By now, the story of how Graham Platner was recruited to run for Senate is well known. Two Democratic Socialist-aligned operatives, Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan, set out to find a like-minded candidate to challenge Susan Collins in Maine.

As Platner told Jon Stewart, at the end of July 2025, “some people came to [his] house” who “had been in Maine for a few months working with the AFL-CIO a bunch of labor unions.” They were looking, as he put it, for “a kind of a working class person on kind of working-class economic policies.”

Over the next few weeks, the recruiters convinced Platner to run, telling him he could secure Bernie Sanders’s endorsement. He announced his candidacy in mid-August and landed that endorsement by Labor Day. Moraff later told The Wall Street Journal that they had not conducted a traditional background check on Platner.

The candidate recruitment process usually unfolds behind the scenes. But given the spectacular way this campaign unraveled, it has become a central part of the Platner postmortem and of the recriminations now unfolding within the Democratic Party.

It has also thrown a spotlight on a much bigger question: How should Democrats try to win back working class voters? Recruiting candidates like Graham Platner is one approach. But is it the right one?

To explore that question, I turned to Joan C. Williams, author of Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back. Joan is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California Law San Francisco and one of the country’s leading thinkers on class and American politics.

We discuss what Democrats still misunderstand about working class voters, why working class values matter more than working class aesthetics, and what politicians like Andy Beshear and John Ossoff are doing differently.

As Platner told Jon Stewart, at the end of July 2025, “some people came to [his] house” who “had been in Maine for a few months working with the AFL-CIO a bunch of labor unions.” They were looking, as he put it, for “a kind of a working class person on kind of working-class economic policies.”

Over the next few weeks, the recruiters convinced Platner to run, telling him he could secure Bernie Sanders’s endorsement. He announced his candidacy in mid-August and landed that endorsement by Labor Day. Moraff later told The Wall Street Journal that they had not conducted a traditional background check on Platner.

The candidate recruitment process usually unfolds behind the scenes. But given the spectacular way this campaign unraveled, it has become a central part of the Platner postmortem and of the recriminations now unfolding within the Democratic Party.

It has also thrown a spotlight on a much bigger question: How should Democrats try to win back working class voters? Recruiting candidates like Graham Platner is one approach. But is it the right one?

To explore that question, I turned to Joan C. Williams, author of Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back. Joan is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California Law San Francisco and one of the country’s leading thinkers on class and American politics.

We discuss what Democrats still misunderstand about working class voters, why working class values matter more than working class aesthetics, and what politicians like Andy Beshear and John Ossoff are doing differently.

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Back in December, I invited Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution onto the podcast to talk about the developing conflict between the United States and Venezuela. At the time, we were discussing the possibility of being at war with Venezuela by the midterms, and I asked Michael whether it could become the next Iraq. He said no. And he was right.

It turns out I just got the country wrong.

Seven months later, we find ourselves in a quagmire in Iran. Of course, it’s an exaggeration to compare it to Iraq at this point. There’s been no ground invasion, and five months is not nine years. But we are in another war of choice in the Middle East that has not gone as intended.

After a 12-week ceasefire, during which the fighting never entirely stopped, Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz prompted the United States to launch what is now a 12-day campaign of strikes. In the latest escalation, Iranian attacks on U.S. bases have killed four American service members and injured more than 100.

So where does the war go from here? What has the United States actually accomplished? And what would success even look like at this point?

To answer those questions, I invited Michael O’Hanlon back onto the podcast. He is the Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution and the author of To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution.

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Back in December, I invited Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution onto the podcast to talk about the developing conflict between the United States and Venezuela. At the time, we were discussing the possibility of being at war with Venezuela by the midterms, and I asked Michael whether it could become the next Iraq. He said no. And he was right.

It turns out I just got the country wrong.

Seven months later, we find ourselves in a quagmire in Iran. Of course, it’s an exaggeration to compare it to Iraq at this point. There’s been no ground invasion, and five months is not nine years. But we are in another war of choice in the Middle East that has not gone as intended.

After a 12-week ceasefire, during which the fighting never entirely stopped, Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz prompted the United States to launch what is now a 12-day campaign of strikes. In the latest escalation, Iranian attacks on U.S. bases have killed four American service members and injured more than 100.

So where does the war go from here? What has the United States actually accomplished? And what would success even look like at this point?

To answer those questions, I invited Michael O’Hanlon back onto the podcast. He is the Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution and the author of To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution.

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The marquee event is Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. Over the weekend, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigned across the state with Abdul El-Sayed. Haley Stevens, meanwhile, argued that Sanders was nowhere to be found when she was working with President Obama on the auto bailout, and enters the final weeks of the campaign with a 12-to-1 advantage in television spending.

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In Maine, former state Senate president Troy Jackson became the presumptive Democratic nominee to replace Graham Platner on the Senate ballot. A longtime Sanders supporter, Jackson was widely seen as the clearest heir to the movement Platner built before leaving the race.

And on Tuesday, Arizona voters will decide a hotly contested Democratic primary in the 1st Congressional District, one of the most competitive House seats in the country.

On today’s episode, we break down all three contests. We also make sense of President Trump’s primetime address on election security and examine how the White House is trying to shape both the administration of the midterms and public confidence in the results.

Joining me are Mary Radcliffe, head of research at FiftyPlusOne, and Nathaniel Rakich, managing editor of Votebeat.

The marquee event is Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. Over the weekend, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigned across the state with Abdul El-Sayed. Haley Stevens, meanwhile, argued that Sanders was nowhere to be found when she was working with President Obama on the auto bailout, and enters the final weeks of the campaign with a 12-to-1 advantage in television spending.

In Maine, former state Senate president Troy Jackson became the presumptive Democratic nominee to replace Graham Platner on the Senate ballot. A longtime Sanders supporter, Jackson was widely seen as the clearest heir to the movement Platner built before leaving the race.

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And on Tuesday, Arizona voters will decide a hotly contested Democratic primary in the 1st Congressional District, one of the most competitive House seats in the country.

On today’s episode, we break down all three contests. We also make sense of President Trump’s primetime address on election security and examine how the White House is trying to shape both the administration of the midterms and public confidence in the results.

Joining me are Mary Radcliffe, head of research at FiftyPlusOne, and Nathaniel Rakich, managing editor of Votebeat.

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A hot new model has entered the villa! (Shout-out to Love Island fans.)

On today’s episode, Geoffrey Skelley of Decision Desk HQ joins me to walk through DDHQ’s new 2026 midterm forecast model, why it gives Democrats the advantage in the House, and why election forecasters disagree so sharply about the size of that advantage.

We also check in on two big upcoming primaries. In Michigan, new and conflicting polling has injected fresh uncertainty into the Democratic Senate primary between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed. In Arizona, Rep. Andy Biggs appears to be cruising toward the Republican nomination for governor and a general-election matchup against the not-particularly-popular Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

Then we turn to two unusual Senate contests in which both parties are scrambling to replace candidates on the ballot this fall. In South Carolina, Republicans are preparing for a new primary following the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham. In Maine, Democrats will choose a replacement nominee at a party convention after Graham Platner withdrew from the race.

Skelley joins me to examine both contests and what history tells us about the prospects for replacement candidates.

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I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because international politics is an underserved beat in American media. Maybe people are exhausted by a decade of Trump-dominated news, but still enjoy following politics, making a trip abroad a welcome change of pace. Or maybe my own curiosity comes through in those conversations. I’ve found that when I’m genuinely excited to learn about something, it usually makes for a better show. Or perhaps, more cynically, it’s nice to hear that other countries’ politics are messed up too. We in America are not alone.

Whatever the reason, it’s something that I want to keep doing, and it’s what we’re doing today, because there’s been some big election news across the pond lately.

Last week, French right-wing populist Marine Le Pen was cleared to run for president in next year’s election after a court shortened her five-year ban on running for office for misusing European Union funds. The same day, she announced her candidacy.

In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his resignation as prime minister late last month. Nominations are currently open to replace him as Labour leader, and only one candidate has emerged: former mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham.

If he remains uncontested, he could be declared leader of the party as soon as this Friday and become prime minister the following Monday. This is all happening just two years after Labour won the third-largest majority in the party’s history.

With me to make sense of it all, and to meander into conversations about the World Cup, NATO, and air conditioning, is our European correspondent, Lenny Bronner.

I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because international politics is an underserved beat in American media. Maybe people are exhausted by a decade of Trump-dominated news, but still enjoy following politics, making a trip abroad a welcome change of pace. Or maybe my own curiosity comes through in those conversations. I’ve found that when I’m genuinely excited to learn about something, it usually makes for a better show. Or perhaps, more cynically, it’s nice to hear that other countries’ politics are messed up too. We in America are not alone.

Whatever the reason, it’s something that I want to keep doing, and it’s what we’re doing today, because there’s been some big election news across the pond lately.

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Last week, French right-wing populist Marine Le Pen was cleared to run for president in next year’s election after a court shortened her five-year ban on running for office for misusing European Union funds. The same day, she announced her candidacy.

In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his resignation as prime minister late last month. Nominations are currently open to replace him as Labour leader, and only one candidate has emerged: former mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham.

If he remains uncontested, he could be declared leader of the party as soon as this Friday and become prime minister the following Monday. This is all happening just two years after Labour won the third-largest majority in the party’s history.

With me to make sense of it all, and to meander into conversations about the World Cup, NATO, and air conditioning, is our European correspondent, .

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We’ve gotten some dramatic updates since the last time we discussed the state of the 2026 midterms. Chief among them is, of course, that Graham Platner announced he’ll drop out of the Maine Senate race after he was accused of rape. He denies the allegations.

The Maine Democratic Party now has until July 27 to replace him on the ballot. It plans on hosting a convention of about 600 delegates made up of local party officials from around the state. The party’s executive director suggested candidates may need to collect signatures from voters in order to be eligible at the convention.

On today’s episode, election forecasters Lakshya Jain of The Argument and Zachary Donnini of VoteHub join me to discuss how Platner’s departure will shake up the fight for control of the Senate. Both of their forecasts suggest it will improve Democrats’ odds in Maine, but that may not be enough to make them favorites to control the chamber.

Maine also isn’t the only must-win Senate seat for Democrats that’s recently been in flux. In Michigan, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the Democratic primary last Sunday, leaving a two-person race between establishment-backed Haley Stevens and progressive-backed Abdul El-Sayed. They faced off in a debate this week and will face off on the ballot next month.

We discuss the dynamics of that race and the ideological divides within the party more broadly. We also ask what lessons Democrats — both progressives and the establishment — can learn from what just happened in Maine.

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We’ve gotten some dramatic updates since the last time we discussed the state of the 2026 midterms. Chief among them is, of course, that Graham Platner announced he’ll drop out of the Maine Senate race after he was accused of rape. He denies the allegations.

The Maine Democratic Party now has until July 27 to replace him on the ballot. It plans on hosting a convention of about 600 delegates made up of local party officials from around the state. The party’s executive director suggested candidates may need to collect signatures from voters in order to be eligible at the convention.

On today’s episode, election forecasters Lakshya Jain of The Argument and Zachary Donnini of VoteHub join me to discuss how Platner’s departure will shake up the fight for control of the Senate. Both of their forecasts suggest it will improve Democrats’ odds in Maine, but that may not be enough to make them favorites to control the chamber.

Maine also isn’t the only must-win Senate seat for Democrats that’s recently been in flux. In Michigan, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the Democratic primary last Sunday, leaving a two-person race between establishment-backed Haley Stevens and progressive-backed Abdul El-Sayed. They faced off in a debate this week and will face off on the ballot next month.

We discuss the dynamics of that race and the ideological divides within the party more broadly. We also ask what lessons Democrats — both progressives and the establishment — can learn from what just happened in Maine.

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Today’s episode is a conversation I had with Adrian Wooldridge about his new book, “The Revolutionary Center: The Lost Genius of Liberalism.” Adrian is the global business columnist at Bloomberg and was previously the political editor at The Economist.

To be honest, I had intended to air this conversation in the run-up to our semiquincentennial. After all, the Declaration of Independence may well be the most famous liberal document ever written.

But as the calendar worked out, our last episode before the Fourth was a paid episode, and I thought this conversation was a worthwhile listen for the wider GD universe. (Although, of course, if you appreciate this podcast, I encourage you to become a paid subscriber👇️) So I’m publishing it now, for folks to chew on as we return from the weekend’s celebrations.

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The word “liberal” gets thrown around a lot. It’s used to poke fun at the left (”resistance libs”) or chastise the right (”neolibs”), and in American politics today, it’s not clear what it even means.

Adrian clearly defines liberalism and lays out a forceful case for why it’s a worthwhile worldview today, despite some of its failures.

We talk about who can be a liberal, according to Adrian, both socialists and nationalists, but not populists. We discuss where the ideas came from and how they developed over the centuries, and how liberalism addresses the challenges of today. It was an enlightening (pun intended) conversation, and I hope you appreciate it too.

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Happy 250th birthday, America! To mark the occasion, Gabe Fleisher of Wake Up To Politics joined me to run a full diagnostic on the republic as it wraps up its 250th year.

First up: good data, bad data, or not data? Americans are about as interested in commemorating the country’s 250th birthday as they were in commemorating the bicentennial 50 years ago. But underneath that stable topline is a much more divided country. In 1976, Democrats and Republicans were roughly equally interested in the celebration. Today, Republicans are 33 points likelier than Democrats to say they want to commemorate the occasion.

Then, a look back at a blockbuster Supreme Court term. The justices closed out the term by overturning two precedents: greenlighting presidential removal of independent agency officials in Trump v. Slaughter and lifting limits on party-candidate coordinated spending. They also rejected Trump’s reinterpretation of birthright citizenship. Gabe, who was in the courtroom when NPR briefly “retired” Justice Alito, explains why this is a conservative court but not a MAGA court.

Congress, meanwhile, is on pace to be the least productive in modern history, and yet it just passed the first major housing package in 30 years with veto-proof majorities. Will Trump accept yes for an answer? And will the housing bill become law regardless?

Finally, the latest New York Times polls show Senate races in North Carolina, Maine, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska all within the margin of error, even as majorities in nearly every one of those states call the Democratic Party too extreme. And a new Pew typology survey finds that beneath our 50-50 stalemate, Americans hold supermajority positions on issue after issue. We’re emotionally polarized (see the feelings about our semiquincentennial above). Ideologically? Not so much.

I hope everyone has a nice Independence Day. We’ll see you in year 251!

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In Watson v. RNC, the court ruled that ballots postmarked by Election Day can still be counted after Election Day in states where that is legal. Nathaniel Rakich of Votebeat explains why the ruling preserves the status quo in more than a dozen states and why Donald Trump is unlikely to stop attacking late-arriving mail ballots anytime soon.

We also discuss another pair of decisions involving independent agencies. The court allowed Trump to fire Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, but said Federal Reserve member Lisa Cook could remain in her job while she challenges her firing. That suggests the court may be willing to expand presidential control over many independent regulators while treating the Fed as a special case.

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Then we turn to the Trump administration’s deal with Iran. Mary Radcliffe of FiftyPlusOne walks us through the polling on the agreement, which shows that Americans generally support efforts to end the war, but are much less sure that the deal will actually work. That leads us into a broader conversation about the national political environment, whether the generic ballot has really tightened, and what a new New York Times poll of the Maine Senate race tells us about the race between Graham Platner and Susan Collins.

Finally, in Good Data, Bad Data or Not Data, we look at a Washington Post analysis arguing that prediction markets are well calibrated. The verdict: not so fast.

In Watson v. RNC, the court ruled that ballots postmarked by Election Day can still be counted after Election Day in states where that is legal. Nathaniel Rakich of Votebeat explains why the ruling preserves the status quo in more than a dozen states and why Donald Trump is unlikely to stop attacking late-arriving mail ballots anytime soon.

We also discuss another pair of decisions involving independent agencies. The court allowed Trump to fire Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, but said Federal Reserve member Lisa Cook could remain in her job while she challenges her firing. That suggests the court may be willing to expand presidential control over many independent regulators while treating the Fed as a special case.

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Then we turn to the Trump administration’s deal with Iran. Mary Radcliffe of FiftyPlusOne walks us through the polling on the agreement, which shows that Americans generally support efforts to end the war, but are much less sure that the deal will actually work. That leads us into a broader conversation about the national political environment, whether the generic ballot has really tightened, and what a new New York Times poll of the Maine Senate race tells us about the race between Graham Platner and Susan Collins.

Finally, in Good Data, Bad Data or Not Data, we look at a Washington Post analysis arguing that prediction markets are well calibrated. The verdict: not so fast.

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As we suggested might happen on Monday’s episode, this week’s primaries in New York City launched a narrative war over the Democratic Party: Is Mamdani now a Democratic kingmaker? Is the socialist left the future of the party? And are we witnessing a Democratic version of the Tea Party?

On today’s episode, Mary Radcliffe of FiftyPlusOne and Nathaniel Rakich of Votebeat join me to debate that last question.

First, we try to define what the Tea Party actually was. Was it an ideological movement aimed at enacting conservative policy on taxes, spending, and health care? Was it simply an anti-establishment backlash? And was the election of Donald Trump the nail in the coffin for the Tea Party or its crowning achievement?

Then we ask whether anything similar is happening now on the left. Nathaniel makes the case that Democrats are seeing the beginnings of a Tea Party-style insurgency. Mary is more skeptical, pointing out that the socialist left remains a relatively small faction of the party.

We also talk about where the comparison may be strongest. The Tea Party’s power was not just that it won primaries. It was that it changed what Republican politicians felt they had to say and do. On the Democratic side, the clearest example may be Israel and Palestine, where candidates backed by pro-Israel groups are facing increasing scrutiny in Democratic primaries.

Give it a listen and let us know in the comments where you come down!

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But that does not mean its politics are irrelevant to the national Democratic Party. In fact, this week’s congressional primaries in New York may offer a preview of several fights Democrats are likely to have between now and 2028.

On today’s episode of the GD POLITICS podcast, politics writer Michael Lange joins me to make the case that Tuesday’s primaries are, in some ways, a dress rehearsal for the next Democratic presidential primary.

We talk about the battle between socialists and progressives in New York’s 7th Congressional District, where a retiring Nydia Velázquez has opened up one of the youngest and bluest seats in the country. We also discuss the challenge to Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th District, where questions of race, ideology, Israel-Palestine and incumbency are all colliding.

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Then we turn to the race to replace Jerry Nadler in New York’s 12th District, one of the best-educated and most politically engaged places in the country, where the politics of artificial intelligence have become central. And we look at Dan Goldman’s primary challenge from Brad Lander in New York’s 10th District, where AIPAC, local political roots and the post-Mamdani left all loom large.

Finally, we head north of the city to New York’s 17th Congressional District, one of the most important battleground seats in the country, where Democrats are deciding what kind of candidate they want to put up against Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.

The big question running through all of this: Are these races revealing where the Democratic Party is headed, or are they mostly telling us about the strange and specific politics of New York?

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Today’s episode is a long-overdue listener mailbag, which means we’re getting into some of the great questions that have been piling up in the paid-subscriber chat.

For example, how do likely voter models actually work? Do people really move abroad because of politics, or is that mostly just something people say after an election doesn’t go their way? Could a senator switching parties ever change control of Congress? Are prediction markets headed for a steady stream of insider-trading scandals? And at what point does an unpopular president start losing control of his own party in Congress?

There are also some more election-specific questions: whether Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo is one of the most endangered incumbents in the country, what makes Rob Sand a viable Democratic candidate in Iowa, how much the latest round of redistricting could shift the House map toward Republicans, and what history’s highest-turnout midterm might tell us about the political moment we’re living through now.

Plus, we answer a question about recently ousted Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who, by the way, co-authored the legislation that made Juneteenth a federal holiday. A listener wanted to know whether he’ll seek retribution in his final months before retirement.

This episode is also a bit different from usual: it’s just me, solo, doing my best talk-radio impression and answering as many of your questions as I can before my voice gives out.

Thanks, as always, to everyone who submitted questions in the paid-subscriber chat. We didn’t get to all of them, which means we’ll have to do this again soon!

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On today’s episode of the GD POLITICS podcast, I spoke with two election forecasters whose models are beginning to shape how we understand the midterms: Lakshya Jain, head of political data at The Argument and CEO of Split Ticket, and Zachary Donnini, head of data science at VoteHub.

VoteHub’s midterm forecast is officially live, but Split Ticket’s is set to publish later this week, meaning listeners are getting an exclusive preview of the work Lakshya has been doing.

The forecasts agree on the big picture: Democrats are favored to win the House, while the Senate is close to a toss-up, with Republicans holding a slight edge. But under the hood, the models diverge in meaningful ways.

VoteHub gives Democrats a 72 percent chance of winning the House, while The Argument/Split Ticket puts the odds at 90 percent. The biggest reason is how the two models treat the national political environment. VoteHub’s model is built around a Democratic advantage of about seven points on the generic ballot. The Argument/Split Ticket model, relying in part on its own likely-voter polling, sees something closer to a nine-point Democratic environment.

The two also differ on whether to incorporate prediction markets. VoteHub does, though Zach emphasized that Kalshi markets are weighted lightly in low-volume House races and more heavily in higher-volume Senate races. His argument is that prediction markets can sometimes pick up information before polls do, especially from late-breaking scandals or meaningful early-vote data.

Lakshya is more skeptical. He sees value in prediction markets, but worries about feedback loops and overreactions.

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The Senate picture is even more interesting. The two forecasts are almost identical at the chamber level: VoteHub gives Republicans a 55 percent chance of retaining the Senate, while The Argument/Split Ticket puts it at 53 percent.

But the race-level forecasts differ substantially. In Georgia, VoteHub gives Sen. Jon Ossoff an 87 percent chance of winning reelection. The Argument/Split Ticket puts him at 98 percent. Lakshya argues that Georgia is simply not red enough, especially in a Democratic-leaning national environment, to justify treating Ossoff as vulnerable. Zach agrees Ossoff is favored, but his model is more cautious because it adjusts for the possibility that competitive states in 2024 were artificially bluer than their underlying partisanship.

Other divergences tell us a lot about how forecasting works. In Michigan, Lakshya said he thinks VoteHub’s forecast is probably better than his own, because early polling suggests Democrats may not be as strong there as his fundamentals-heavy model currently implies. In Florida, Zach said Lakshya’s model may be capturing something VoteHub is not: the continued Republican strength among Florida’s older and Hispanic voters.

That was the spirit of the whole conversation. Lakshya and Zach are not dueling forecasters, but friends with different ideas about what inputs to use in a model. And that may be the most useful takeaway. Forecasts are not magic. They are structured arguments about what matters, what data should count and how uncertain we should be.

In 2026, those arguments point to a Democratic edge in the House, a highly competitive Senate and a midterm that could determine whether Trump spends the final two years of his presidency constrained by Congress or empowered by it.

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On today’s podcast, Nate Silver joins me to talk about the Maine Senate race, the political fallout of the war in Iran, and much more. Nate had some spicy takes, as you’ll hear.

The Maine primary is now completed, and with 80 percent of the expected vote tallied, Platner received 72 percent of the vote. Although Janet Mills had already dropped out of the race, her name remained on the ballot and she received 20 percent. Call it a protest vote.

On paper, Maine should be one of Democrats’ best Senate pickup opportunities this cycle. It’s a blue-leaning state in a Democratic-leaning national environment. But after a series of personal controversies, Platner’s campaign has become something more complicated: a test of how much candidate quality and character matter in an era of strong partisanship.

Nate makes the case that, for the good of the Democratic Party, Platner should drop out. I play devil’s advocate and ask whether Democrats are likely to rally around him anyway once he becomes inevitable.

We also discuss the political risk of a quagmire after the United States’ renewed strikes on Iran in retaliation for a downed Apache helicopter. If the war drags on, and inflation continues to rise, it could shape the midterms more than any one candidate’s scandals.

Then we turn to California, where the slow vote count in the Los Angeles mayoral race has once again raised questions about election administration in the country’s largest state. Nate argues that taking this long to count votes is itself a problem, especially when distrust in elections is already so easy to exploit.

Lastly, since this is a conversation with Nate, we end with a forecast model. Nate walks through what went into his World Cup forecast: things like national GDP and the total market value of a team’s players, and how similar it is to building a presidential forecast model. We also talk about what building the model taught him about the promise and limits of AI.

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