Politics Is Everything Podcast
Democracy faces a wide range of pressing challenges – from extreme partisanship and divisive politics to persistent inequities in access, voice and participation in public institutions and decision-making processes, from civic unrest to institutions that aren’t responsive to public needs. It’s not enough to just identify problems, we also have to find solutions and work collectively to address them.
Politics Is Everything is a member of the Democracy Group and hosted by Kyle Kondik, Carah Ong Whaley, and other members of the Center for Politics team.
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Season 2
Ep. 18: What Is the Future of Republican Party? Ft. Barbara Comstock
In this episode, we talk with former Republican Representative Barbara Comstock about why a red wave didn’t materialize in the 2022 elections, the state and future of the Republican Party, and potential indictments of Donald Trump.
Barbara was elected to Congress in 2014, and served two terms representing Virginia’s Tenth Congressional District, making her the first woman elected to that seat. She was named as one of the “Top Ten Most Effective Lawmakers” in the 115th Congress by the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint effort of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University. Barbara also serves as an ABC News political contributor and appears regularly on CNN, PBS, and MSNBC.
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Ep. 17: How Women Are Showing Up for Justice and Democracy
At a time when political rights are being contested, we talk with Dahlia Lithwick about the women who are working tirelessly through the law and legal system in pursuit of justice and a more democratic society.
Dahlia Lithwick is the senior legal correspondent at Slate and host of Amicus, Slate’s award-winning biweekly podcast about the law. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Commentary, among other places. Lithwick won a 2013 National Magazine Award for her columns on the Affordable Care Act. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October, 2018.
Links in this episode:
Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America (Penguin 2002)
Ep. 16: A Tricky Dance ft. Kyle Kondik
In this episode, Kyle Kondik discusses the 2024 Republican presidential primary field even though we’re still about a year away from actual voting. In the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (who has yet to declare a bid) together get about 75% of the total support. And Trump is leading by 25 percentage points among potential Republican primary voters, 53% to 28%. Is the Republican Party ready to move on from Trump?
Links in this episode:
The Republican Presidential Primary: Still Early, but Maybe Getting Late – Sabato’s Crystal Ball
Ep. 15: What Kind of Society Do We Want ? Ft. Senator Bernie Sanders
“What I wanted to do in the book, It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism (Penguin Random House 2023), is to break through the irrelevant discussion that takes place,” Senator Bernie Sanders told an audience at UVA Center for Politics event on March 2, 2023. He continued, “Politics is more than polls, more than elections, more than Democrats attacking Republicans or Republicans attacking Democrats. Real politics to me is about what’s going on in American life today.” To the young people in the crowd, Senator Sanders encouraged them to stay engaged, “Change is not easy. It’s part of a long struggle for justice.”
In this episode, we share Senator Sanders’ remarks and interview with Center Scholar Robert Costa, Chief Election and Campaign Correspondent for CBS News.
Ep. 14: How Likely Is an Electoral College Tie in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election?
How likely is an Electoral College tie in the 2024 U.S. presidential election? What are plausible paths to an Electoral College tie? What would happen if there’s an Electoral College tie and the House of Representatives has to decide the election? Kyle Kondik, Managing Director of Sabato’s Crystal Ball walks us through the history, scenarios, and procedures we should be paying attention to in the event no candidate receives a majority of Electoral College votes.
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Ep. 13: Battle for House Majority in 2024 Starts As Toss-up ft. Kyle Kondik
Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, discusses House Ratings for 2024, why control of the House of the House Representatives begins as a Toss-up, the most competitive seats and the role that redistricting and gerrymandering will play in determining outcomes.
Links in this episode:
Initial House Ratings: Battle for Majority Starts as a Toss-up, Kyle Kondik, Sabato’s Crystal Ball
The hidden dynamic that could tip control of the House, Ronald Brownstein, CNN
Limits of Partisanship in Citizen Preferences on Redistricting, Devin McCarthy
Ep. 12: What Happened in Virginia Special and Wisconsin Supreme Court Elections? ft. J. Miles Coleman
On February 21, 2023, Jennifer McClellan handily won the special election to serve Virginia’s Fourth Congressional District, making her the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress, and Wisconsin held a primary for the most important judicial race of the year in the closely-divided state. In this episode J. Miles Coleman and Carah Ong Whaley discuss the elections and why they matter.
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Ep. 11: Democracies in America ft. Greg Laski and Bert Emerson
Greg Laski, civilian Assistant Professor of English at the United States Air Force Academy, and Bert Emerson, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Honors Program at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington join us to discuss their new book, Democracies in America (Oxford University Press). The book features twenty-five essays written by a diverse group of leading intellectuals in history, literature, religious studies, political philosophy, rhetoric, and other disciplines, and it is organized around enduring dilemmas for society and governance, including republic versus democracy, citizenship and representation.
Links in this episode:
- Democracies in America: Key Words for the 19th Century and Today (Oxford University Press) Use Code AAFLYG6 for 30% off.
- Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Colored Conventions Project
Ep. 10: Try Before You Buy! Primaries, Primaries and More Primaries ft. Kyle Kondik
Why has it been over a decade since an incumbent senator was successfully primaried in a regularly-scheduled election? Which Senators might be vulnerable to a primary challenge in 2024? What are the primaries that merit watching? How will changes in the Democratic presidential primary schedule play out? How should the Republican Party consider changes it might make to the way it nominates presidential candidates? Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball addresses these questions and more in this episode.
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Ep. 9: What Is the State of Biden’s Next Campaign? ft. Kyle Kondik
Should we rethink State of the Union addresses, which have become pretty formulaic? This year, President Joe Biden touted bipartisan accomplishments and focused primarily on the economy and domestic issues. He didn’t really delve into some of the cultural issues on which the parties differ, which was in stark contrast to Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ response for Republicans. Even in his discussion of policing, he centered the voices of the parents of Tyre Nicols and the talks that Black parents must have with their kids. But, President Biden also discussed the strains that law enforcement are under. What did the content of Biden’s speech reveal about where he and party are headed as we look to 2024?
Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, joins Carah Ong Whaley for a discussion of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and the state of his 2024 campaign.
Links in this episode:
The State of Biden’s Next Campaign
Transcript of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address
Ep. 8: The Importance of Defending Democracy ft. Ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdés
In Chile, a special assembly spent more than two years writing a new constitution to replace the current one that dates back to the country’s military dictatorship. The proposed constitution, which some called the world’s most progressive, would have put a focus on social issues and gender parity, enshrine rights for the indigenous population, and address climate change. In September, Chilean voters rejected the proposal, and on January 11, 2023, Chile’s Congress passed a bill that starts a new process to replace the country’s Pinochet-era constitution.
In this episode, His Excellency Juan Gabriel Valdés, Ambassador of Chile to the United States joins Carah Ong Whaley and Caterina Perez Siino for a conversation about the state of democracy in Chile, Latin America and around the world, and discusses the importance of institutional accountability to protect from authoritarianism. “To defend democracy is very important,” says Ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdés. He also discusses solutions to a wide-range of challenges facing Chile and the world – from migration to policing reform to health system access.
His Excellency Juan Gabriel Valdés was sworn in most recently as Ambassador to the U.S. in spring 2022 and previously served as Ambassador to the U.S. from 2014 to 2018. In addition to Ambassador to the U.S., he has served as Chile’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the U.N. and Minister of Foreign Affairs, among other positions. He was a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York, Sorbonne in Paris, and served as Director of Institutional and Strategic Affairs at the University of Chile in Santiago.
Ep. 7: Why Have Presidential and Senate Results Become More Aligned in Recent Elections? Ft. J. Miles Coleman
Outcomes in the Senate races have increasingly become aligned with the presidential vote. Senate candidates frequently performed better a decade or two ago, with 40-point or more performance better than that of the presidential candidate occurring in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. J. Miles Coleman explains this trend and what it portends for the 2024 elections.
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Ep. 6: 2024 Senate: Democrats Have a Lot of Defending to Do
The Crystal Ball released its 2024 Senate Ratings this week. With 34 Senate contests, Democrats are defending 23 of these seats, while Republicans are defending just 11. That Democratic tally includes the 3 states with independents who caucus with the Democrats. In this episode, Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, provides an overview of the initial ratings and why Democrats will be playing defense.
Links in this episode:
- Initial Senate Ratings: Democrats Have a Lot of Defending to Do
- Michigan’s Open Senate Seat: Democrats’ Swing State Retirement Drought Ends
Ep. 5: A First Look at 2023 & 2024 Gubernatorial Contests Ft. J. Miles Coleman
Miles Coleman, Associate Editor of Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, discusses the 2023 gubernatorial elections in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi. Kentucky has a popular Democratic governor, and Republicans will likely retain control of the executive branch in Louisiana. In Mississippi, Democrats have not won a gubernatorial contest this century, but a credible Democratic candidate joined the contest last week. Miles also shares an early forecast of 2024 gubernatorial contests and predicts that North Carolina will be the most contested election.
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Ep. 4: How the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attacks Impacted Politics ft. Luke Broadwater
The biggest impact of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attacks was on public understanding to realize that the attacks weren’t just a single day, says Luke Broadwater, a Congressional reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Broadwater has written hundreds of articles covering the causes and consequences of the January 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol and the House Select Committee’s investigation.
Prior to joining The Times, Luke worked for nearly a decade at The Baltimore Sun, where he covered the Maryland State House and Baltimore City Hall. He broke a story last year about a self-dealing scandal at the state’s largest hospital system that resulted in the resignation of Baltimore’s mayor and top hospital officials and the passage of sweeping reform legislation. That series of investigative articles won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and a George Polk Award for political reporting.
Links in this episode:
Jan. 6 Transcripts Detail Failures in Surveillance and National Guard Response
January 6 committee wraps up, withdraws Trump subpoena
Jan. 6 Transcripts Reveal Disagreements That Divided Trump Camp
Jan. 6 Committee Withdraws Its Subpoena of Trump
Jan. 6 transcripts shed new light on how Trump considered blanket pardons
With Detailed Evidence and a Call for Accountability, Jan. 6 Panel Seeks a Legacy
Jan. 6 panel’s final report blames riot on ‘one man:’ Trump
The Capitol Police and the Scars of Jan. 6
How the Jan. 6 committee used TV tactics and dark humor in its case against Trump
House Select Committee Archive (links to Final Report, Witness Testimonies and Hearings)
Ep. 3: ‘Our democracy is really at risk’ ft. Sandra Garza
For the second anniversary of the violent attacks on the U.S. Capitol, we spoke with Sandra Garza, a clinical social worker, veteran, and partner of Private First Class Brian Sicknick, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who died of injuries sustained during the insurrection on January 6th, 2021.
Ms. Garza shares her experiences attending the House Select Committee hearings and what more needs to be done to achieve justice and accountability. She says everybody has a responsibility to ensure this never happens again. Ms. Garza is the plaintiff on a lawsuit filed on January 5, 2023 in the United States District Court in the District of Columbia against Donald J. Trump, Julian Khater and George Tanios for the wrongful death of Pfc Brian Sicknick. The lawsuit includes claims for relief for 1) wrongful death; 2) conspiracy to violate civil rights; 3) common law assault against Khater and Tanios, 4) Negligence Per Se against all defendants; 5) Aiding and Abetting Common-Law Assault (against Trump).
On January 6, 2023, PFC Sicknick was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for having made “exemplary contributions to our democracy” and shown “courage and selflessness” around the events of January 6, 2021. The medal is one of the country’s highest civilian honors, given to American citizens deemed to have “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”
PFC Brian D. Sicknick served with the United States Capitol Police from July 2008 until his passing in the line of duty on January 7, 2021 due to injuries sustained during the attack on the United States Capitol. PFC Sicknick spent the majority of his career with the department’s First Responder Unit, where he served as a mountain bike officer as well as a member of the Civil Disturbance Unit.
Links in this Episode
- Trump Is Sued in Death of Capitol Police Officer After Jan. 6
- 06/09/2022 Select Committee Hearing
- H.R.6943 – Public Safety Officer Support Act of 2022
- I can’t forgive the people who won’t admit my partner, Brian Sicknick, was a hero
- The adverse childhood experiences questionnaire: Two decades of research on childhood trauma as a primary cause of adult mental illness, addiction, and medical diseases
- Cult membership: What factors contribute to joining or leaving?
- President Biden Marks January 6 Anniversary
Ep. 2: The Case for Justice ft. Mark Zaid
On the second anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, we talk with Mark S. Zaid, an attorney with a practice focused on national security law, freedom speech, constitutional claims and government accountability. Mr. Zaid represents Sandra Garza, the partner of fallen Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, in a new lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court on January 5, 2023 against Donald J. Trump and two rioters. The lawsuit includes claims for relief for 1) wrongful death; 2) conspiracy to violate civil rights; 3) common law assault against Khater and Tanios, 4) Negligence Per Se against all defendants; 5) Aiding and Abetting Common-Law Assault (against Trump). Mr. Zaid also represents U.S. Capitol Police Pfc. Harry Dunn and Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, and represented Julie Farnam, the Acting USCP Director for Intelligence who warned in the intelligence assessment before the insurrection, dated January 3, 2021 that warned, “Bottom line. Protestors … plan to be armed.”
Mr. Zaid discusses the lawsuit, representing law enforcement, the politics of investigating the January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol, and the ongoing consequences of the attacks.
Links in this episode:
- Mark Zaid on Twitter
- https://markzaid.com/
- Whistleblower Aid
- Capitol Police intelligence official says she sounded alarm about potential violence days before January 6 riot
- Inside the Capitol Cops’ Jan. 6 Blame Game
- Democrats’ pick for the top staffer on the January 6 Capitol attack investigation sends an ugly message to potential witnesses
- Whistle-blower advocates call for a top aide on the Jan. 6 panel to be removed.
- Aide to Capitol Riot Inquiry Is Accused of Whistle-Blower Retaliation
Ep. 1: McCarthy’s Headaches & What Rebels Want
There has not been multiple ballots in a speaker election in 100 years, as Kyle Kondik wrote for the Crystal Ball earlier this week. On Thursday, January 5, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California offered new concessions to a group of conservative Republicans that have prevented him from winning the majority of votes needed to secure Speaker of the House. Mr. McCarthy has not yet been able to lock in the 218 votes he needs to win the Speakership. In the seventh, eighth, and ninth rounds of voting, held on Thursday, 20 Republicans voted for other candidates, and one voted “present.”
In this episode, we discuss what the House election for Speaker and McCarthy’s detractors tells us about the Republican governing coalition and what might be in store for the 118th Congress.
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Season 2
Ep. 31: What Were the Best and Worst Political Moment of 2022?
From the authentic to the hyperconstrued, from taking serious public issues and concerns to the utterly nonsensical and absurd, Kyle Kondik, Miles Coleman and Carah Ong Whaley share what they think are the best and worst of campaign ads, campaign moments and candidate moments of the 2022 midterm elections. What made your best and worst political moments of 2022? Share them with us by email goodpolitics@virginia.edu or Tweet at us at @Center4Politics.
Ep. 30: A New Era of Competitive Presidential Elections & Shifting Voting Patterns
In this episode, Kyle Kondik and Miles Coleman discuss the two eras in the Republican-Democrat two-party system that really stand out for competitiveness because of how close consecutive presidential elections were: the 6 elections between 1876-1896 and the elections in the 2000-2020 time period. They also discuss shifts in voting patterns In the 2000-2020 time period and the patterns that emerge regionally. “The most competitive states in 2020 may be the most competitive in 2024: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina in the Sun Belt,” Kyle asserts.
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Ep. 29: Is Free Speech Under Threat on Campuses?
In this episode, we talk with Bradford Vivian, Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State University and author of Campus Misinformation (Oxford University Press), about how the idea that free speech is under threat on college campuses became a core political appeal and how it has been manufactured through misinformation, distortion, and political ideology.
Ep. 28: A Fighting Chance for 2024
Kyle Kondik and Miles Coleman react to the Georgia Senate election, discuss House crossover districts, split ticket voting in 2022 and the Democratic Party’s 2024 primary plan. Regarding the Republican candidate quality problem, Kyle suggests that the “Senate Leadership Fund needs to take a more active role in primaries going forward if Republicans want to do well in 2024.”
Ep. 27: Why are Americans so obsessed with fascism?
Fascism has had a firm grip on the American imagination for one hundred years. “Increased polarization in the United States reflects Americans’ deepest fears of what might be happening in the polity,” says Bruce Kucklick, “The disruptive politics of Donald Trump has been grist for fascism-obsessed America.” Kuklick joins us to discuss the roots of fascism in American politics and popular culture based on his new book Fascism Comes to America: A Century of Obsession in Politics and Culture (University of Chicago Press).
Bruce Kucklick is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor Emeritus of American History at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ep. 26: Is Ranked Choice Voting a Cure for What Ails Politics?
Are ranked choice voting and multi-member districts a cure for the hyperpartisanship and partisan extremism plaguing politics? In this episode, we talk with Rob Richie, who has been the leader of FairVote since co-founding it in 1992. Richie shares evidence for how ranked choice voting is increasing representation and opportunities for new voices and new players in politics in places where it has been adopted. Mary Peltola, who is the first Alaska native to ever serve in Congress, is one such example.
As a result of ballot Measure 26-228 passing in the 2022 election with 58% of voters approving, Portland is set to become the largest city in the United States to use both ranked choice voting and multi-member City Council districts, a combination known as proportional representation that political scientists agree is a “gold standard” of democratic systems. We also talk with Damon Motz-Story who was part of grassroots efforts to adopt the reforms in Portand.
Links in this episode
Ep. 25: Looking Back on 2022 Elections & Looking Ahead to 2024 Elections
2022 was a great year for incumbents and a lot of things did matter – candidate quality, redistricting, reproductive rights and democracy. In this episode, Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and Miles Coleman, Associate Editor, assess the 2022 election and why Republicans didn’t do as well as expected in an election that historically pointed to their advantage. They also discuss what divided government but narrow majorities mean for governance, and look ahead to the Georgia runoff and to 2024 elections.
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Ep. 24: This is a war on democracy and democratic principles.
“This is a war on democracy and democratic principles,” Dr. Yuna Potomkina, Advisor to Ukraine Minister of Defense tells us. Armed conflict has been raging in Ukraine since early 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. On February 24, 2022, during a last-ditch UN Security Council effort to dissuade Russia from attacking Ukraine, Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of a full-scale land, sea, and air invasion of Ukraine targeting Ukrainian military assets and cities across the country. Since then, nearly 8 million Ukrainians have been forcibly displaced. An unknown number of Ukrainian children have been forcibly separated and deported to Russia, on top of other war crimes that will cause generational trauma.
Joining Dr. Potomkina in this episode is Sabina Iliasova, Project Coordinator at Crimea SOS, Liubov Rakovytsia, Chief Operating Officer at Donetsk Institute of Information, and our interpreter is Peter Voitsekhovsky.
“Ukraine’s success will tell the rest of the world that even a nonnuclear country can come out as a winner against a nuclear state that violated its international commitments and can continue as nuclear free and peaceful,” says Liubov Rakovytsia.
Our visitors said two of the most important things Americans can do are to keep Ukraine in the public discourse and to send a message of support directly to the people of Ukraine. We have created a form to fill out and will deliver messages to them.
Ep. 23: Wave Watch: Elections 2022
The Senate is coming down to a jump ball situation. Candidates need to avoid a bad toss, and can’t miss a foul or violation. Sabato’s Crystal Ball is still projecting a Republican gain in the House in the high teens or low 20s.
In this episode, we share our live discussion initially held on Twitter Spaces with resident experts Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Miles Coleman, Associate Editor. We talk about our latest projections, what to watch, and the state of play in key Senate, House and Gubernatorial races in the final days of Election 2022.
Links in this episode:
Center for Politics on Twitter
Secretary of State and Attorney General: What to Watch for Next Week in Key Statewide Contests
Ep. 22: A Pumpkin Year for Democrats?
Kyle Kondik discusses changes in Sabato’s Crystal Ball ratings to favor Republicans and he predicts the GOP will take control of the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterm elections. The Crystal Ball says the Senate remains a toss-up. We also talk about how the political environment matters and what to watch in the final week leading up to Election Day 2022.
Ep. 21: ‘Democracy hangs there by a thread.’ ft. Clint Hill & Lisa McCubbin Hill
“Democracy hangs there by a thread really,” Clint Hill says on this episode of Politics Is Everything. “It hangs there by the will of the people. Without the agreement of the people to live by those circumstances, it will not exist. When it has been jeopardized by individuals, or groups or power mongers, it’s very difficult to watch if you’re one of those like myself who accepts the wonders of democracy. Democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people. And it is fragile. It can go either way. We must be careful.”
Clint Hill will forever be remembered as the courageous Secret Service Agent who leapt onto the back of the presidential limousine in the midst of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, on November 22, 1963. For his actions that day, Hill received the nation’s highest civilian award for bravery. His primary responsibility was the protection of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. “I ended up with the best assignment in the secret service,” Hill tells us.
Lisa McCubbin Hill, an award-winning journalist who has been a television news anchor and reporter for NBC, ABC, and CBS, also joins the conversation to discuss their new book My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy.
Ep. 20: ‘Disagreement is healthy.’ ft. Dr. David Ramadan
“Partisanship has become a problem on a personal level,” says Dr. David Ramadan, a Republican who served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2012 to 2016 in “one of the most Democratic districts in the entire Commonwealth.” Dr. Ramadan discusses ways to reduce extremism in both parties.
Dr. Ramadan is the Vice President of an innovative EdTech leader, Noodle, the world’s fastest-growing online and lifelong knowledge network of universities, corporations, and learners. He is also an adjunct professor at George Mason University (his alma mater) and is a 2022-23 scholar at the Center for Politics.
Ep. 19: ‘The Only Way Anything Gets Better Is if You Lean In’ ft. Margaret Brennan
Margaret Brennan, moderator of “Face The Nation” on CBS and the network’s chief foreign affairs correspondent based in Washington, D.C. joins us to discuss the crisis in confidence in the media and political institutions, and the importance of leaning in to fix the challenges facing our democracy and society. Brennan says we need to be paying more attention to what is happening around the world as “We are literally seeing the foundations of the global order shaken.”
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Ep. 18: How many seats will Republicans end up with in the House of Representatives?
In this episode, Larry Sabato, Director of the Center for Politics, and Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of the Crystal Ball, place the 2022 election in historical context, discuss which races are the hardest to predict and address the state of play as we head into the final three weeks of what is slated to be the most expensive election on record.
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Ep. 17: What’s Happening with Four Weeks Until Election Day 2022?
It’s just four weeks until the last day to vote, a.k.a. Election Day 2022. What’s happening that may be affecting the electoral environment now that people are paying closer attention to the elections? Kyle Kondik and Carah Ong Whaley discuss ads, the prospect for women candidates, and ballot measures, and they answer listener questions.
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Ep. 16: Can we regain the ability to come back together after elections?
“Everything has changed,” says CNN political contributor and Center for Politics scholar Paul Begala about campaigns and elections since he was the senior strategist for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. “Partisanship is now part of our identity and social media has really put jet fuel behind all the fissures in our society…Elections have always been about dividing. We’re losing the ability to come back together afterward.”
We talk with Mr. Begala about the changing nature of political campaigns, the 2022 elections, political organizing, Texas politics, the Democratic Party and more.
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Ep. 15: “What an Injustice’ ft. Senator Tim Kaine
Senator Tim Kaine joined the Center for Politics on September 23, 2022 to honor law enforcement who defended the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 for the first annual Defender of Democracy Awards. The J6 insurrection interrupted the proceedings of the House and Senate as they met to fulfill their Constitutionally prescribed duty to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election and forced members to evacuate to safe locations, including Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine recalled his reaction on January 6 as he was hunkered down in the Capitol with other Senators and staff and seeing Virginia State Troopers arrive on the scene, “The last time there was domestic insurrection against the government of the United States, Virginia was leading it. Now we’re in a domestic insurrection that’s being led by the commander-in-chief of the United States, and Virginia is coming to the rescue of the union.” Senator Kaine also noted that Charlottesville and January 6 are connected in so many ways as both were: “motivated by a fear of replacement, amplified by disinformation, and were an attack on democracy.”
Senator Kaine has helped craft bipartisan legislation to honor the public service of police officers, firefighters, and emergency responders by supporting the families of public safety officers lost to trauma-linked suicides, including families of Officers Jeffrey Smith and Howard Liebengood who were honored by the Center for Politics as Defenders of Democracy.
Ep. 14: Outside Spending, Rating Changes & Ads…Oh My!
The cost of elections is on the rise. Adjusted for inflation, the 2022 congressional elections are set to cost $9.3 billion dollars, compared to $6.7 billion in 2018, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. And the average cost to win a seat has doubled since 2004. In this episode Kyle Kondik shares his outside spending analysis, where outside spending is targeted and how outside spending is influencing his assessment of races. Kyle and Miles Coleman also discuss updated Sabato’s Crystal Ball House and Gubernatorial ratings and what political ads tell us about some key races.
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Ep. 13: Hello, 2022. 1978 and 1982 are calling.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball has been tracking how 2022 is different from previous midterm elections years when the party that holds the White House is often punished. The 2022 midterm elections features both an unpopular president and there are also indications that the unpopular president’s party won’t be strongly punished. In this episode, Kyle Kondik discusses how echoes of the 1978 and 1982 midterm elections may be reverberating in 2022.
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Ep. 12: ‘I was just simply doing my job.’ Ft. Sergeant Aquilino Gonell
On Friday, September 23, the Center for Politics honored and recognized all of the police officers, state troopers, national guard, firefighters, and emergency responders who protected members of the U.S. Congress, their staff, journalists and other public servants at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 as the legislative branch of America’s democracy carried out the Constitutionally prescribed certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election.
In this episode, we talk with one of the recipients of the award, U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell. Sergeant Gonell served in Iraq with the U.S. Army during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Even with the threat of bomb-filled roads, he volunteered to conduct supply missions for U.S. and allied forces and local Iraqi schools. On January 6, 2021 while on American soil, he said he was more afraid of the violence that took place at the Capitol than he ever felt while serving in Iraq. On the west side of the Capitol, he spent hours trying to stop the wave of assailants from entering the building. He was hit with an American flag pole and a bat, and at one point fell to the ground and was dragged by a group that beat and insulted him.
“I had to work for my citizenship. I had to earn my citizenship. Having so many people who were born in this country attacking the very same thing I swore an oath to protect and attacking the place I call home, that is what bothers me so much,” Sergeant Gonell tells us. “I bought into the American system, into American values. The things we hear when we live overseas – that America is the land of opportunity, that everyone is treated equal, that no one is above the law. And all this was tested on January 6 and onward… Without what we did, there would have been a lot of people who died. It would have been a massacre. When they were trying to get into the Capitol, they were telling us that they were there to hurt people. They told me that they were going to execute anyone in there that deserves it. Some of them yelled at me that I wasn’t an American…but, what is more American than protecting the Capitol?”
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Ep. 11: Why Is the U.S. Constitution in Jeopardy
Activists have been campaigning behind the scenes for years now to change the U.S. Constitution to limit the federal government, with implications for education, health care and the environment. In this episode, we talk with former Senator Russ Feingold, President of the American Constitution Society, and Peter Prindiville, a non-resident fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center about their new book, The Constitution in Jeopardy.
Feingold and Prindiville trace the origins and developments of Article V of the U.S. Constitution and its provision and the ways in which it embodies an underappreciated tension that the Constitution both reflected and embedded between institutionalist theories of democracy and governance and more radical grassroots theories of resistance and change. They caution that a Constitutional Convention could run away and fundamentally alter our nation’s laws and civic life.
Links in this episode:
- The Constitution in Jeopardy Public Affairs Books
Ep. 10: What Is the Role of the News Media in this Critical Moment for American Democracy?
Robert Costa, chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News and a scholar at the Center for Politics this academic year, shares his approach to covering campaigns, elections and politics to help the public make sense of the complex issues facing the nation. “It can become a blizzard that’s hard to follow,” says Costa, “You have to report deeply and you want to break news…Unless it’s breaking ground on the biggest players, it’s important, but not THE story.”
Links in this episode:
- Peril
- Watergate at 50: The political scandal that changed Washington
- Rep. Liz Cheney Speaks joins Robert Costa, CBS Sunday Morning, June 5, 2022
Ep. 9: Are Republican Chances for the Midterm Underrated?
There’s been some mixed electoral indicators – including the recent rise in President Biden’s job approval rating and Democrats doing better in the generic ballot – that are making the 2022 elections more challenging to analyze. Henry Olsen, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Washington Post columnist joins us to discuss why the Republicans are now being underrated, including through persistent and unaddressed biases in survey research, and what that means for the 2022 elections. “We should be very careful when we’re looking at state-level polling,” says Olsen.
Links in this episode:
Ep. 8: House Ratings: ‘What the Hell’s Going On Out Here?
Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the Center for Politics, talks about redistricting, the special election in Alaska and new ratings for House of Representative seats.
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Ep. 7: Where Have Trump’s Endorsements Mattered and Why? ft. Leah Askarinam
In August, Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) became the seventh House Republican to fall to a Donald Trump-backed challenger since 2018. Rep. Cheney has taken a prominent role in calling for accountability for the January 6, 2021 insurrection and calling out false election narratives. In this episode, we talk with Leah Askarinam, senior editor at Grid News, about the extent to which and where have Mr. Trump’s endorsements mattered in the 2022 election and why. “Trump undoubtedly is the most important endorser in the Republican Party, but even that has its limits,” says Askarinam. Askarinam also discusses the role of candidate quality, the impact of the Dobbs decision, the economy and other issues and why this might not be a typical midterm election year.
Before joining Grid, Leah was co-author of the On Politics newsletter for the New York Times and editor in chief of National Journal’s Hotline.
Links in this episode:
- Leah Askarinam on Twitter
- Lea Askarinam, “Senate candidates might not be able to ride a red wave. Can they paddle their way to the majority?,” Grid News
- Elena More, Tracking Trump’s endorsements: Here’s how his picks have fared in primaries, NPR
Ep. 6: How Has the Political Environment Changed & What Does It Portend for Senate Races?
In Sabato’s Crystal Ball this week, Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman write that Democrats are hoping to make the 2022 election more of a choice than a referendum and that they are benefiting from some damaged Republican candidates in several key races as well as the emergence of abortion as a key issue in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. In this episode, they discuss how the political environment has changed and what it portends for Senate races.
Links in this episode:
- “Senate Rating Changes: Arizona, Pennsylvania to Leans Democratic,” Sabato’s Crystal Ball
- Election Spending Overview, Center for Responsive Politics
Ep. 5: What would American democracy look like if everyone participated?
Americans turned out to vote in record numbers in the 2020 presidential election and turnout has been on the rise in other recent elections. However, voter turnout in the United States still lags behind other countries. In this episode, we discuss 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting with co-authors Miles Rapoport, executive director of 100% Democracy: An Initiative for Universal Voting and the Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, and E.J. Dionne, Jr. senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, university professor at Georgetown University, and visiting professor at Harvard University.
Universal voting is in effect in 26 democratic countries in Europe, Latin America, Asia. Most notably, Australia adopted nationwide mandatory voting almost 100 years ago, in 1924. The participation rate immediately jumped from 60% to 90% and has stayed there in almost every election since.
Rapoport and Dionne make the case that universal civic-duty voting would make the voting electorate more fully representative of the universe of American citizens and that campaigns would significantly improve, since candidates and parties would have to appeal to all voters. “When the electorate is fully reflective of the population as a whole, the responsiveness of government is likely to increase,” Rapoport says during our conversation. Instead of the “enrage to engage” that comes with great cost to our democracy, universal voting “would almost certainly produce a less ideological electorate,” says Dionne. The implementation of universal voting could also significantly improve civic culture in the United States.
Links in this Episode:
- 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting
- It’s Time for Universal Voting
- Beyond Turnout: How Compulsory Voting Shapes Citizens and Political Parties by Shane P. Singh
- Civic Duty to Vote Act, Introduced by Representative John Larson (D-CT-1)
- Compulsory Voting Around the world, IDEA International
Ep. 4: Is Ticket Splitting Still Alive?
In the lead up to the 2020 election, the Pew Research Center asked voters whether they would split their ticket, that is to select a Republican for one office and a Democrat for another. Just 4% of registered voters said they would do so. Less than four percent of members of the House of Representatives (16 of 435) represent districts that voted for the opposing party’s presidential nominee in 2020. At the state level, 90 percent of state Senate and state House districts around the country voted for the same party for president as they did for the legislature. In 2022, six states – Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Oklahoma and South Carolina – will offer voters the opportunity to choose a party’s entire slate of candidates with just a single ballot mark in general elections that applies to all partisan offices on the ticket, including federal, state and local races.
There has been a precipitous decline in voters who split their ballots as the political parties have sorted ideologically and sharpened their differences over issues and policies. Despite this trend, J. Miles Coleman discusses which states that have elections in 2022 for senate and governor might see split outcomes and why.
Read Miles’ full analysis on Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Ep. 3: Can We Fix the Rage Machine?
Tim Miller is an MSNBC analyst, writer-at-large at The Bulwark, and the host of “Not My Party” on Snapchat. Tim was communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign and spokesman for the Republican National Committee during Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign. He has since left the GOP and become one of the leaders of the “Never Trump” movement. He is author of Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell
that aims to explain why Washington DC politicos who knew better went along with Trump and he joins us on Politics is Everything to discuss his book and what we can do to fix the rage machine he helped to create.
Ep. 2: What’s at Stake in Gubernatorial Elections?
The president’s party has lost governorships in 16 of the 19 midterm elections since World War II. In this episode, Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball discusses the most competitive gubernatorial races in 2022. He shares how a variety of factors – including presidential approval, incumbency, the state of economy and other issues, the year in which gubernatorial elections are held – converge to shape the outcome of gubernatorial elections.
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Ep. 1: Does political experience matter?
The difference in experience among Senate candidates is one of the story lines Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, is following in the 2022 midterm elections. As a group, Republican Senate (and gubernatorial) candidates have less experience running for office and winning general elections than do Democratic candidates. How will experience and candidate quality impact election outcomes?
Also in this episode, Ahmed, a student who participated in the Center’s Global Perspectives in Democracy Program, shares about his experience in the United States this summer and his views on democracy in Iraq.
Links in this episode:
- The Long Red Thread, by Kyle Kondik