result in some significant shifts in our census data and trickle-down effects in areas like legislative redistricting or health and socioeconomic statistics. And here, of course, at FiveThirtyEight, we use census data often, so these changes will impact our work, too. So for starters, Kaylee, let's begin with you. Is this a good or bad use of survey design?

It's net positive. There's going to be things you lose and things that are more complicated because of it. But I think overall, this is a better step than the design that we had previously in not having that ethnicity broken out as a separate section, having that option to put your sort of race and ethnicity all kind of together and check as many boxes as are appropriate for the individual, I think is going to get more precise data. Like you were saying, you just quoted that huge

group of Hispanic and Latino Americans who just were like other, you know, that's not useful data. That's not helpful to have them kind of invisible in that way. And so that will be helpful. There are obviously complications with it. I know that, you know, there was some concerns around, you

People of different races who are Hispanic, Afro-Latinos, people like that who maybe won't know which box to pick or will only choose one and not the other. And that could make it unclear some of the breakdown there. And there's also some questions around the Middle Eastern, North African category as well as who identifies as that, who it's going to include and who it won't.

But I think overall, this is an improvement. And yeah, it's always tricky with race and ethnicity data. So much of it is so personal and subjective in a way. It's sort of how you identify and how you feel connected to a certain culture or a certain place. It's never going to be that easy to get it accurate. I think that this is an improvement overall. And it's one that a lot of people have been asking for.

I totally agree. Kind of like Kaylee said, this has been something that advocates have been pushing for, I think, particularly on the kind of MENA category. MENA is Middle Eastern, North African. I'm sorry. Yeah. Middle Eastern and North African. Those people were told basically, like, you know, say that you're white and

Obviously for a lot of those people, I don't think that accurately captures their, you know, the way they think of themselves. And I think that a lot of advocates on that side are happy with it, which is good. And yeah, also for Hispanics and Latinos, like I think it's always been confusing to the lay person that that has been separate as kind of evidence

by that large share of Latinos themselves who initially checked, yes, I'm Latino, and then went on and saw a race category and probably a lot of whom said, wait, didn't I already answer this? I consider my race to be Latino. So that reflects the fact that a lot of Americans, if not a majority, think of Hispanic identity as more of a race than an ethnicity. So yeah, overall, I think a good change.

Right. I think that's a little bit of the complication here, which is that if you use and understand these categories appropriately, they can make a lot of sense and they can help the way that it was before could actually give you more detailed information. So if somebody identifies as black and then checks Hispanic or if somebody identifies as white and then checks Hispanic, they can be telling you something detailed about who they are.

For example, in Latin America, there are a lot of people who are largely Caucasian and are descended of Spaniards or Portuguese or whatever, but they are also Hispanic because of the culture that they come from, the ethnicity, etc. So now you're kind of telling these people, like, your race is also Hispanic, even if this person may be ostensibly white or ostensibly Black.

So that data gets a little complicated, but I think most people didn't understand the census to work that way, evidenced by the 43% of Hispanics who just said other or don't know anyway. So I think if you understood it, it worked. If you don't understand it, it doesn't work.

Right, exactly. And I think that the concern among certain Afro-Latino advocates is that basically the way it was before is that the census kind of gave an extra nudge to Latinos in particular to give more information about themselves, to check multiple boxes. And now they're kind of on more of an even footing with everybody else. And they can still check multiple boxes. And so I think a lot of this will come down to kind of...

educational efforts that go around the census and, you know, making sure people understand that they can check multiple boxes and hopefully do if that is kind of an accurate reflection of their race. But I understand the kind of number of Afro-Latinos will probably appear to decrease between the 2020 and 2030 censuses. And I think

Something that people will need to bear in mind, you know, checking my watch here seven years from now when the data comes out. Like, you know, so everybody just, you know, set a reminder is to just remember that changes in measurement design can impact these numbers as well. And you don't it's not necessarily going to be an apples to apples comparison. Well, that's the other key thing, Jeffrey, that I want to ask you about, which is the downside to making these changes and to making changes to any model.

survey questions that you've been asking over a long period of time is that it makes it a lot harder to compare new data to old data. So what sticks out as potential challenges there?

Well, as you said, like anytime you change categories in terms of what options exist, it does complicate at least to some extent comparing historical data. For instance, if you're trying to understand how Latinos think of themselves in like racial terms or what have you.

The 2030 data and the 2020 data will come with a lot of caveats, like trying to compare those numbers. That's just like a small example. However, I would say that this has been true of the census basically throughout its entire history. Like census questions and racial categories have changed repeatedly in an effort to more accurately gauge and sometimes other certain people as a part of, you know,

a country that has had quite a lot of racism in terms of how we try to understand people and who they are and try to categorize people, but in order to other segments of the population. So in terms of the language that's used, the categorizations that have been used, we had a great piece on this actually back in 2021 by Jasmine Mathani and Alex Samuels that covered how censuses' racial categories have changed over time.

It's sort of a cultural history in and of itself. Yeah, exactly. I mean, precisely. And the kind of changes that have been made have been – in more recent years have been made with more of an idea of let's really try to get like a more accurate picture. For instance, they – in 2000, they used to categorize –

Asian American and Hawaiian like together. And then they were like, okay, well, let's separate those. So that's why you have Hawaiian and Pacific Islander as a separate category now from Asian American. So I, you know, I feel like today the goal is definitely to try to get a more accurate picture of,

In ye olden days, and not even that far in the past, it wasn't always with that objective in mind. So I actually do think this is a good use of survey design because it is trying to get a more accurate picture of how people actually identify themselves.

Right. And you can end up with kind of unexpected consequences. So like in 2020, when they changed the design around race and ethnicity, they basically were like, check whatever boxes you want and also add in more detail. So if you click, you know, check white,

But your background is, you know, Scottish, German and French, like add those in as well. And one of the weird things that happened or unexpected things that happened was the number of Americans who identified as Cherokee like shot up a crazy amount because a lot of

I mean, a lot of them were like white people who added Cherokee as like, you know, one of six identities because they believe that they have some kind of lineage there. And then that was taken by the census and like added to the Native American category. And so there's things that, you know, that I don't know that that was expected when making that design change choice.

I think an effort to get as detailed or representative information about the American public as you can find is great. And of course, how we categorize ourselves changes as the culture changes as well. Like these changes today may in 20 years from now be seen as retrograde and a weird understanding of ourselves and mashing together race and ethnicity, while it may seem appropriate today based on people's understanding, may seem inappropriate.

ill-advised years from now because those two things are actually different. But, you know, one thing that I think about now in terms of how this

perhaps good use of survey design could be turned into a bad use of data is when the survey comes out, I think people are going to compare the results to 2020 and make big claims about how America has changed in the intervening 10 years that aren't properly caveated. And so I think one of the things that will change is because now people of Middle Eastern or North African descent are no longer identifying or told to identify as white,

or because you can check as many as apply, you will see the number of people who identify as strictly white decline significantly between 2020 and 2030. And whether you're on like the right or left part of the political spectrum, that means something to people in a partisan sense about who we are as Americans and how the country is changing. And people will probably make a lot more of that shift than is appropriate based on how the country has changed

in pure demographic terms versus how we've changed and in the way that we identify. Does that make sense? It does, but I have more faith than you do. You have more faith in the media in terms of how they're going to report on the census? Kayleigh, where were you in 2020? Fair enough.

I mean, I think that probably most reputable news outlets will note the methodological change, but, you know, it might happen in the sixth paragraph and probably a lot of people aren't going to read that and they're just going to see the headlines. And it's just, you know, by then we're all going to be getting our news through TikToks directly implanted in our brains. So, you know, a lot of the nuance could get lost. We're just going to learn about it through a new dance, right? But yeah, no, I think that's a really interesting point, Galen. But I also think that at the end of the day,

I believe and obviously like the census folks believe like this is ultimately going to produce a more accurate picture of the nation. So as we stand as the nation stands right now, it is probably less white than we currently kind of believe it to be based on the way the census has been designed in the past. So.

We also use census data, not we ourselves, but the government uses census data to draw districts. Do you think this will change sort of how districts are drawn in the sense that minority opportunity districts are still required under the Voting Rights Act in terms of maybe folks will say, hey, we've got a district out in Los Angeles that is 50%.

40% Asian and it's 15% Middle Eastern, North African, whatever, like we deserve our own sort of minority opportunity district where there may not have been the numbers before to make that claim.

I mean, obviously, we're going to get the data and we'll see. But I think that Middle Eastern and North African people of that descent, there just aren't very many of them in the U.S. So I don't think that the numbers will shift that much. You're not going to see a district that is going to be MENA opportunity, right? Because they don't have that kind of concentration anywhere, at least on the congressional district level. Because, I mean, to put this in context of the conversations that we've been having, the

Michigan has the highest percentage of at least Arab Americans. It's 2%, and that's 200,000 Arab Americans. A congressional district is about 700,000 people, so you can do the math. Most kind of Voting Rights Act districts are Black. There are some that are Latino. I think that those numbers could shift in smaller ways, but I think that true population growth will probably be more significant than the kind of measurement changes with those populations.

All right. So good use of survey design certified by the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast with caveats and complications. And make sure you get the data reporting right. Seven years from now, folks will be on you. But anyway, let's move on and talk about how the parties are positioning themselves on abortion.

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Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding whether or not to limit access to mifepristone, an abortion medication that, according to Guttmacher Institute research, was used in more than 60% of U.S. abortions last year. Mifepristone was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000, and in 2021, U.S. regulators made it possible to obtain the prescription through the mail.

On Tuesday, the plaintiffs' Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine argued that the FDA unlawfully relaxed restrictions on mifepristone to make it easier to end a pregnancy and that mailing medication violates the Comstock Act.

The 1873 Comstock Act states that it's illegal to use carriers such as the United States Postal Service to mail, quote, obscene materials. These obscene items at the time were defined as contraceptives, substances that induce abortion, pornographic content, sex toys, and any written material about these items. So be careful. Although I should say here that plenty of aspects of the Comstock Act were found unconstitutional. So if you want to keep writing letters,

to your lovers across state lines, go for it. Although I should stipulate that I'm not an attorney. Anyway, is it clear from the oral arguments? And I know that it's never clear, but did we get a sense of whether it seems like Mipha Pristone is going to be limited as a result of this Supreme Court case? Kayleigh?

The coverage that I've seen suggests no, but it kind of has more to do with the merits of the case itself and whether or not these doctors who refuse to even provide the service are somehow being harmed by other people providing the service. I think it also would be kind of out of line with the Supreme Court's perspective.

rulings kind of kicking things back to the state to take this kind of overarching approach. It's just, it's a really strange sort of lawsuit that's different than the, you know, something like Dobbs in that it's like focusing on the FDA and whether it had the right to approve this medication, how risky it is and whether that causes harm. Like those are all like not super great arguments because there's lots of drugs that have some harm and like Viagra is like much more dangerous than the abortion pill, for example, as far as like

risk of death and other complications. So... Gotta get Viagra to the Supreme Court. All rise. We are not attorneys here, but it did seem like the takeaway from the hearings were that

unlikely that the Supreme Court is going to wade in here. Does anyone feel differently? I don't know. I'm old enough to remember when people read a bunch into the oral arguments and were like, oh, a certain justice is leaning this way. And then it turned out to not be that way. But I do think that these days, like the Supreme Court has basically become a partisan institution where their views are very clear. And I

And this would be, to be clear, like, this would be another, I think, I'm not sure it would be on the level of Dobbs, but it would be a really massive decision if they decided to side with the kind of conservative side on this, because even in states where abortion is legal, suddenly a bunch, it would be a lot harder for a lot of women to get abortions since medication abortions are a large proportion of the abortions that happen. So I think that

I'm sure there is an understanding among folks like John Roberts that this would be a very unpopular decision, as I think we'll mention some polling in a bit, and that it would be kind of another blow to the Supreme Court's Democratic credibility. And so I think that would probably stay the hands of some of the more pragmatic-minded conservatives, in addition to the fact that kind of they seemed illegally skeptical of it at the arguments. Yeah.

Part of the problem, too, is that if they took the most extreme kind of response to this and, you know, so that the FDA didn't have, shouldn't have approved it at all, that would impact not only states where abortion is legal, but also the use of this drug for like miscarriage, for example, when you have a miscarriage, sometimes not everything passes and you need to have basically a medical abortion, but there's no living tissue inside. Right.

That would remove that access as well, which is, I don't think any even...

Pro-life people are asking for that, as far as I know. And it would also presumably make every medication approved by the FDA vulnerable. I mean, again, let's move on to the politics because we are not legal experts in this category. So when it comes to how Americans feel about this, according to a recent Axios Ipsos poll, 72% of Americans support access to abortion medication from one's doctor or clinics.

Notably fewer, so 50% of Americans approve of the medication being mailed.

And I'll add here, looking at the crosstops of just Republicans, 51% of Republicans support women obtaining the pills needed for a medication abortion from their doctor or clinic. That's the language in the poll, compared to 23% who support women receiving it through the mail. So there's overwhelming support for this medication, significantly less support for the medication being sent through the mail, but still a bare majority, or 50%. And then some don't know and some don't support.

At the same time, though, there are a good number of Republicans, according to ABC News, 26 senators and 119 Republican representatives who support the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine in their Supreme Court case. So is it fair to say that the Republican Party's position is that Mifepristone should not be used or what? Like where where are Republicans positioning themselves on this? This potentially quite unpopular position of opposing it.

I mean, isn't this just another example of the confused positioning that they've generally had on abortion ever since Dobbs, where you will have Republican politicians sort of bouncing around from how they want to phrase their opposition to abortion and just how general that opposition is?

Clearly, there are many Republicans who just generally oppose abortion in all circumstances, and the fact that you could have basically half the Republican caucus signed on to that in regards to medical abortion pills is telling, I think. But at the same time, if you're thinking about just the politics of it, this has been an issue where they've been flat-footed ever since the Dobbs decision. And now every time they try to shift –

They've been struggling to find sort of the right arguments. And, you know, you can even see this at the presidential level with Donald Trump trying to, you know, in private saying, what, 15, 16 weeks is where he's trying to land because he knows this is like a really tough issue now for the GOP because it's been – he basically opened Pandora's box on this issue. And so trying to nail down after, you know, having decades of sort of a –

how things worked, responding to this new reality has continued to be sort of in flux, I guess. Generally speaking, Trump, as the presumptive Republican nominee for president, doesn't want to talk about this because it's an issue where voters say that they trust Joe Biden versus him. And that's not necessarily the case on a lot of issues, right? So the more that abortion is sort of front and center, the better it is almost certainly for Democrats and Biden.

Yeah, I feel like that's really where the Republicans are positioning themselves in this election is like not wanting to talk about it at all if they can avoid it, especially, I mean, the medication abortion is just like a non-starter when you have even a majority of Republicans saying that they're in favor of it. And I think that dip that you see with

through the mail is just like an informational gap where people maybe don't understand that you're still get, you still have to have a prescription and see your doctor. You can't just like go on Amazon and order some abortion pills and take them. It's still a medical process. It may also be people reacting to

the understanding that if you can mail it across state lines, then you can access abortion more easily in a state where it's not actually allowed or under circumstances that wouldn't otherwise be allowed. Right. So people might feel like, oh, you know, if you can mail it, you can get around regulations that states may be imposing, particularly if Republicans position is that this is a state's rights issue. Sure, sure.

I still think that there's an information gap there. And I also think that part of the reason why this is so unpopular is because you can't use the abortion pill past a certain number of weeks, so it depends on the doctor and the pregnancy and everything. But these are for those very early stage abortions that many more Americans are okay with versus later stage abortions in second and third trimester. And so this is like,

The one area where it's the hardest to make that argument and have people be on the same side. And even in states where they're passing bans, a lot of the times the bans are after a certain number of weeks where medication abortion would still be legal in those states.

To Kayleigh's point, you know, we love our friends at Ipsos, but I think this may have been a bit of a bad use of polling. So the exact wording of these questions, which were asked back to back, was, based on what you may know or feel, how much do you support or oppose the following? First, women obtaining the pills needed for a medication abortion through the mail. So this is the one that Republicans opposed and was evenly split among everybody. Then,

women obtaining the pills needed for a medication abortion from their doctor slash a clinic. And this is the one that had strong support. And I think in reality, it's both those things, right? It's women obtaining the pills needed for medication abortion from their doctor or clinic

mailing it to them, right? Basically, or like telling somebody to mail it to them. And so, but I think the way that this was presented as back-to-back questions using similar wording, but then with different endings, suggests that these ideas are in opposition when in fact they aren't. So I wonder if each of those numbers is like maybe like an average, I mean, I don't think you can literally just average it and call it a day, but like the true public sentiment on this issue may be somewhere in between those two numbers. Yeah.

And maybe then the number that we want to look at that's cleared a little bit from the complications of the survey design is that this exact same poll found that 65% of Republicans support a federal ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy and 74% of Republicans support a federal ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for rape, incest, and life-threatening emergencies. Which is to say that 75% of Republicans seem to also accept

abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy, which is significant in terms of how this debate has been framed up until now. Yeah, that's, of course, the challenge for the GOP is that there's a substantial portion of the base that would like to see abortion illegal basically in all circumstances, or nearly all circumstances. And we actually see this. I

was looking at some polling from fox news the wording is slightly different on this but for instance about a year ago in an april poll from them 54 i think it was supported abortion at 15 weeks overall and of that two-thirds of republicans favored a ban in their states at 15 weeks but now today that number who favoring it has fallen to 43 percent as of this month

With about 60% of Republicans saying that. So there's been a decline in support for banning at that 15-week mark and also the six-week mark. Because in that polling, they also asked about six weeks, where it went from 44% favoring it to now 38% favoring it. So I think it's just like, as people have become more

sort of informed and aware of this issue as it's become a topic that is top of mind when people talk about politics in a way where it used to be about should Roe v. Wade stand up. Now it's like, well, where exactly is the line for all this, for abortion being legal or not, and the state-to-state variation, and whether there should be a federal ban has forced people maybe to pay more attention to the specifics of all this.

And I think also a little bit of what we're capturing here are the challenges of...

specific policy polling and then applying that to electoral outcomes or something like that. So if you look at the policy polling, you could easily come to the conclusion that a majority of Americans support abortion in the first trimester and a minority of Americans only support it after the first trimester. And that has been true for a pretty long time if you try to sort of

find where that marker should be. And of course, Democrats' stated position here, or what they've been campaigning on so far, is reinstating Roe, ensure that abortion is legal until fetal viability, which is around 24 weeks. But when you try to apply that information to...

electoral outcomes or a position that might be popular for the Republican Party to take, it doesn't really translate. And I think that's in large part because the vibes are bad. Americans don't trust Republicans on the issue of abortion. So no matter what they're saying, almost, if it includes ban, if it includes a certain number of weeks or whatever, people just don't trust the party. Whereas there are other issues on which Americans don't trust the Democratic Party. But on this specific issue, it almost is

is like for Donald Trump to be like finding the correct week for a national ban, maybe misunderstands how Americans view the debate altogether. I think that's right. You know, Dobbs has caused a lot of people who maybe didn't have a strong feeling about abortion to reflect on it more seriously and report in polling that it's having more of an impact on their considerations for abortion.

voting for president. I think that that's just like a shift that the GOP maybe didn't anticipate or, you know, is trying to grapple with now. All right. Well, let's wrap up with our final segment on the unpopularity of presidential candidates. So as I mentioned at the top,

Trump and Biden, that duo, this election, is only outdone by the Trump-Clinton matchup in 2016 for being unpopular. And in basically every other election besides those two, at least one of the candidates has been above water with the public. So popular in net terms. And at times even unpopular.

both candidates have been popular, like in 2008 and 2000, when I guess Americans looked at their option and said, fantastic, I'll take both.

Also, this is an analysis that Nathaniel Rakechew just published. And the question here is also, will this lead to more third party votes? And Jeffrey, you have recently done an analysis of where third party candidates are actually gaining access to the ballot. So let's start with the unpopularity factor. Nathaniel, I've described it in broad terms. Can you put some numbers to where we are in terms of how unpopular these candidates are?

Yeah. So right now, Donald Trump's net favorability rating is negative 10 points and Joe Biden's is negative 15 points. And so together, if you average those together, it's negative 12 points because of rounding. And that is, as you mentioned, the second lowest in history as of I should state this as

For past candidates, this is based on their favorability ratings just before the election. So obviously, Trump or Biden could become more popular between now and November. Things could change. They could both become really popular. Yeah, not betting on that outcome, but it's possible. But yes, if nothing changes, they would rank second to Clinton and Trump in 2016, who were Trump was at negative 25 and Clinton was at negative 12 that year.

I don't think this is going to surprise anybody. We are in this era of particularly unpopular presidential candidates. And in fact, you've seen just kind of like a shift overall kind of since kind of the Trump era. And I think it's an open question as to whether this is because of Trump himself or because of the era that we're in and whether this is going to be kind of a permanent feature going forward or whether we're just...

you know, in this time when people are generally dissatisfied with the country and maybe with Trump personally. But you have this situation where until 2016, no presidential candidate was double digits underwater right before the election in terms of favorability. But now in 2016, both candidates were in 2020. Trump was right now. It looks like maybe both of them will be again. So Americans just seem really kind of down on their candidates, which makes sense given that they're, you know,

Lots of people say the country's on the wrong track. There's a lot of dissatisfaction in general with the way things are going. So I thought that was interesting.

I mentioned that in 2016, 6% of Americans cast a third-party ballot at the top of the ticket. Not particularly high by historical standards, but also high enough to make a difference in a close election. Should we expect a lot of third-party votes as a result of this matchup again, or low turnout for that matter?

The turnout question is interesting. I didn't look at that. Maybe I should have. Come on, Nathaniel. Yeah, sorry. We'll come back to it later. Okay. I should say, actually, that historically that 6% was high. I think in absolute terms, it's not high. And that just reflects the fact that the two-party system in the U.S. is dominant. And even in a year when both presidential candidates are extremely disliked and third-party candidates do unusually well, the best they can muster is 6%.

And I wouldn't be surprised if something like 6% happens again this year. I think that a lot of people, obviously, you look at polls these days and you see RFK Jr. in the teens and people are like, ooh. But you have to remember, as Kayleigh has written, third-party candidates almost always decline in the polls as we get closer to the election, as people kind of realize, oh, this isn't the best use of my vote. I should vote for one of the people who actually has a chance of winning.

something that is relatively high compared to like the you know 2020 2012 2008 environment in terms of third party vote share i think we should be expecting that but i don't think anybody should be expecting like a double digit performance the way that the current polls are saying one of the patterns you see with these third party votes when you track it through history is like when there's an election where it does kind of creep up a little bit to that like six percent or eight percent

Typically, with kind of the exception of Perot, by the next election that drops down again because people are sort of like, oh, shoot, like maybe my third party vote meant my like second choice or the, you know, the candidate who lost didn't win or there was some kind of vote splitting there.

And so they sort of doubled down on voting for one of the two major parties in the following election. Now we're sort of two elections out from that change. So it could kind of like bump back up, especially with all the dissatisfaction. But as I was saying, it's really not that uncommon for third-party candidates to be getting low double-digit support this early in the election cycle. A lot of that is just people kind of expressing their frustration and then...

When it gets closer to November, you know, they end up coming home because they start to get nervous about, you know, their least preferred candidate actually winning. And, you know, with this election, 2016 was worse. But, you know, the amount of people who are like these double haters or people who dislike both candidates is insane.

you know, higher than it has been in some years. But even when you drill down among those voters and ask them who they would vote for, they usually pick Trump or Biden. Like there's, I think maybe like about a third of them say I would pick a third party candidate. And that's of the minority who already say they don't like either candidate. Most Americans prefer one or the other, even if the, you know, overall sentiment is that they're not doing so well.

Kaylee, a significant difference this year compared with 2016 as well is that there is a third-party option with high name recognition. God bless Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, but people just didn't know who they were in 2016. And so do you think that that changes the equation at all? That is a bit of a more of an X factor with the name recognition, but I don't know, like Johnson didn't do too bad, I think.

by historical standards in 2016. So I don't know. I think maybe it would have a minor impact, but it's hard for me to imagine that that's going to be, you know, like a 92 or a 96 kind of situation. I don't think. Yeah, I sort of have two thoughts with Robert Kennedy Jr. On the one hand, I think his polling numbers right now are particularly inflated because his last name is Kennedy. And there is a significant chunk of the electorate, particularly people who aren't very engaged, who are independent, who...

answer him as their choice because they've heard that name and they don't like – they're not excited about a Biden-Trump rematch or even very unhappy about it and don't like either candidate. So I think Kennedy, because of his name recognition, is perhaps even more likely to sort of have that inflation. At the same time,

He's also raising more money than most third-party or independent candidates have. He's already raised more than twice as much as Gary Johnson did in the 2016 cycle, and he just picked a vice presidential candidate who has a lot of personal wealth if she's willing to throw a lot of that at the campaign.

that he will have more means to try to get his message out. Now, I'm not necessarily sure that message is going to be one that a whole lot of Americans are actually receptive to by the time we get close to November. But I do think that having those means and having that name at the end of the day could make it more likely you could see him do something like win 6%, like John Anderson won 6.6% in 1980. That's sort of the bar I've been looking at for what Kennedy does. Does he reach about that? Does he finish below it?

Maybe he finishes above it, but maybe you're talking about a Perot-esque 8% or something in that case. Well, Perot 96. Perot 92 is 19%. I'm talking about Perot 96, which is probably much more realistic than a Perot 92. So Perot 96 might be RFK Jr.'s goal at the end of the day, even if it's

Right. Not anywhere close to winning. At this stage of 92, Perot was pulling better than the two major candidates. So this is a whole different scenario. Well, I don't know. On Twitter, people are telling me that RFK Jr. is going to break the duopoly. So maybe it's going to happen. I don't know.

So logistically speaking, in order for any of these candidates to get votes, whether it's the Libertarian ticket, the Green Party, RFK Jr., they actually have to be on the ballot. And Jeffrey, you've looked into how far along these candidates are in terms of getting themselves on the ballot.

So let's start with RFK Jr. because I think he's received the most attention. Where do his efforts stand and how likely does it seem that he will appear on everyone's ballot in the fall? Right. So just to remind everybody, there's 50 states and the District of Columbia. So there's 51 total ballots you could be on in the presidential race. Right now, RFK Jr. is officially on one, which is Utah. The

However, that doesn't really reflect where he'll probably be by the end, which is probably at 51 or just slightly below it. When I wrote the piece, it looked like there were seven other states where –

R.F.K. Jr., either this outside super PAC that's been supporting him was gathering signatures on his behalf or his campaign was doing it, and it looked like he was probably going to get on those state ballots. It's like New Hampshire, for instance, some swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada. Now, to exemplify the difficulties of this, the Nevada situation has actually gotten a little more difficult for R.F.K. Jr. because the secretary of state

office there was like, oh, hey, you actually needed to name your vice presidential choice on your petition papers, and you didn't do that. And the RFK Jr. campaign is like, well, we asked you, and you said we didn't have to do that. But the statute as written says you do have to do that. And the Secretary of State office is like, we're sorry that we told you the wrong thing, but the statute is what governs this, not what we told you.

So there's going to be litigation about that. To be clear, his campaign definitely still has time to get the like 10,000 some odd valid signatures you need. They have time to go back and do this over again. It would be annoying and it is expensive, but nonetheless, they could do it and fix the problem. And I think this gets back to my discussion of like the means that RFK Jr. has at his disposal are much larger than most third party campaign operations are.

And historically, candidates who are sort of the most – like a particularly notable third-party candidate like a Ross Perot in 96 or 92, a John Anderson in 1980, Gary Johnson in 2016, and even George Organson if you want to go to 2020, they got on all 51 ballots. So to me, it would seem like RFK Jr. would get on most in the end.

So are any of the candidates at risk of not making it to enough ballots, at least to say, win the presidential election? Well, of course, the only two candidates who probably have any chance of winning the election are Biden and Trump. But yes, in theory, yes.

Right now, only the libertarians have confirmed enough ballot access to, in theory, get a majority of electoral votes, 270. So they're on the ballot in like 36 states, and there's actually a couple more where they're just now – it looks like they have what they need. So basically my rough count is 38 out of 50, 51 with D.C. So they're the farthest along. No labels is at about 23 states more or less.

And the labels plan – and of course they don't have a ticket yet, so that's a bit of a challenge – but their plan has been to get on the ballot as a party organization in 32 states and then let their candidates, like whoever they back, do the legwork in the other states. And I think this is a good opportunity to tell people in most states there are two ways to get on the ballot.

Either as an independent candidate, so you gather a certain number of signatures of registered voters to meet whatever the requirement is to qualify for the ballot, or you qualify as a party organization. And so like Democrats and Republicans have that in every state because a lot of state laws are like the party with the most votes and the party with the second most votes qualify for ballot access. So convenient, right? For third parties, it then varies a whole bunch from state to state. And there are even some states where there's actually no –

to be like a recognized political party or a major party without winning a certain percentage of the vote in the most recent election.

But in a lot of states, if you just get like 2%, you could have ballot access. Like the libertarians hit that mark in a lot of states, and that's why they're so far ahead compared to other minor parties is they just have done better in more recent elections. Or maybe you need a certain share of registered voters to be registered under your party label. So those are like the ways about going about this. But if you're like a no-labels –

You've been gathering signatures in a lot of states or encouraging people to register under your party label in a number of states by a certain point, by a certain deadline, which again, varies state to state in order to hit the mark, to be a party organization and have that ballot access. All right. Well, we're going to leave things there for today. Thank you, Nathaniel, Jeff, and Kaylee. Thank you. Thank you, Galen. Thanks, Galen.

My name is Galen Druk. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Chertavian. Jayla Everett is our intern, and Jesse DiMartino is on video editing. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.