What We're Putting In Our 2024 Time Capsule
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What is everyone's favorite holiday tradition? My birthday? That's a good one. Because I'm a Christmas Eve baby. My favorite holiday tradition is also Jeffrey's birthday. Aww. What a coincidence. That's so sweet. What is the psychological toll of always being trumped by Jesus?

Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. It's holiday season here at FiveThirtyEight. Nathaniel has been busy hanging printouts of graphs on his Christmas tree. Jeffrey has been baking cookies in the shape of all of his favorite electoral districts. And myself, having grown up in a multi-faith household, I've been polishing my Fivy Fox-themed menorah and working on the side in the North Pole, calculating a rolling average of naughty and nice kids this year. To be honest, the kids have been

pretty bad. Net negative 15 on behavior for the year. Santa was not a fan of Brat Summer.

On today's show, we are going to continue with our theme from Monday of looking back at the year. If you haven't heard that episode, you should go back and listen. We created a yearbook for 2024, which spoiler was titled Good Luck, Babe. Today, we're continuing our teen exploitation kick and creating a 538 time capsule to be buried in the ground and dug up in 2074.

And, oh yeah, I almost forgot, the government is about to shut down. So we'll talk about that. Joining us to do all of that, of course, is Senior Elections Analyst Nathaniel Rinkich. Welcome to the podcast, Nathaniel. Hey, Galen. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Also here with us is Senior Elections Analyst Jeffrey Skelly. Welcome, Jeffrey. Hey, Galen. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah.

Merry Kwanzaa, the whole nine yards, you know. Happy New Year, all of the above. So we were going to dive right into the holiday spirit in this episode, but like the country at large, we can't yet because the government might shut down. So we're going to begin with that. And of course, to talk

talk about it, we're going to play a little impromptu round of buy, sell, hold. So if Congress does not come to some sort of spending agreement by midnight on Friday, the government will shut down. And as recently as yesterday, Wednesday, December 18th, according to bettors on Polymarket, there was a 13% chance of the government shutting down. But today, Thursday, December 18th,

19th, there is a 53% chance, according to those bettors, that the government will shut down by the end of the year. Jeffrey, buy, sell, or hold at 53% chance of shutdown. I mean, you know, any technical shutdown would presumably meet the requirement of this. So honestly, I'd probably hold, you know, in the spirit of it's a coin flip roughly.

The fact that they basically had a deal for a continuing resolution and now that's out the window because Mike Johnson's position has been undermined by Elon Musk and Donald Trump will make it difficult for him to make the tradeoffs he needs to in the current Congress with Democrats in control of the Senate still.

In a Democratic president, it makes it really difficult to do the horse trading that has to be done. So it seems like perfectly reasonable to think that there could be one. At the same time, you know, we've gone right down to the wire before with these sorts of things. So one and two seems roughly reasonable.

Pretty good place to be. Yeah, I don't know. I guess I would probably hold too because my answer... Oh, you guys. Sorry. My answer is basically it's just a big shrug. Always agreeing with the bettors on Polymarket. That's not actually true. That's not true. That's not true at all. I got two words for you. Gavin Newsom. Yeah, I was like, I disagree constantly with them. Like, are you freaking kidding me with some of these? But the last time we played this game, the last time we played this game, y'all were holding a lot. Were we? Okay.

I blocked that from memory. Well, maybe they're doing a little better now. I don't know. Markets get more efficient with time. Theoretically.

But for me, like, I think it's instructive to create like kind of like a pro con list or like reasons to think why the government will shut down and reasons why the government won't shut down. And I can think of a good number kind of on both. I think for reasons why it won't shut down, I think obviously the fact that it's the Christmas holiday, people want to go back to their districts that don't want to stay in D.C. It's also, I think, particularly bad odds.

optically to shut down the government, you know, like people, government workers furloughed around Christmas, things like that. I think also the fact that this isn't really a shutdown about anything. Like in the past, there have at least been like reasons like, you know, there was like the affordability funding Obamacare and like the border wall. There was some kind of demand being made and there doesn't seem to be a demand being made right now. So it doesn't

seem to make a lot of sense. But then on the other side of the ledger of saying there is a government shutdown, like we are now,

48 hours away, basically, and we're running out of time. And it doesn't seem like Elon Musk and Donald Trump are going to suddenly change their mind on this. And I don't think that Speaker Johnson is going to say that he's OK relying on Democrats because that would be a path forward, right? He could just get Democrats and a couple of Republicans to pass the bill because that, I think, would effectively end his speakership. Of course, he will be returning on January 3rd.

with a new Republican majority that is even narrower than the current one. And he can literally only lose two votes before he run into the same situation that Kevin McCarthy ran into at the beginning of the last Congress, where it could take multiple ballots to elect a speaker. And then the

Fun fact, on January 6th, there is a constitutionally mandated session of Congress to like officially certify or ceremonially certify, I should say, the results of the Electoral College of the presidential election. And if we don't have a speaker by then, nobody really knows.

knows what's going to happen. So there is quite a lot of urgency here. Chuck Grassley becomes president. Yeah. Yeah. There is a fun meme going around that basically plots all the ways that Chuck Grassley could become president because you don't elect a speaker. And then because you don't elect a speaker, you can't certify the election and make Donald Trump and J.D. Vance the president and vice president. And therefore, on January 20th, it goes down to the president pro tem of the Senate, which is Chuck Grassley. So President Chuck Grassley, we are coming your way.

I don't know what the betting market currently says for Chuck Grassley becoming president of the United States. There should be a market for that. There should be.

Where would you set the odds, Jeffrey? For that? Oh, like 1%? I don't know. Oh, that's generous. Well, Mike Johnson becoming speaker again, I mean, Trump and Musk have put him in a really tough spot here. My question here is, if there is going to be a shutdown, are the incentives aligned for it to be a long shutdown or a short shutdown? Like-

Are Democrats incentivized to just say, OK, this is a problem of your creation, Republicans. And if you want to keep the government shut down until you control all levers of power and we're no longer even part of this conversation, go for it. See, this is interesting because the Democrats tend to be the the party that actually wants to like.

I don't know, pass spending bills, do things like that. And so they're put in a spot where their tendency to actually, I don't know, be like the party of government is at odds with a strategy of being pro shutdown, generally speaking. At the same time, though.

In the wake of Trump winning and all the debates within the Democratic Party about where it needs to go next politically, perhaps taking a harder line isn't the worst idea. But at the same time, it's also such a mess, and I just think Democrats tend to be anti-mess. Yeah.

in that way. But we also know historically that voters are pretty savvy about who they blame for shutdowns. And I don't think that people who are paying attention to this, I'm sure plenty of people are not paying attention to it. People who are paying attention who saw, okay, they had come to some sort of bipartisan agreement. And then at the last minute, Elon Musk and Trump said, don't do it. Now, there are plenty of people who are inclined to believe the reasons that Trump and Elon Musk are saying, don't do it.

But from a 30,000 foot view, it's a pretty simple narrative to tell. We were about to come to an agreement as two parties, and then Trump and Elon Musk threw a stick in our bicycle wheel. And now over Christmas, you know, vacations.

aren't being paid their benefits. Yeah. I mean, I think that ultimately it comes down to whether we have a long or short shutdown or any shutdown comes down to how much Trump and Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy want to dig in and

And like they can end this basically at any time. And it's just obviously very difficult to predict the actions of any individual people. But I think particularly someone like Donald Trump, who has shown to be fairly capricious. But like, yeah, if we're talking purely about incentives and if we assume that Trump and Musk are going to stick to their guns, I think probably the conditions are there for a longer shutdown because I agree the Democrats won't get the blame. But I also don't think that Speaker Johnson is going to

He has no – he will lose his speakership if he kind of goes along with what the other two branches are like the Senate and the Democratic-controlled for now Senate and presidency will do. And he obviously won't want to do that. And so –

Any kind of bill that would pass the House and that Trump and Musk would be OK with would be something very pared down and have a lot of cuts. Democrats would not go for that. And I think the American public would also not want to go for that because, again, I think I agree that they're very savvy and they can look at a bill like that and say this is dramatic, like extreme. Well, we will, of course, see what happens on Friday at midnight. But let's move on and craft our time capsule. But first, a break.

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As I mentioned, we are going to be creating a time capsule. But the thing is, we only have less time.

What? That's cheating.

Jeff and Nathaniel, that is where you guys come in. Remember, also, we haven't sealed the capsule yet. So if you find something you like better, we can always swap it out. I'll give you that opportunity at the end. But to begin, the producers rummaged around and they found a Dean Phillips for President bumper sticker.

Phillips, of course, ran in this year's Democratic primary in part to protest party leaders' decision to stick by Joe Biden. He exited the race in March after winning 20% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary and averaging 3% across all the primary contests. In July, after Biden withdrew from the race, Phillips told the New York Times, quote, vindication has never felt so unfulfilling. So...

Is the Dean Phillips for president bumper sticker going in our 2024 time capsule? I mean, can I say like a soft...

Yes to the idea only because of what happened with Biden. Do you want to take back later? Yeah, I mean as we go through, you know, it's something things I think it's an interesting it's an interesting item I don't think I don't think it's I think it's very much footnote material like obviously yes He was present. Oh, we are running this and no like we're running this and we saw Dean Phillips in New Hampshire and

And, you know, we did. Jeffrey and I. That's true. For podcast listeners, Jeffrey and I attended a Dean Phillips event in I think it was in Nashua after a Nikki Haley. Yeah, we had a we had a fun time in New Hampshire. It was it was a really lovely time. It was crowded, but it was in a small room as they tend to they tend to put them into rooms that are like.

40% too small for... Yeah, because they want everything to look crowded. So to be clear, this is not a time capsule that we are building based on how you expect historians to write history, but how 538 wants this year to be remembered. So while, you know,

The argument may be that it will be a footnote in the history books. But if you think it should be more than a footnote, put it in the time capsule. Right. And I don't think it should be. Sorry, Dean Phillips. But his campaign per se didn't catch fire. It was not particularly impactful. I think it was...

And like, you know, he deserves credit for being kind of the first public voice on it. But I don't think it ended up mattering until there were other people publicly saying Biden needs to step aside. OK, so between Nathaniel's no and Jeffrey's no.

Soft yes. At least for now, we're not putting it in the time capsule. Okay, next up we have the 16-page indictment in The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump. This was the indictment in the Hush Money case that Trump faced in Manhattan. In May, Trump was convicted by a New York jury on all 34 felony counts. There were signs in the polling immediately after the conviction that it could damage Trump personally.

Politically, Nathaniel, you rounded up the data in the days after, and according to Ipsos Reuters, 10% of Republican registered voters said they were less likely to support Trump after the conviction. Harris Forbes poll put that number at 11%. Similarly, 25% of independents said they were less likely to vote for Trump in a similar poll, but...

We talked about it at the time that some of those people who say they are less likely to vote for Trump may not have been very likely to vote for him in the first place at all. So what does less likely actually mean? Do we put the 16-page indictment in the time capsule? I think we do, but not for political reasons. I just think that is historically notable because it was the first former president to be indicted. So yeah, put it in. I think it's also worth just putting it in the context of...

How some of his larger criminal issues may have contributed to him solidifying his already strong support among the Republican base.

in the spring of 2024 and making it even less likely that anyone could defeat him in the Republican primary. So if this could sort of be expanded to kind of include that, once we first got word that there were indictments coming down, I remember his numbers improved among Republican primary voters. So I think in that context, it also helps.

All right. So we have two items out of our 10, the indictment, the yearbook. Next up for consideration, I don't know how the producers got a hold of this because I usually just throw them away, but Galen's grocery receipt. So grocery inflation.

is at the moment back to around pre-pandemic levels. The average rate over the last several months has hovered around 1%. But over the course of 2022, during the worst inflationary spike, the inflation rate for groceries started and finished the year at 9% and got as high as 13%. So it's 2024. The producers went and found my grocery receipts. Are we including them in the time capsule?

I mean, I think inflation is one of the big stories of 2024 and really the whole Biden presidency. But I will make the point that in 2074, people are going to find those prices quaint. So I'm not sure it'll have the same impact on them that it does on us. But yes, if we're taking this in the spirit in which it was intended, I would put it in. They're also going to be wondering what the deal is with seltzer water, how one person could possibly drink that much water.

seltzer water and maybe even why we were putting carbonation and water to begin with. So to 2074 Americans, I don't know. It's just more interesting. Okay. Jeffrey, are we putting my grocery receipts in the time capsule? Yeah, I'm going to agree with Nathaniel on this. I'm not sure what better way there is to show.

I guess the question is, do we have the receipts from 2021 to 2024? Yes. All of them? Put them together. Because then I think that's a little... Yeah, yeah. Okay. I can get on board with that. All right, producers, you got to do a little more digging, but we got another item for the time capsule. All right, the next item is a VR headset that only plays Biden's catastrophic June debate performance. We beat Medicare.

We finally beat Medicare. We finally beat Medicare. I mean, I'm in favor of putting this in. It's one of the most impactful political moments I've been saying in my life. You know, I mean, to have a presumptive nominee drop out, that never happened in the modern primary era. So about 50 years of...

of contests. And for a president to have essentially won renomination and then step aside was, is really a largely unparalleled event. So that, you know, I think that's really notable. It's also just such a massive story about the governance of the most powerful country on earth. I mean, as we're recording this, the Wall Street Journal published another article this morning detailing

just what it was like to run the American government with Biden in deteriorated shape mentally. And it was like national security aides were talking about how there were good days and bad days. And there were some days that they couldn't talk about national security issues because it was a quote unquote bad day. I mean, that is a massive, massive story outside of just the electoral political history of what happens to a presumptive nominee or, or

Whatever. I mean, the fact that the United States has been run by Joe Biden in that form at times for the past four years is a huge story. Yeah. Nathaniel, do you want to make a case for not putting it in the time capsule? No, definitely not. That belongs in. I'm a little worried now about space in that capsule, though. So we'll see. So we have the VR headset. We have.

my grocery receipts. We have the yearbook and we also have the 16 page indictment in New York. So we have four items, just six left. Okay. We have a frame containing the iconic photo of Trump moments after an assassin's bullet nicked his ear at that rally in Pennsylvania. I mean, obviously it was, it was incredibly, uh,

important moment in the context of 2024, at least in the sense of it's a notable event. I'm not sure how much it affected the election, which is obviously what we spend a lot of time thinking about. But obviously, to have a president essentially survive because he turned his head at the right time and the

Other way that could have gone is really horrible to think about. So I would be inclined to include that because it was such a notable moment. Yeah. Also just speaks to the worst, what we gave the superlative to in your book, which is the worst trend of 2024 political violence. Yeah, I think I think that's right. I just.

And I'm not sure that it ended up being like the most important thing, but like in the spirit of even if it didn't affect the election, it is still historically significant and emblematic. Yeah.

then yes. But I am starting to get worried about space, but I'll call this a soft yes. It's a yes for now. It's a yes for now. We can always shuffle things around and take things back out. Don't worry. All right. Next up, we have a letter dated July 21st in which Biden says he is withdrawing from the presidential race. And as we mentioned, it was the first time in more than 50 years that an incumbent president withdrew from a reelection race. Of course, LBJ did the same in 1968, although it was a different era, as you mentioned,

pre the modern primary era it left kamala harris with the shortest runway for any major party presidential candidate in history 107 days maybe the vr headset takes care of this that's what my thought is all right yeah and and honestly if you're choosing between the two like

The actual juicy sort of, you know, VR experience is what you want. People have to live that debate to really understand why. The first like 10 minutes of that debate just being like, ow. All right. Next up is a printout of a tweet from later in the evening of July 21st from singer Charlie XCX that reads, Kamala is brats.

I knew, I knew you were going to get this in here somewhere. I thought it was just going to be a coconut personally, but yeah, same idea. One, one, one coconut. A single coconut. With no explanation. One, parentheses one, coconut. A single coconut with no explanation. Yeah.

I would say no. There was excitement around Kamala Harris, obviously, for a while, but I don't think that that lasted and ended up being particularly impactful. Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. She raised a ton of money. I'm sure the election was probably closer than it would have been if Biden had stuck in. I think it would have been a weirder election in certain ways.

You know, RFK would have gotten more and et cetera. He would have stayed in and other things. But I yeah, I wouldn't include this. Just for context here, you know, Harris racked up a record level of donations, particularly in that early going. She hauled in 200 million in the first week after Biden withdrew.

And for Democrats, the vibes were very good for a while. And so were the numbers. By the end of August, our polling average showed Harris leading Trump in the popular vote by three points. So there was a moment in there. Obviously, those kinds of moments are not going to be remembered as well because of what the end result was. But, you know, we'll leave it out for now. You can always come back.

Next up, I don't know where they got this. Maybe we do work literally just a couple floors above where The View tapes, but they found a VHS tape of the October 8th episode of The View featuring an interview with Kamala Harris, where when asked if she would do anything different from Biden, she said, quote, there is not a thing that comes to mind. I'm sorry, a VHS? Yeah, a VHS tape. I don't think we can include that because it will just disintegrate by 2074. Yeah.

And absolutely no one will have anything to play with. You think it's hard to find a VCR on now? You're going to have to break into the Museum of American History. We can include a VHS player if we're really worried about that. Okay. And that doesn't take up a separate item? No, no, no, no. We can just put it in. We'll put the tape in it and then put it in. Thank goodness. And for some context...

By the end of October, Joe Biden's approval rating was 18 points underwater, with 56% of Americans disapproving of his performance. And that was around the time that Kamala Harris was giving this response. I mean, I am worried about having to explain to people what a VHS is. I mean, I think the podcast listeners, some of them may need to have that explained to them, depending on their age. But nonetheless, I guess I'm inclined to...

include this in the sense of it says something about Harris's campaign and maybe the tough spot where she had to make choices about how much to separate herself from Biden, who is unpopular overall, but is still the leader of the party ostensibly and like has a lot of goodwill within the party and

And the fact that she probably did need to figure out ways to separate herself more, and she didn't necessarily take that opportunity to do so, perhaps because she just was not sure about how to best do that. And so she decided not to do anything with that opportunity. Not to say that.

I think it's just an encapsulation maybe of that larger story about her campaign. So for some more context here, we got seven items left, including this VHS tape, and we've got five spots. So we're doing okay on space. Okay, we're doing pretty well. All right, fine. I don't think it's necessarily the strongest thing.

like item illustrating like the biden harris connection but sure if if we're giving it that attaching that importance to it we can include it okay so that's six items in the time capsule next up we have a zune loaded with every podcast appearance donald trump and jd vance made during the final month of the campaign so trump went all in on courting does it have enough space for that

Yeah. I think when it comes to what people may or may not be familiar with in terms of technology, I would, I would put a Zune below a VHS tape. And again, um, they really went overboard. The producers here with, uh, finding technology that is actually not even germane to 2024 in terms of ways to put things in, in the time capsule. Well done guys. Yeah. Is there going to be a Blackberry, uh, with, you know, emails or something like what, what are we doing next? Uh,

But how else are you going to make sure that people in the future can listen? Because if you just leave it on Spotify, like what if what if the server is down? You know, you got to have a hard copy of these podcast episodes so that people in the future can listen to them. So I agree with the producer's decision here. We need a gold. We need a golden record, actually shoot it into space of all the podcast. But, you know.

Do we have a golden record for this podcast? I don't think so. We better get on it. Well, how do we, the aliens need to be able to listen to us.

I made Galen speechless, everybody. So Trump went all in on courting young men in their podcast feeds, compiling appearances not only on the Joe Rogan Experience, but also this past weekend with Theo Vaughn, Andrew Schultz's Flagrant, and other shows popular with young men. And it seems to have been.

paid off. I don't know if it's the podcast appearances specifically, but this idea that he could swing young men towards Republicans. Biden had won them four years earlier, and according to AP Votecast, Trump won them this election cycle. I don't know. I wouldn't include this. I mean, I know we have a decent amount of space, and I guess it's interesting color, but I just think that

To me, it was these larger structural things that swung the election to Trump. It wasn't anything tactical like this. And I think that all groups or many groups swung toward Trump. We saw a very kind of uniform swing. Some things shifted more than others. But as Jeffrey recently wrote for the site, the shift happened basically everywhere.

And I think, sure, there was an increase of Republican support among young men, but it wasn't that huge. According to AP VoteCast, it went from 45 percent support among those voters for Trump in 2020 to 53 percent in 2024. So it's a little above average, a little above the average swing, but not that much. So I'm not sure that like this specifically made that much of a difference. And what was the average swing? Six points? Yeah. I mean, 4.5 to 1.5. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, the national popular vote swing was six points. You know, nationally, that's pretty notable. Sure, but, like, how many people... Like, you weren't... You're right, but that's, like, millions and millions of people. And, like, even a very popular podcast has, like, a smaller footprint than that. And, like, I just don't... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not arguing for the podcast so much as saying, like, the young men story is a real story. Yeah, sure. But, like, I think it is a...

part of a larger story that is told better by the Harris not separating herself adequately from Biden part. Okay. All right. I'll, I will accept it even if I will maybe take issues with some nuances, Jeffrey. Yeah, I'll, I'll agree with Nathaniel on this. Um, I mean, I, I think it's interesting color, um,

But I, yeah, I'll just agree. We can move on. I'm interested to see what's next, you know? And boy, should you be.

So next for consideration, again, we have six items in the time capsule. Next for consideration is the Sunday, November 3rd edition of the Des Moines Register featuring a poll showing Kamala Harris leading in Iowa. Of course, Ann Seltzer's famed Iowa poll found Harris leading by three points, which was a bombshell result just days before the election. Trump went on to win Iowa by

by 13 points. So a 16 point miss. I mean, this is about as 538 as it gets. So I'm inclined to include it because this is 538 choice. Right. And I will also say that there could be a longer tail to this because Trump is suing the Des Moines Register for

because they released a poll that ended up being, you know, particularly off, which is frankly absurd. But the idea that somehow that influenced events is insane. But it could be sort of like a marker of a chilling effect on, you know, news media and releasing polls and pollsters holding back because they're afraid of getting sued, even if it's, you know, a

Right. As we've said many times on this podcast, it is very important that pollsters even feel comfortable releasing outliers because otherwise that's how you get things like herding and kind of groupthink in the polls. And then we don't get an accurate picture of what's happening because sometimes an outlier will end up being correct. Right.

In this case, this outlier was not correct. It was very, very wrong. And actually, for that reason, I'm going to say we should exclude it because I do not think this poll was emblematic of the polling this year, which was, by and large, pretty good. It slightly underestimated Trump, but I think

Like, personally, this is very self-serving. I would put the 538 polling averages in the time capsule because I think that shows that the polls were, you know, were pretty good. And that is the that's the message I want people 50 years from now to know. Jeffrey, have you been convinced? That's a good take.

It's a good take. I'll go with Nathaniel's choice there. If we're going to do something polling related, we should paint a – I guess I think it's interesting – the Seltzer poll and the DMR releasing it is interesting and, as I said, could have this other –

connection to it in the long run. However, if that ends up making people think that the polls were really off again or something, that's not what I want. So yeah, I agree with Nathaniel. Okay, so we'll put the 538 polling averages in, but how are we going to represent them? Is it going to be a printout? Are we going to put it on a CD-ROM? Are we going to just put a computer in there? I think we need to put it on a Nook. On a Nook. Okay, we'll put it on a...

Are you working for Barnes and Noble? So we're putting a nook with the 538 polling average on it in the time capsule. And that brings us to seven items. We have the VHS tape of the October 8th episode of The View. We have the yearbook. We have that 16 page indictment. We have my grocery receipts. We have the VR headset and we have the photo of Trump accidentally

after he was shot in the ear. So we have just three left and we have four items to go. I will now tell you what all four items are so you can decide which three make it in. We have one, Hunter Biden's laptop. Two, an enormous bound copy of Project 2025. Three, an empty frame with room for one graph of your choosing.

Or four, a leather bound portfolio that can hold one spreadsheet. Okay, well, obviously the spreadsheet and the graph are in. We just have to figure out what they are. Okay, so in addition to that, are you putting in Hunter Biden's laptop or an enormous bound copy of Project 2025?

I don't really think either of those is terribly important. Project 2025 obviously did not end up resonating with enough people to matter. Hunter Biden's laptop, I guess, is interesting, but also I think generally speaking has been blown out of proportion. What were some of the other items that we rejected? The Dean Phillips bumper sticker? The Dean Phillips bumper sticker. You also rejected...

A letter from July 21st of Biden withdrawing. Yeah. Charlie XX's tweet that Kamala is brat. You rejected a Zoom loaded with every podcast appearance from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

Honestly, I might go. I would probably go with the podcast or the or the Charlie XCX tweet before Hunter Biden's laptop or the other thing. Yeah. Let's put the Zune in. I think let's let's throw in Trump's podcast. I think that's more important than than either of those things. OK, sorry, Hunter Biden's laptop and enormous bad copy of Project Zune.

All right. So what you guys have to agree on these, we've got an empty frame with room for one graph of our choosing. We've already put the five 38 polling averages in the time capsule, which is great. Actually. Now we can pick something more bespoke. Yeah. You have room for one more graph.

And a spreadsheet. This is your opportunity, Jeffrey and Nathaniel, to really make your mark on history and even include one of your own spreadsheets, which I know are numerous. I mean, we are actually publishing an article over the holidays with the 26 best charts that we made in 2024. So I'm just going to look at those over and decide which chart. Yeah.

To be honest, my first instinct was I'm just thinking about the trends that we maybe haven't covered yet with some of the items that are in there. I think immigration is one issue we haven't hit on yet. And there was a chart that we published earlier this year about the increase in border crossings and how that really affected.

Corresponded with Americans saying that immigration was the number one issue. Those two things were pretty correlated. And I think that immigration, while I don't think nearly as important as the economy and inflation, did contribute to a sense of malaise that hurt Biden and Democrats generally. So that would be my first instinct. But let me see what else is there. Well.

That graph also, or a graph like it, has other historical significance, which is that Trump has talked about this a lot. It is literally the graph that he was pointing to and turning his head towards when during the assassination attempt at the Pennsylvania rally, it was a graph showing encounters at the southern border. So refers back to our other item in the time capsule as well. I mean, I'm totally on board with that as a very good illustration of

of things affecting public opinion, you know? I think that... And it being important to the moment we're in. I'm trying to think about spreadsheet. God. I mean... I mean... Something from the Republican primary, maybe? I mean, okay. Well, to maybe get... Oh, here we go. Okay. Maybe getting at some of, like, Trump's dominance of the Republican Party, we could include something about, like, how quickly he clinched the nomination. I mean...

One of my spreadsheets from that might might do the job. Well, and you can you can see then in that spreadsheet all of the different parts of the Republican Party, because if you think back to 2016, we saw that there were very clear divisions in terms of the types of people who were inclined to vote for Marco Rubio, the types of people who are inclined to vote for Ted Cruz and the types of people who are inclined to vote for Donald Trump.

This time around, while you could find some differentiation and like you could focus in on college educated voters and things like that who are more inclined to support Nikki Haley, Donald Trump won every single cross section of the Republican Party, even if there were differences around the margin. Yeah, maybe it's a spreadsheet of...

ABC News exit polling, which I know I'm not allowed to share, but they won't care in 50 years, right? The rules at the top of it say do not share outside of ABC News. But in 50 years, no one will care, right? So there's that. And then also you could even just do –

Yeah, I mean, especially like.

Maybe we don't spend enough time reflecting on this, how remarkable it is that he won that primary so overwhelmingly and then went on to win the election after January 6th and everything that happened sort of within the past four years that there wasn't that much of a debate within the Republican Party in the end. Yeah.

All right, so we now have our 10 items in the 538 2024 time capsule, and they are our yearbook, including all of our superlatives from last episode.

the 16-page indictment in New York, my grocery receipts, a VR headset with Joe Biden's debate performance in June, the photo of the assassination attempt against Trump, a VHS tape from an October episode of The View in which Kamala Harris said there isn't a single thing she would do differently from Joe Biden, a Zoom with all of Trump and J.D. Vance's podcast appearances, FiveThirtyEight's polling average,

One graph of border apprehensions during Biden's tenure and one spreadsheet of the state primary vote numbers in the Republican primary showing Trump's dominance. Are we ready to close up our 2024 time capsule? Let's do it.

With the caveat that there's still about two weeks left, and it looks like it could be an eventful two weeks. Yes, I think we're ready. As ready as we're going to be. We are really asking for it by creating a time capsule on the summer 19th.

All right, folks, of course, get in touch if there's something you would like to send us to include in this time capsule before we close it up for real. Of course, I'm speaking in metaphor here. Nathaniel and Jeffrey, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, Galen. See you next year. Thanks for having us, Galen. My name is Galen Druk. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Chortavian. 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

or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.

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