Political Jason

FiveThirtyEight   More: Apple Podcasts | ESPN App | RSS Local news is disappearing in towns across the country. From 2008 to 2019, the percentage of people who said they got their news from local papers every day fell by more than half. In the same time period, the number of newsroom jobs plummeted. The way Americans get their news has changed and that can have lasting social and political impacts. Elaine Godfrey, a staff writer at The Atlantic, joins…

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It took a small town chiropractor named Charles Brown to help vaccinate millions of kids for decades to come — all because he didn’t want to vaccinate his own. It was 1979 in Houston, Mississippi, and Brown needed to enroll his 6-year-old son in school. But state law required the boy to be vaccinated against certain diseases, and Brown didn’t want to vaccinate his son. At the time, Mississippi had two exceptions to this law: medical exemption, for kids who…

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Abortion has long motivated Republicans as a political issue. But following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in early September not to block Texas’s new law banning most abortions once an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity, usually about six weeks into a pregnancy, many have argued that Democrats may become more motivated by reproductive rights. As one Republican pollster recently told the Associated Press, “It is going to be a very motivating issue for women who haven’t typically been single-issue pro-choice…

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The number of U.S. representatives not seeking reelection is now up to 19. Since our last update, GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez bowed out in the face of a Republican revolt in his district over his vote to impeach former President Donald Trump, and Democratic Rep. Karen Bass announced her intention to run for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022. And just on Tuesday, Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth announced he would retire from elected office as well. House retirements are one…

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Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited. sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): President Biden’s approval ratings are underwater — 49.2 percent disapprove of the job he is doing as president while 44.6 percent approve, according to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker.1 This has been true for a while now, too. Since Aug. 30, more Americans have disapproved of Biden than have approved of him.  So, let’s tackle Biden’s declining approval rating in three parts. First, what…

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In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses the debt ceiling’s role in politics, why the debt ceiling exists in the first place and the chances of it being abolished altogether. They also debate whether a study on death is a good or bad use of polling and consider whether a recent congressional hearing will lead to new regulations for Facebook. Powered by WPeMatico

Most Democrats in Congress are united around the Democratic agenda, but a small number of senators and representatives have so far been able to hold up its passage. “I need 50 votes in the Senate. I have 48,” President Biden said last week, regarding his social spending bill. As for who is standing in the way, his blame was clear: “Two. Two people.” Those two people are Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. The two moderates have forced Democrats to…

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FiveThirtyEight   More: Apple Podcasts | ESPN App | RSS Last week, the Senate voted to temporarily raise the debt ceiling through early December, but the political conflict over a longer-term increase continues. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans will not increase the debt limit again and Democrats say they won’t raise it on their own through budget reconciliation. Not raising the debt ceiling would have catastrophic economic consequences. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew…

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How Fast Is The Economy Recovering? By Julia Wolfe and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux For nearly a year, the economy has been on a long, exhausting slog toward post-pandemic “normalcy.” And it isn’t over yet. This page — which we plan to update every month — will tell us how far we still have to go before the economy is back where it was before the pandemic shut down much of American life. We have made significant progress, of course: After hitting…

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Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. As President Biden and other Democrats work to pass an omnibus budget bill, members of the party are at odds over the topline spending number, with figures ranging between $1.5 trillion to $3.5 trillion. Biden has said it’s likely the bill will end up in the $2 trillion range, which means progressives’ priorities will surely be shrunk, cut or reworked. Progressive lawmakers have signaled that they’re open to compromise, but some are warning that…

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