The Mysterious Case Of 2020’s Polling Error

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew looks back at the record number of Democrats who ran for president in 2020 and assesses where they are now. They also review a new report from the American Association for Public Opinion Research on why election polls were historically off in 2020.

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The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Has A World Cup Hangover

History says the U.S. women’s soccer team tends to perform best with its back against the wall. Each of the four times they failed to win a World Cup, the Americans followed by winning the Olympic gold medal the following year. And after their worst finish in a major tournament — a loss to Sweden in the quarterfinals of the 2016 Rio Olympics — they...

3h

Will A Pro-Vaccination Push By GOP Leaders Change The Minds Of Unvaccinated Americans?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited. sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): With the delta variant of the coronavirus surging in the U.S. and COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations once again on the rise, there is a renewed sense of urgency that people get vaccinated — as...

3h

One Conference To Rule Them All

FiveThirtyEight   More: Apple Podcasts | ESPN App | RSS First, in honor/horror of Oklahoma and Texas breaking ties with the Big 12, we talk about what’s to become of college football. The short answer is that...

15h

How A Special Election In Texas’s 6th District Tested Trump’s Influence On The GOP

UPDATE (July 28, 2021, 7:46 a.m.): On Tuesday, Republican state Rep. Jake Ellzey handily defeated longtime GOP activist Susan Wright by nearly 7 percentage points in a special election runoff for control of Texas’s 6th District. With Ellzey and Wright running on nearly identical platforms, the race was largely viewed as a test of former President Donald...

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Time For The End Of The Teen Gymnast

This article is part of our Tokyo Olympics series. Before discovering gymnastics, Kathy Johnson ran track and was quite good at it. She was so good, in fact, that for a time she thought she might become a track and field Olympian. It’s not unusual for athletes to explore other hobbies and interests before settling on their...

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Politics Podcast: Does Running For President Always Help Your Career?

FiveThirtyEight   More: Apple Podcasts | ESPN App | RSS Almost a year after the 2020 Democratic National Convention, the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew looks back at the record number of Democrats who...

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What If Chasing Rivals Keeps Aaron Rodgers In Green Bay? We Made A Metric For That.

Aaron Rodgers is one of the best quarterbacks of the past 20 years, he’s a future Hall of Famer … and it looked for a while like he might not play in 2021. Although recent reports indicate he’ll be suiting up for the Green Bay Packers this season, it’s been a struggle to reach an agreement. Why? As a refresher, let’s recap the litany of reasons Rodgers...

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Hideo Nomo Paved The Way For A Generation Of Damn Good Japanese Ballplayers

Welcome to a very special installment of our Hall of Pretty Damn Good Players, a series in which we recognize the athletes who won’t make their sports’ Hall of Fame but still deserve accolades for their talent and influence. And with the 2020 Olympics officially underway in Tokyo, we need to pay tribute to a pitcher who once represented Japan at the...

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Police Arresting Fewer People For Minor Offenses Can Help Reduce Police Shootings

In response to nationwide protests last summer over the murder of George Floyd by police, many cities and states have tried to change their approach to policing. One such strategy is to make fewer arrests for low-level offenses in an effort to reduce the number of potentially violent encounters between the police and the public. Virginia, for instance,...

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