npr--2020-11-18--Author Says The Chicago 7 Trial Reflected 'All The Conflicts In America'

Author Says The Chicago 7 Trial Reflected 'All The Conflicts In America' The Chicago 7 were activists who were charged with conspiring to start a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention .
Jon Wiener 's 2006 book , recently reprinted , is Conspiracy in the Streets .
My guest , Jon Wiener , hopes that President Trump does not watch Aaron Sorkin 's new film , `` The Trial Of The Chicago 7 . ''
Wiener wrote in an article published last month in The Nation that he feared Trump would take away the wrong message and tell his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do with the leaders of today 's protest movements , like Black Lives Matter , what Nixon did to the Chicago Seven and put them on trial for conspiracy to cross state lines and incite riot .
Wiener is the author of a book about the Chicago Seven trial that includes a very abridged version of the trial transcript .
The book , `` Conspiracy In The Streets , '' was first published in 2006 .
It was reprinted to coincide with Aaron Sorkin 's film , which is now streaming on Netflix @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chicago Eight , were leaders of the movement against the war in Vietnam .
In August of 1968 , they organized protests that drew thousands of people from around the country to Chicago to coincide with the Democratic National Convention that was being held there .
This was the convention that nominated Hubert Humphrey , who lost to Richard Nixon .
The protesters were met with thousands of police , National Guardsmen and soldiers , resulting in battles that were broadcast on national TV , shocking Americans who watched as young people were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later , early in Nixon 's presidency , eight leaders of the political and cultural left , including Bobby Seale , a co-founder of the Black Panthers , were charged with conspiracy to incite riot .
Seale , who was chained and gagged in the courtroom during part of the trial , was later severed from the trial and was not retried for the Chicago charges .
Wiener writes , at the end of the '60s , it seemed that all the conflicts in America were distilled and then acted out in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also the author of the book `` Set The Night On Fire , '' about the protest movements in 1960s LA , and he wrote an earlier book about John Lennon 's FBI files .
John Wiener , welcome back to FRESH AIR .
The antiwar protests that we 're talking about were staged to coincide with the Democratic National Convention .
Why were they protesting at the convention site in Chicago ?
JON WIENER : Well , the war in Vietnam had been , basically , a war started and escalated by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lyndon Johnson had to withdraw from his own reelection campaign , something that has never happened before or since , because there was so much opposition to him from within his own party because there were now half a million troops in Vietnam , and it was clear that America was never going to win this war .
So if you wanted to protest the war , you had to protest against the Democrats .
The Republicans really did n't have much to do with it .
And that 's why the antiwar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hoped would be hundreds of thousands of people protesting .
In the end , it was one of the smaller protests of the '60s .
But as you said , the violence of the police - the police riot and the police riot on TV - made it a historic event .
GROSS : How did it turn into a riot ?
What happened ?
WIENER : Well , this is - the subject of the trial raised this issue repeatedly .
There 's , of course , two views of how this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ view was that leaders of the protest movement conspired to sort of trick naive young people into coming to Chicago and then provoked a riot in violation of federal law .
The defense argued that , truthfully , they had tried repeatedly to get permits to make this a legal protest , and they were denied first by the city and then by the courts .
They could n't stop people from coming to protest .
And it 's pretty clear that the mayor of Chicago , Richard J. Daley , kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the police to attack and beat the demonstrators repeatedly day after day .
And indeed , an independent investigation after all these events called it a police riot .
GROSS : And you write that four months before these protests , Mayor Daley issued orders to Chicago police to shoot to kill arsonists and shoot to maim or cripple looters in Black neighborhoods .
WIENER : Yeah .
Daley was determined to stop street protests in Chicago by any means necessary , I think you could say .
And I think that 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of thousands of people coming , only about 15,000 people came to these protests .
The antiwar demonstrations before this - I mean , SDS organized the first antiwar March on Washington in the spring of 1965 .
That had 25,000 people , which was maybe twice as many as came to Chicago three years later .
And during the trial in 1969 , the Vietnam Moratorium Day in October had hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating all over the place .
So the threats that Daley had issued in the months before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really did have a huge effect on reducing the number of people who were willing to show up .
GROSS : Well , if there were 12,000 police , 6,000 soldiers and 5,000 National Guardsmen , that means there were at least as many of them as there were of protesters .
Is that right ?
WIENER : Yeah .
I think that the Army , the regular Army soldiers were never sent into the streets .
It was the National Guard and the Chicago police , so I think it was pretty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city issued a curfew at 11 o'clock during the nights of the protest .
And when the protesters did n't leave , that , I think , is when the police attacked them .
WIENER : Yes .
We need to make it clear here there were two very different protests that were organized .
One was the kind of traditional protest march that wanted to go to the convention site and to call on the Democrats to end the war .
That was the one that was organized by the National @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called it - Dave Dellinger , Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden .
And then there was a separate protest .
The Yippies organized what they called a Festival of Life in Grant Park to challenge what they called the festival of death at the Democratic National Convention .
Their protest was going to be in the park .
It was going to involve music , dancing - they also said perhaps public fornication , perhaps nude bathing at the beaches - the Festival of Life of the counterculture .
And everyone was encouraged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to camp out in the park .
And the police said they could n't stay overnight in the park , and so that became the flashpoint - you 're right - of the police violence .
GROSS : Many of the protesters were injured .
I think hundreds were hospitalized .
WIENER : Yeah .
Yeah , including Rennie Davis , who was very - got a concussion , covered with blood , hospitalized .
It was bad .
GROSS : So you have these two really different groups standing trial together @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin , and you 've got leaders from the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam , which is represented by , you know , Dave Dellinger and Tom Hayden , Rennie Davis .
As you said , there were two separate protests .
One was , you know , a march to where the convention was being held , and the other was this , like , Festival of Life in the park .
Did the Yippies and the leaders of the mobilization talk to each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this protest ?
Or were these , like , two independent things ?
WIENER : You know , they were inevitably thrown together .
They applied separately for permits .
But once they got to Chicago , the police did n't really distinguish between them .
And a lot of the people who came for the march also wanted to camp out in the park .
And during the day was the festival with the music and so on .
So they sort of blended together .
The idea of the prosecution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Conspiracy is an agreement to break the law .
They never conspired together to do this .
It was more the circumstances on the ground that made this into one protest .
GROSS : The defendants in the trial come from the cultural left and the political left .
And there 's a lot of divisions between them in terms of their tactics , their philosophy , their strategy .
And you could see that in how they tried to use the trial to make their larger points about the war and about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Can you talk about their different strategies at the trial ?
WIENER : Yeah .
Both groups wanted to use the trial to present the case to the American people that - they wanted to put the government on trial for the war in Vietnam .
That they agreed on .
How to do that was where they had different ideas .
Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin - let 's call them Abbie and Jerry - wanted to use ridicule and humor and disruptions to desanctify ( ph ) the courtroom and delegitimize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And Dave Dellinger was kind of into that , too .
He was openly defiant of the judge and the prosecutors .
Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden wanted to have a more sober kind of trial , where they would challenge the factual basis of what the prosecution was saying and insist on talking about the war at every opportunity .
In practice , there was a lot of disruption .
And in practice , the judge resolutely refused to let them bring up Vietnam .
He kept saying Vietnam has nothing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So we saw both of these in the courtroom .
And the trial , of course , lasted almost five months .
So there were many opportunities for both strategies to be attempted .
GROSS : How did the political left - how did , like , Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis react to the more prankish approach of the Yippies , Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin ?
WIENER : Well , Tom , afterwards , he was kind of contemptuous of Abbie and Jerry .
He thought they were not good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thought they were - you know , they were masters of television .
Everybody understood that .
They were masters of the media .
But they were not interested in organizing hundreds of thousands of people by the usual organizing tactics .
They would just put out the word and hope that everybody came .
And that was what they were doing in the courtroom , too , performing for this much larger audience of young people .
So Rennie and Tom wanted to make - keep the focus on the war in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very interested in the desanctification ( ph ) of the courtroom and the American legal system .
GROSS : So let me introduce you here , Jon .
If you 're just joining us , my guest is Jon Wiener .
His book `` Conspiracy In The Streets : The Extraordinary Trial Of The Chicago Seven '' was first published in 2006 .
It was reprinted to coincide with Aaron Sorkin 's new film about the trial , which is now streaming on Netflix .
We 'll talk more after we take a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
GROSS : This is FRESH Air .
Let 's get back to my interview with Jon Wiener , whose books include `` Conspiracy In The Streets : The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Seven . ''
And if you want to see a theatrical film based on the trial , there 's one streaming on Netflix that was written by Aaron Sorkin .
So the protests we 've been talking about take place in Chicago in 1968 , coinciding with the Democratic National Convention because the protesters are demonstrating against the Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Vietnam , you know , Democratic presidents .
So by the time the trial takes place , Nixon is president .
Did Nixon have a role in the Chicago 7 trial ?
WIENER : Well , it was part of - Nixon 's campaign theme had been law and order and to be the voice of the - what he called the silent majority , by which he referred to white conservatives who were opposed to the Black movement in the streets and the movement - the counterculture , the movement of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in that sense , the trial is perfect - is part of what Nixon promised he would do if he became president .
And it 's interesting that - I mean , the demonstrations were , as you have said , they were against Democrats .
They were not against Republicans .
But the most fascinating thing about the trial politically was that the Democratic attorney general for Lyndon Johnson had made a decision not to prosecute any of the protests at the Democratic National Convention .
He was - name was Ramsey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the defense to testify at the trial to emphasize how much this was a part of a Nixon initiative , and that there would - never would 've been a trial if Hubert Humphrey had won the election because the Democrats were not in favor of , you know , repressing the protests that were sweeping America , even with federal law , even though they were the targets of them .
So yes , this was a Nixon initiative .
He was more or less fulfilling a campaign promise , although he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Chicago demonstrators .
GROSS : Judge Julius Hoffman , as you point out in your book , he seemed to represent everything that was unjust and oppressive about the status quo at the time .
He was 74 at the time of the trial .
He had graduated from law school in 1915 , which was very far away from the cultural values of 1968 .
And he did things that were just , really , remarkable by any standard , including having Bobby Seale , when he was still a defendant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the founders of the Black Panthers .
Hoffman had him bound and gagged .
And Seale 's lawyer had been hospitalized .
So Seale did n't have representation .
He wanted to represent himself .
Hoffman refused to allow him to do that .
And when Seale kept protesting , that 's when Hoffman had him bound and gagged .
How are you allowed to do that in an American courtroom ?
How was Hoffman allowed to do that ?
Was n't there anybody who could say , you do n't @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could stop that kind of thing from happening ?
WIENER : You know , I 'm - I had never heard of it happening before either .
And I 'm kind of amazed that the prosecution did n't tell the judge not to do this .
I mean , it was a completely horrifying spectacle , threw the courtroom into turmoil for - it went on for four days .
Bobby Seale was a fiercely proud and strong person who kept trying to shout through his gag that he demanded his right to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of this was in front of the jury .
I would have thought that the prosecution would 've been worried about the jury being , you know , as we say , tainted by this spectacle .
And , of course , eventually , after four days , Bobby Seale was severed .
And that was the end of his presence in the courtroom .
Although , the defense then brought him back as a defense witness a couple of months later .
But , yeah , it never should 've happened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a spectacle to the entire country , in fact , to the entire world .
You can be sure that in Europe and in Africa and in South America , people saw the courtroom drawings .
There were no photographs or film , or video allowed in the courtroom .
But there were courtroom drawings of a Black man gagged in chains in an American courtroom .
GROSS : What was Bobby Seale doing as a defendant in the first place ?
WIENER : He really should n't have been there .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ these demonstrations .
The Panthers were not planning to - did n't demonstrate , did n't call on their members to demonstrate at the Chicago National Convention .
And , in fact , they called it a great phrase , Custeristic .
It was like , you know , being Custer heading into the battle that he was sure to be massacred in .
So Bobby Seale was in Chicago for a total of four hours .
He gave a speech in Grant Park in the afternoon , which was mostly about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the police and , you know , Black power in Black communities .
But since the Panthers were the most famous Black , radical group in America , Nixon wanted to make them part of what was going to be the biggest show trial of radicals in America , so he was added .
And probably , it was part of the prosecution 's strategy also to , you know , frighten the jury of middle-class white people with an angry Black man .
GROSS : It did n't work out the way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : No , ( laughter ) partly it was , as you say , it was because of Judge Julius Hoffman did this most unexpected thing .
He should 've allowed Bobby Seale to have an attorney .
I mean , that 's kind of basic , you know , American ...
GROSS : It 's his constitutional right .
Like , I do n't understand how ... WIENER : It is his ( laughter ) constitutional right .
GROSS : ...
This is allowed to happen .
Yeah ( laughter ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It was his constitutional right .
And that 's what he kept claiming , asserting .
Hoffman , in some way - you know , when you read the transcript now , you just ca n't believe a judge would ever do this .
It 's horrifying and , in some ways , it 's hilarious .
I mean , every time the prosecution says objection , the judge says sustained .
Sometimes - and every time the defense says objection , the judge says overruled .
He does n't even let @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's unbelievably biased , which , of course , led to the entire - all the convictions being overturned on appeal .
But in some ways , in retrospect , this played very much into the hands of the defendants who wanted to expose , you know , the injustice of the American legal system and how the courts were in the service of the repressive forces of the Nixon administration .
I mean , it could not possibly have been any clearer .
And any other judge would have had a very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fulfill everything that the radicals were saying about justice in America .
GROSS : Well , let me reintroduce you here .
If you 're just joining us , my guest is Jon Wiener .
His book `` Conspiracy In The Streets : The Extraordinary Trial Of The Chicago Seven '' has been reprinted to coincide with Aaron Sorkin 's film , which is now streaming on Netflix .
And that film is called `` The Trial Of The Chicago 7 . ''
We 'll talk more after a break .
I 'm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ AIR .
THE ELECTRIC FLAG : ( Singing ) If I 'd have listened to my second mind - yes , if I had listened to my second mind , you know I would n't be here now , people , down on the killing floor .
GROSS : This is FRESH AIR .
I 'm Terry Gross .
Let 's get back to my interview with Jon Wiener .
His book `` Conspiracy In The Streets : The Extraordinary Trial Of The Chicago Seven '' was first published in 2006 .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sorkin 's film about the trial of the Chicago Seven , which is now streaming on Netflix .
The defendants in the trial were leaders from the political and the cultural left who opposed the war in Vietnam and organized protests in 1968 in Chicago , where the Democratic National Convention was being held .
They were met with thousands of police , National Guardsmen and soldiers , leading to battles in which young people were tear gassed and beaten .
The defendants were charged with crossing state lines and conspiring to start @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eight , but Bobby Seale , a founder of the Black Panthers , was removed from that trial and was never retried on those Chicago charges .
So we 've been talking about Judge Julius Hoffman .
What are some of the things that he did , some of the other things he did , that were so norm-breaking for a judge ?
WIENER : Well , he , some ways - aside from having a Black man chained and gagged in the courtroom , I 'd say the second most outrageous thing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attorney general , Ramsey Clark , to testify .
Ramsey Clark was prepared to testify that the Democratic administration thought there was no basis for a conspiracy trial of these people and that they did not cause a riot .
And Hoffman banned the defense from presenting that testimony in the courtroom and from presenting that witness in the courtroom and did n't even allow the jury to know that the former attorney general had been a scheduled witness and was not allowed to appear .
And , of course , the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before , was refusing to allow Bobby Seale to have his attorney present and then refusing his repeated demands that he be allowed to represent himself - completely unconstitutional .
GROSS : So while the trial was going on , Fred Hampton , who was a leader of the Chicago Black Panthers and was acting kind of as a liaison between Bobby Seale and the rest of the defense , Fred Hampton was killed by police in a raid on his home .
What do we know about what happened in the death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did that have on the trial ?
WIENER : Fred Hampton was a very appealing and , some would say , charismatic young guy , one of the most promising and young leaders of the Panthers .
Really , everybody liked him a lot .
The police said that there was a gun battle and that he was shot while resisting .
But the coroner 's autopsy determined that he 'd been shot twice in the head in his bed , which meant while he was asleep .
This news came in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just a completely horrible thing for all the defendants who knew him , liked him , had been meeting with him .
They tried to get the trial to go into recess for a day or two , but Judge Hoffman would n't allow that .
And it seems like the murder of Fred Hampton by the Chicago police was part of a national campaign coordinated , probably , by the FBI to attack the Panthers everywhere .
Two weeks later , the Panther office in LA was attacked .
They did n't @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had learned from Fred Hampton 's killing to barricade and put - sandbag their offices .
GROSS : So how did the Chicago Seven trial end ?
WIENER : Well , here , the film is ( laughter ) a little misleading .
The film has a happy ending , with Tom Hayden defying the judge while everybody cheers .
That 's the way Aaron Sorkin likes his films to end .
But in real life , the trial ended with guilty verdicts against five of the seven defendants .
Everyone was found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of incitement to riot .
They were then sentenced to five years in prison for that crime .
And then the judge also gave each one of them long sentences for contempt of court , some as long as four years more for contempt of court .
Now , normally , if you 're being - facing more than a six-month sentence for contempt of court , you get a separate jury trial .
He denied them a separate jury trial despite repeated protests from the attorneys .
And that also was overturned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the trial was a very grim and miserable experience for everybody .
GROSS : Did they have to serve any time ?
WIENER : They - I believe they served overnight their - the judge also revoked their bail .
Now , the only grounds for revoking bail in America is risk of flight .
These guys were not going to flee .
These guys were full-time professional organizers .
Every chance they had , they were on college campuses or at churches giving speeches .
Nevertheless , the judge revoked their bail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ improper .
And they got that reversed , I think , the next day .
And then the trial was appealed .
And the contempt citations then had a separate trial , and everything was overturned on appeal , and nobody served any more time in jail .
GROSS : What parallels do you see between the Chicago Seven and the protests of today and how the police have handled those protests ?
WIENER : Well , today 's - the biggest difference is that today 's protests have been a hundred times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one city that people took to the streets and , in many places , were attacked by the police ; it was everywhere in America - big cities and little cities .
And it was n't just young people .
It was n't just Black people .
It was a very multiethnic , multiracial wave of protests that we had this summer on a scale that we 've never seen before in America .
So I think what happened this summer is much , much better , much bigger and stronger and smarter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including the Chicago convention protests .
One of the most important things is there were n't these kinds of splits in the demonstrations of the past summer .
They were very focused and very coherent .
And , you know , the '60s left - the SDS split into two factions which kicked each other out .
The Black Panthers had a bitter rivalry with Ron Karenga 's US organization .
We have n't seen anything like that with Black Lives Matter .
And , you know , I 've thought a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is today 's protest movement so much better than what we had in the '60s ?
I think part of it is that Black Lives Matter is an organization that was founded and is led by Black women , and they somehow do not have the same kind of - let 's call them macho rivalries and preoccupations that the men of of the '60s new left and the '60s Black Power movement had .
GROSS : John Wiener , thank you so much for talking with us .
WIENER : It was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the author of the book `` Conspiracy In The Streets : The Extraordinary Trial Of The Chicago Seven . ''
It 's been reprinted to coincide with the Aaron Sorkin film `` The Trial Of The Chicago 7 . ''
After we take a short break , we 'll hear from British writer Anthony Horowitz , author of the Alex Rider teenage spy young adult novels , as well as mystery novels for adults .
His Alex Rider series has just been adapted into an Amazon TV series .
This is FRESH @ @

Author Says The Chicago 7 Trial Reflected 'All The Conflicts In America'
The Chicago 7 were activists who were charged with conspiring to start a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Jon Wiener's 2006 book, recently reprinted, is Conspiracy in the Streets.
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.
My guest, Jon Wiener, hopes that President Trump does not watch Aaron Sorkin's new film, "The Trial Of The Chicago 7." Wiener wrote in an article published last month in The Nation that he feared Trump would take away the wrong message and tell his attorney general, William Barr, to do with the leaders of today's protest movements, like Black Lives Matter, what Nixon did to the Chicago Seven and put them on trial for conspiracy to cross state lines and incite riot. Wiener is the author of a book about the Chicago Seven trial that includes a very abridged version of the trial transcript. The book, "Conspiracy In The Streets," was first published in 2006. It was reprinted to coincide with Aaron Sorkin's film, which is now streaming on Netflix.
The Chicago Seven, originally the Chicago Eight, were leaders of the movement against the war in Vietnam. In August of 1968, they organized protests that drew thousands of people from around the country to Chicago to coincide with the Democratic National Convention that was being held there. This was the convention that nominated Hubert Humphrey, who lost to Richard Nixon. The protesters were met with thousands of police, National Guardsmen and soldiers, resulting in battles that were broadcast on national TV, shocking Americans who watched as young people were clubbed and tear gassed.
Eight months later, early in Nixon's presidency, eight leaders of the political and cultural left, including Bobby Seale, a co-founder of the Black Panthers, were charged with conspiracy to incite riot. Seale, who was chained and gagged in the courtroom during part of the trial, was later severed from the trial and was not retried for the Chicago charges. Wiener writes, at the end of the '60s, it seemed that all the conflicts in America were distilled and then acted out in the courtroom of the trial.
Wiener is also the author of the book "Set The Night On Fire," about the protest movements in 1960s LA, and he wrote an earlier book about John Lennon's FBI files.
John Wiener, welcome back to FRESH AIR. The antiwar protests that we're talking about were staged to coincide with the Democratic National Convention. Why were they protesting at the convention site in Chicago?
JON WIENER: Well, the war in Vietnam had been, basically, a war started and escalated by Democratic presidents, especially Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson had to withdraw from his own reelection campaign, something that has never happened before or since, because there was so much opposition to him from within his own party because there were now half a million troops in Vietnam, and it was clear that America was never going to win this war.
So if you wanted to protest the war, you had to protest against the Democrats. The Republicans really didn't have much to do with it. And that's why the antiwar leaders set out to organize what they hoped would be hundreds of thousands of people protesting. In the end, it was one of the smaller protests of the '60s. But as you said, the violence of the police - the police riot and the police riot on TV - made it a historic event.
GROSS: How did it turn into a riot? What happened?
WIENER: Well, this is - the subject of the trial raised this issue repeatedly. There's, of course, two views of how this happened. The Nixon Justice Department's view was that leaders of the protest movement conspired to sort of trick naive young people into coming to Chicago and then provoked a riot in violation of federal law. The defense argued that, truthfully, they had tried repeatedly to get permits to make this a legal protest, and they were denied first by the city and then by the courts. They couldn't stop people from coming to protest.
And it's pretty clear that the mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley, kind of authorized, not formally but informally, the police to attack and beat the demonstrators repeatedly day after day. And indeed, an independent investigation after all these events called it a police riot.
GROSS: And you write that four months before these protests, Mayor Daley issued orders to Chicago police to shoot to kill arsonists and shoot to maim or cripple looters in Black neighborhoods.
WIENER: Yeah. Daley was determined to stop street protests in Chicago by any means necessary, I think you could say. And I think that's one reason why, instead of hundreds of thousands of people coming, only about 15,000 people came to these protests. The antiwar demonstrations before this - I mean, SDS organized the first antiwar March on Washington in the spring of 1965. That had 25,000 people, which was maybe twice as many as came to Chicago three years later. And during the trial in 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium Day in October had hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating all over the place.
So the threats that Daley had issued in the months before this and the denial of the permits really did have a huge effect on reducing the number of people who were willing to show up.
GROSS: Well, if there were 12,000 police, 6,000 soldiers and 5,000 National Guardsmen, that means there were at least as many of them as there were of protesters. Is that right?
WIENER: Yeah. I think that the Army, the regular Army soldiers were never sent into the streets. It was the National Guard and the Chicago police, so I think it was pretty close to 50-50.
GROSS: So the city issued a curfew at 11 o'clock during the nights of the protest. And when the protesters didn't leave, that, I think, is when the police attacked them.
WIENER: Yes. We need to make it clear here there were two very different protests that were organized. One was the kind of traditional protest march that wanted to go to the convention site and to call on the Democrats to end the war. That was the one that was organized by the National Mobilization Committee - the MOBE, we called it - Dave Dellinger, Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden.
And then there was a separate protest. The Yippies organized what they called a Festival of Life in Grant Park to challenge what they called the festival of death at the Democratic National Convention. Their protest was going to be in the park. It was going to involve music, dancing - they also said perhaps public fornication, perhaps nude bathing at the beaches - the Festival of Life of the counterculture. And everyone was encouraged, who wanted to come to that, to camp out in the park. And the police said they couldn't stay overnight in the park, and so that became the flashpoint - you're right - of the police violence.
GROSS: Many of the protesters were injured. I think hundreds were hospitalized.
WIENER: Yeah. Yeah, including Rennie Davis, who was very - got a concussion, covered with blood, hospitalized. It was bad.
GROSS: So you have these two really different groups standing trial together. You have the Yippies, represented by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, and you've got leaders from the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, which is represented by, you know, Dave Dellinger and Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis. As you said, there were two separate protests. One was, you know, a march to where the convention was being held, and the other was this, like, Festival of Life in the park. Did the Yippies and the leaders of the mobilization talk to each other and try to coordinate their ends of this protest? Or were these, like, two independent things?
WIENER: You know, they were inevitably thrown together. They applied separately for permits. But once they got to Chicago, the police didn't really distinguish between them. And a lot of the people who came for the march also wanted to camp out in the park. And during the day was the festival with the music and so on. So they sort of blended together. The idea of the prosecution was that there was a conspiracy. Conspiracy is an agreement to break the law. They never conspired together to do this. It was more the circumstances on the ground that made this into one protest.
GROSS: The defendants in the trial come from the cultural left and the political left. And there's a lot of divisions between them in terms of their tactics, their philosophy, their strategy. And you could see that in how they tried to use the trial to make their larger points about the war and about what was going wrong with America. Can you talk about their different strategies at the trial?
WIENER: Yeah. Both groups wanted to use the trial to present the case to the American people that - they wanted to put the government on trial for the war in Vietnam. That they agreed on. How to do that was where they had different ideas. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin - let's call them Abbie and Jerry - wanted to use ridicule and humor and disruptions to desanctify (ph) the courtroom and delegitimize the judge and undermine the prosecution. And Dave Dellinger was kind of into that, too. He was openly defiant of the judge and the prosecutors.
Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden wanted to have a more sober kind of trial, where they would challenge the factual basis of what the prosecution was saying and insist on talking about the war at every opportunity. In practice, there was a lot of disruption. And in practice, the judge resolutely refused to let them bring up Vietnam. He kept saying Vietnam has nothing to do with this trial. Objection sustained. So we saw both of these in the courtroom. And the trial, of course, lasted almost five months. So there were many opportunities for both strategies to be attempted.
GROSS: How did the political left - how did, like, Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis react to the more prankish approach of the Yippies, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin?
WIENER: Well, Tom, afterwards, he was kind of contemptuous of Abbie and Jerry. He thought they were not good organizers, was his view. He thought they were - you know, they were masters of television. Everybody understood that. They were masters of the media. But they were not interested in organizing hundreds of thousands of people by the usual organizing tactics. They would just put out the word and hope that everybody came. And that was what they were doing in the courtroom, too, performing for this much larger audience of young people. So Rennie and Tom wanted to make - keep the focus on the war in Vietnam. And Abbie and Jerry were very interested in the desanctification (ph) of the courtroom and the American legal system.
GROSS: So let me introduce you here, Jon. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jon Wiener. His book "Conspiracy In The Streets: The Extraordinary Trial Of The Chicago Seven" was first published in 2006. It was reprinted to coincide with Aaron Sorkin's new film about the trial, which is now streaming on Netflix. We'll talk more after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF CELESTE AND DANIEL PEMBERTON'S "HEAR MY DREAM")
GROSS: This is FRESH Air. Let's get back to my interview with Jon Wiener, whose books include "Conspiracy In The Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Seven." And if you want to see a theatrical film based on the trial, there's one streaming on Netflix that was written by Aaron Sorkin.
So the protests we've been talking about take place in Chicago in 1968, coinciding with the Democratic National Convention because the protesters are demonstrating against the Democrats, who have been leading the war in Vietnam, you know, Democratic presidents. So by the time the trial takes place, Nixon is president. Did Nixon have a role in the Chicago 7 trial?
WIENER: Well, it was part of - Nixon's campaign theme had been law and order and to be the voice of the - what he called the silent majority, by which he referred to white conservatives who were opposed to the Black movement in the streets and the movement - the counterculture, the movement of young people in the streets. So in that sense, the trial is perfect - is part of what Nixon promised he would do if he became president. And it's interesting that - I mean, the demonstrations were, as you have said, they were against Democrats. They were not against Republicans.
But the most fascinating thing about the trial politically was that the Democratic attorney general for Lyndon Johnson had made a decision not to prosecute any of the protests at the Democratic National Convention. He was - name was Ramsey Clark. And he was brought by the defense to testify at the trial to emphasize how much this was a part of a Nixon initiative, and that there would - never would've been a trial if Hubert Humphrey had won the election because the Democrats were not in favor of, you know, repressing the protests that were sweeping America, even with federal law, even though they were the targets of them. So yes, this was a Nixon initiative. He was more or less fulfilling a campaign promise, although he hadn't promised directly to go after the Chicago demonstrators.
GROSS: Judge Julius Hoffman, as you point out in your book, he seemed to represent everything that was unjust and oppressive about the status quo at the time. He was 74 at the time of the trial. He had graduated from law school in 1915, which was very far away from the cultural values of 1968. And he did things that were just, really, remarkable by any standard, including having Bobby Seale, when he was still a defendant in the trial - Bobby Seale was one of the founders of the Black Panthers. Hoffman had him bound and gagged.
And Seale's lawyer had been hospitalized. So Seale didn't have representation. He wanted to represent himself. Hoffman refused to allow him to do that. And when Seale kept protesting, that's when Hoffman had him bound and gagged. How are you allowed to do that in an American courtroom? How was Hoffman allowed to do that? Wasn't there anybody who could say, you don't do that in America, anybody who could stop that kind of thing from happening?
WIENER: You know, I'm - I had never heard of it happening before either. And I'm kind of amazed that the prosecution didn't tell the judge not to do this. I mean, it was a completely horrifying spectacle, threw the courtroom into turmoil for - it went on for four days. Bobby Seale was a fiercely proud and strong person who kept trying to shout through his gag that he demanded his right to represent himself. This was - a lot of this was in front of the jury. I would have thought that the prosecution would've been worried about the jury being, you know, as we say, tainted by this spectacle.
And, of course, eventually, after four days, Bobby Seale was severed. And that was the end of his presence in the courtroom. Although, the defense then brought him back as a defense witness a couple of months later. But, yeah, it never should've happened. It was completely horrible. It was a spectacle to the entire country, in fact, to the entire world. You can be sure that in Europe and in Africa and in South America, people saw the courtroom drawings. There were no photographs or film, or video allowed in the courtroom. But there were courtroom drawings of a Black man gagged in chains in an American courtroom.
GROSS: What was Bobby Seale doing as a defendant in the first place?
WIENER: He really shouldn't have been there. He had not been any part of these demonstrations. The Panthers were not planning to - didn't demonstrate, didn't call on their members to demonstrate at the Chicago National Convention. And, in fact, they called it a great phrase, Custeristic. It was like, you know, being Custer heading into the battle that he was sure to be massacred in. So Bobby Seale was in Chicago for a total of four hours. He gave a speech in Grant Park in the afternoon, which was mostly about the Black Panthers' ten-point program - defund the police and, you know, Black power in Black communities.
But since the Panthers were the most famous Black, radical group in America, Nixon wanted to make them part of what was going to be the biggest show trial of radicals in America, so he was added. And probably, it was part of the prosecution's strategy also to, you know, frighten the jury of middle-class white people with an angry Black man.
GROSS: It didn't work out the way they expected, did it?
WIENER: No, (laughter) partly it was, as you say, it was because of Judge Julius Hoffman did this most unexpected thing. He should've allowed Bobby Seale to have an attorney. I mean, that's kind of basic, you know, American...
GROSS: It's his constitutional right. Like, I don't understand how...
WIENER: It is his (laughter) constitutional right.
GROSS: ...This is allowed to happen. Yeah (laughter).
WIENER: You make a good point. It was his constitutional right. And that's what he kept claiming, asserting. Hoffman, in some way - you know, when you read the transcript now, you just can't believe a judge would ever do this. It's horrifying and, in some ways, it's hilarious. I mean, every time the prosecution says objection, the judge says sustained. Sometimes - and every time the defense says objection, the judge says overruled. He doesn't even let them state their objection. So he's unbelievably biased, which, of course, led to the entire - all the convictions being overturned on appeal.
But in some ways, in retrospect, this played very much into the hands of the defendants who wanted to expose, you know, the injustice of the American legal system and how the courts were in the service of the repressive forces of the Nixon administration. I mean, it could not possibly have been any clearer. And any other judge would have had a very different kind of trial that didn't fulfill everything that the radicals were saying about justice in America.
GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jon Wiener. His book "Conspiracy In The Streets: The Extraordinary Trial Of The Chicago Seven" has been reprinted to coincide with Aaron Sorkin's film, which is now streaming on Netflix. And that film is called "The Trial Of The Chicago 7." We'll talk more after a break. I'm Terry Gross. And this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KILLING FLOOR")
THE ELECTRIC FLAG: (Singing) If I'd have listened to my second mind - yes, if I had listened to my second mind, you know I wouldn't be here now, people, down on the killing floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF RARE EARTH SONG, "HEY BIG BROTHER")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Jon Wiener. His book "Conspiracy In The Streets: The Extraordinary Trial Of The Chicago Seven" was first published in 2006. It's been reprinted to coincide with Aaron Sorkin's film about the trial of the Chicago Seven, which is now streaming on Netflix.
The defendants in the trial were leaders from the political and the cultural left who opposed the war in Vietnam and organized protests in 1968 in Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention was being held. They were met with thousands of police, National Guardsmen and soldiers, leading to battles in which young people were tear gassed and beaten. The defendants were charged with crossing state lines and conspiring to start a riot. The seven were initially eight, but Bobby Seale, a founder of the Black Panthers, was removed from that trial and was never retried on those Chicago charges.
So we've been talking about Judge Julius Hoffman. What are some of the things that he did, some of the other things he did, that were so norm-breaking for a judge?
WIENER: Well, he, some ways - aside from having a Black man chained and gagged in the courtroom, I'd say the second most outrageous thing he did was not allowing the former attorney general, Ramsey Clark, to testify. Ramsey Clark was prepared to testify that the Democratic administration thought there was no basis for a conspiracy trial of these people and that they did not cause a riot. And Hoffman banned the defense from presenting that testimony in the courtroom and from presenting that witness in the courtroom and didn't even allow the jury to know that the former attorney general had been a scheduled witness and was not allowed to appear.
And, of course, the most fundamental thing, which we've mentioned before, was refusing to allow Bobby Seale to have his attorney present and then refusing his repeated demands that he be allowed to represent himself - completely unconstitutional.
GROSS: So while the trial was going on, Fred Hampton, who was a leader of the Chicago Black Panthers and was acting kind of as a liaison between Bobby Seale and the rest of the defense, Fred Hampton was killed by police in a raid on his home. What do we know about what happened in the death of Fred Hampton? And what impact did that have on the trial?
WIENER: Fred Hampton was a very appealing and, some would say, charismatic young guy, one of the most promising and young leaders of the Panthers. Really, everybody liked him a lot. The police said that there was a gun battle and that he was shot while resisting. But the coroner's autopsy determined that he'd been shot twice in the head in his bed, which meant while he was asleep.
This news came in the middle of the trial. It was just a completely horrible thing for all the defendants who knew him, liked him, had been meeting with him. They tried to get the trial to go into recess for a day or two, but Judge Hoffman wouldn't allow that. And it seems like the murder of Fred Hampton by the Chicago police was part of a national campaign coordinated, probably, by the FBI to attack the Panthers everywhere. Two weeks later, the Panther office in LA was attacked. They didn't kill anybody only because the Panthers there had learned from Fred Hampton's killing to barricade and put - sandbag their offices.
GROSS: So how did the Chicago Seven trial end?
WIENER: Well, here, the film is (laughter) a little misleading. The film has a happy ending, with Tom Hayden defying the judge while everybody cheers. That's the way Aaron Sorkin likes his films to end. But in real life, the trial ended with guilty verdicts against five of the seven defendants. Everyone was found innocent on the conspiracy charge but guilty of incitement to riot. They were then sentenced to five years in prison for that crime. And then the judge also gave each one of them long sentences for contempt of court, some as long as four years more for contempt of court.
Now, normally, if you're being - facing more than a six-month sentence for contempt of court, you get a separate jury trial. He denied them a separate jury trial despite repeated protests from the attorneys. And that also was overturned on appeal. But the end of the trial was a very grim and miserable experience for everybody.
GROSS: Did they have to serve any time?
WIENER: They - I believe they served overnight their - the judge also revoked their bail. Now, the only grounds for revoking bail in America is risk of flight. These guys were not going to flee. These guys were full-time professional organizers. Every chance they had, they were on college campuses or at churches giving speeches. Nevertheless, the judge revoked their bail, which was, you know, improper. And they got that reversed, I think, the next day. And then the trial was appealed. And the contempt citations then had a separate trial, and everything was overturned on appeal, and nobody served any more time in jail.
GROSS: What parallels do you see between the Chicago Seven and the protests of today and how the police have handled those protests?
WIENER: Well, today's - the biggest difference is that today's protests have been a hundred times bigger. It wasn't just in one city that people took to the streets and, in many places, were attacked by the police; it was everywhere in America - big cities and little cities. And it wasn't just young people. It wasn't just Black people. It was a very multiethnic, multiracial wave of protests that we had this summer on a scale that we've never seen before in America. So I think what happened this summer is much, much better, much bigger and stronger and smarter than anything that happened in the '60s, including the Chicago convention protests.
One of the most important things is there weren't these kinds of splits in the demonstrations of the past summer. They were very focused and very coherent. And, you know, the '60s left - the SDS split into two factions which kicked each other out. The Black Panthers had a bitter rivalry with Ron Karenga's US organization. We haven't seen anything like that with Black Lives Matter. And, you know, I've thought a lot about why is that, why is today's protest movement so much better than what we had in the '60s?
I think part of it is that Black Lives Matter is an organization that was founded and is led by Black women, and they somehow do not have the same kind of - let's call them macho rivalries and preoccupations that the men of of the '60s new left and the '60s Black Power movement had.
GROSS: John Wiener, thank you so much for talking with us.
WIENER: It was my pleasure.
GROSS: Jon Wiener is the author of the book "Conspiracy In The Streets: The Extraordinary Trial Of The Chicago Seven." It's been reprinted to coincide with the Aaron Sorkin film "The Trial Of The Chicago 7."
After we take a short break, we'll hear from British writer Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Rider teenage spy young adult novels, as well as mystery novels for adults. His Alex Rider series has just been adapted into an Amazon TV series. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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npr--2020-11-18--Trump Campaign To File For Partial Recount In Wisconsin

Trump Campaign To File For Partial Recount In Wisconsin President Trump 's campaign announced Wednesday morning it is filing a petition to formally ask election authorities to conduct a recount in two Wisconsin counties .
President-elect Joe Biden won the state by a little more than 20,000 votes .
It 's the latest move in a string of largely failed legal attempts on behalf of the Trump team to challenge the election results .
The recount request in Wisconsin should n't come as a surprise : The Trump campaign previewed the decision only a day after Election Day .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 5 p.m. Wednesday .
In a statement Wednesday , the Trump campaign repeated unfounded claims of election fraud , citing `` illegally altered absentee ballots , illegally issued absentee ballots , and illegal advice given by government officials allowing Wisconsin 's Voter ID laws to be circumvented . ''
The campaign is asking for recounts in Milwaukee and Dane counties , which it alleges experienced the most election irregularities .
Biden 's largest vote gain in the state came from Dane County , home to Madison and the University of Wisconsin , winning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clinton did four years ago .
Although Wisconsin does not have automatic recounts , state law allows a losing candidate behind by 1 % to file a sworn petition , along with a filing fee .
The state will only pay for a recount if the margin of victory is .25 % or less .
The Wisconsin Elections Commission confirmed in a tweet it had received a $ 3 million wire transfer from the campaign to cover the estimated cost of the recounts .
`` No petition has been received yet , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one will be filed today , '' the tweet said .
Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Dean Knudson also tweeted about the cash transfer Wednesday morning .
In a Nov. 10 statement , Meagan Wolfe , the state 's nonpartisan top election official , refuted the campaign 's claims of fraud , saying the election `` was conducted according to law and in the open . ''
The campaign 's decision to petition for a recount wo n't likely lead to a change in results .
Recounts tend to end with the changing of dozens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Flipping tens of thousands of votes , which Trump would need to change the election results , is unlikely .
Moreover , Wisconsin 's 10 electoral votes would not change Biden 's lead overall or push him below the 270 threshold needed to win the election .

Trump Campaign To File For Partial Recount In Wisconsin
Enlarge this image toggle caption Andy Manis/Getty Images Andy Manis/Getty Images
Updated at 12:13 p.m. ET
President Trump's campaign announced Wednesday morning it is filing a petition to formally ask election authorities to conduct a recount in two Wisconsin counties. President-elect Joe Biden won the state by a little more than 20,000 votes.
It's the latest move in a string of largely failed legal attempts on behalf of the Trump team to challenge the election results.
The recount request in Wisconsin shouldn't come as a surprise: The Trump campaign previewed the decision only a day after Election Day. The deadline for filing such a petition is 5 p.m. Wednesday.
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In a statement Wednesday, the Trump campaign repeated unfounded claims of election fraud, citing "illegally altered absentee ballots, illegally issued absentee ballots, and illegal advice given by government officials allowing Wisconsin's Voter ID laws to be circumvented."
The campaign is asking for recounts in Milwaukee and Dane counties, which it alleges experienced the most election irregularities.
Biden's largest vote gain in the state came from Dane County, home to Madison and the University of Wisconsin, winning it by 35,000 more votes than Hillary Clinton did four years ago.
Although Wisconsin does not have automatic recounts, state law allows a losing candidate behind by 1% to file a sworn petition, along with a filing fee. The state will only pay for a recount if the margin of victory is .25% or less.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission confirmed in a tweet it had received a $3 million wire transfer from the campaign to cover the estimated cost of the recounts.
"No petition has been received yet, but the Trump campaign has told WEC staff one will be filed today," the tweet said.
Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Dean Knudson also tweeted about the cash transfer Wednesday morning.
In a Nov. 10 statement, Meagan Wolfe, the state's nonpartisan top election official, refuted the campaign's claims of fraud, saying the election "was conducted according to law and in the open."
The campaign's decision to petition for a recount won't likely lead to a change in results. Recounts tend to end with the changing of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of votes. Flipping tens of thousands of votes, which Trump would need to change the election results, is unlikely. Moreover, Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes would not change Biden's lead overall or push him below the 270 threshold needed to win the election.


npr--2020-11-19--Coronavirus Is Surging: How Severe Is Your State's Outbreak?

Coronavirus Is Surging : How Severe Is Your State 's Outbreak ?
More than 11 million people in the U.S. have had confirmed coronavirus infections and more than 245,000 have died of COVID-19 .
Tens of thousands of new cases are reported daily nationwide .
In the graphics below , explore the trends in your state .
View the data via a heat map ( immediately below ) , curve charts , a table of state-by-state trends over four weeks , or a map of total cases and deaths .
The map above shows the risk of infection in each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capita .
The consortium of researchers and public health experts who developed these risk levels advises states in the red category to issue stay-home orders .
They advise orange states to consider stay-home orders , along with increased testing and contact tracing .
Yellow states need to keep up social distancing and mask usage , and all states should continue testing and contact tracing .
To compare state outbreaks , the chart above graphs trend lines for average new daily cases and deaths against each state 's totals to date .
This type @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growth or decline relative to the overall size of its outbreak .
When both new and total case and death counts grow quickly , the curves bend upward .
As new cases and deaths slow , the curves level or bend down .
In New York , the curve rose sharply before reaching over 170,000 total cases in April .
New cases fell from about 10,000 per day in mid-April to under 900 a day most of the summer , before starting to rise in the fall .
Explore the map above to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country for both new confirmed cases and reported deaths from COVID-19 .
New York was the original epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S. As of mid October , California , Florida and Texas surpass New York for total cases to date , though New York still has the highest death total .
Click here to see a global map of confirmed cases and deaths .
To show trends , the table below shows the change in average new cases per day in each state , week over week for the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of red have growing outbreaks ; those in shades of green , are declining .
The graphics on this page pull from data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University from several sources , including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ; the World Health Organization ; national , state and local government health departments ; 1point3acres ; and local media reports .
The JHU team automates its data uploads and regularly checks them for anomalies .
This may result in occasional data discrepancies on this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and updates its feeds .
State-by-state recovery data are unavailable at this time .
There may be discrepancies between what you see here and what you see on your local health department 's website .
Figures shown do not include cases on cruise ships .
Fluctuations in the numbers may happen as health authorities review old cases and or update their methodologies .
For example , in early June , Michigan health authorities started including probable cases in its totals .
This resulted in a brief spike in the state 's daily numbers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reconcile the historical data .
On June 25 , New Jersey included 1,854 previously-unreported probable deaths in its totals , resulting in a spike in the state 's daily death numbers .
On Sept. 2 , Massachusetts changed its methodology for counting probable cases , which lowered its overall case and death numbers .
The JHU team maintains a list of such changes .
This story was originally published on March 16 , 2020 .
Elena Renken was a co-author on that version .
Sean McMinn and Audrey Carlsen contributed to this story @ @ @ @ @ @ @

Tracking the coronavirus around the U.S.: See how your state is doing
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Note: This page was last updated on Feb. 1, 2023. It will no longer be updated. For current data on COVID cases and deaths, demographics, and hospitalizations, consult the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Feb. 1, there have been more than 101 million confirmed coronavirus infections in the U.S. and more than 1 million people have died of COVID-19. In the graphics below, explore the trends in your state.
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The above charts show average new cases per 100,000 people for each state over the last 12 months.
Note: Actual cases may be substantially higher, since many who test positive with at-home tests don't report their cases.
For additional data about COVID-19 in the U.S, including cases and deaths, demographics, and hospitalizations, consult the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
To show trends, the table below shows the change in average new cases per day in each state, week over week for the last 28 days. States marked in shades of red have growing outbreaks; those in shades of green, are declining.
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Methodology
The graphics on this page pull from data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University from several sources, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the World Health Organization; national, state and local government health departments; 1point3acres; and local media reports.
The JHU team automates its data uploads and regularly checks them for anomalies. This may result in occasional data discrepancies on this page as the JHU team resolves anomalies and updates its feeds. There may be discrepancies between what you see here and what you see on your local health department's website. Figures shown do not include cases on cruise ships.
Fluctuations in the numbers may happen as health authorities review old cases, process testing backlogs or update their methodologies. The JHU team maintains a list of such changes.
This story was originally published on March 16, 2020. Elena Renken was a co-author on that version. Sean McMinn and Audrey Carlsen contributed to this story. Carmel Wroth edited this story.


npr--2020-11-19--Coronavirus World Map: Tracking The Spread Of The Outbreak

Coronavirus World Map : Tracking The Spread Of The Outbreak On Sept. 28 , the world marked a tragic milestone : 1 million deaths from COVID-19 .
That 's according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University .
And public health experts believe the actual toll – the recorded deaths plus the unrecorded deaths – is much higher .
While the number of cases has slowed in many countries that were hit hard early on by coronavirus , the number of new cases continues to increase .
Since early July , new daily cases averaged over 200,000 worldwide .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ country-by-country breakdown of new and total cases since January .
At over 9 million cases , the United States leads the world 's COVID-19 crisis .
In late spring and early summer , new COVID-19 cases were largely driven by cases in the Americas .
While the U.S. has consistently had the most new daily cases of coronavirus in the region , Brazil 's new daily cases increased rapidly between May and August .
However , in September , several countries that had previously flattened their curve saw a resurgence in cases , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , daily case counts have risen swiftly since June , without signs of slowing down .
Explore how the number of coronavirus cases have shifted in different parts of the world over time .
The first chart compares each continent to each other , while the next charts highlight the number of cases in select countries by region .
To compare country outbreaks , the chart below graphs trend lines for average new daily cases and deaths against each country 's totals to date .
This type of visualization highlights a state 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overall size of its outbreak .
When both new and total case and death counts grow quickly , the curves bend upward .
As new cases and deaths slow , the curves level or bend down .
In countries like Israel , which is seeing a second wave of case growth after an initial wave in April , the line forms a V-shape , as the initially bent curve spikes upwards again .
Click here to see the state-by-state breakdown of cases in the United States .
This story was originally published on @ @ @ @ @

Coronavirus world map: We've now passed the 600 million mark for infections
Editor's note: This page is no longer being updated. The last update was Sept. 5, 2022. For current data about COVID-19 cases and deaths around the world, Johns Hopkins University and Our World in Data are useful resources.
In late January 2020 only a few dozen COVID-19 infections had been identified outside of China. A year later, the world tallied its first 100 million cases. It took the globe just 7 more months to pass the 200 million mark— then another 5 months to hit 300 million, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. Now the virus has spread to every corner of the globe and has been blamed for more than 6 million deaths.
The United States, India and Brazil in that order have had the most COVID cases and the three nations collectively account for almost half of all recorded infections so far in the pandemic.
Explore the chart below to find a country-by-country breakdown of new and total cases since January 2020.
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Explore how the number of coronavirus cases have shifted in different parts of the world over time. The first chart compares each continent to each other, while the next charts highlight the number of cases in select countries by region.
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This story was originally published on March 30, 2020.


npr--2020-11-19--12 Million To Lose Jobless Benefits The Day After Christmas Unless Congress Acts

12 Million To Lose Jobless Benefits The Day After Christmas Unless Congress Acts The day after Christmas , millions of Americans will lose their jobless benefits , according to a new study .
And that could spell financial ruin for many people , like 44-year-old Todd Anderson in the small town of Mackinaw City , Mich. Anderson 's a single dad with four kids — two of them 5-year-old twins .
He lost his income after the pandemic hit in the spring .
He did landscape design at resorts that host big weddings , and he says all that 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a week in unemployment benefits is barely enough to live on .
So he 's been selling off his belongings to try to get by — some cabinets he had , a pair of hiking boots .
`` I sold tools , tools of my trade , '' he says .
`` I sold hoping that I can re-buy them as I get on my feet . ''
Millions of people all over the country are living similarly close to the edge .
`` Congress is set to cut off 12 million Americans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from falling into financial wreckage and disaster , '' says Andrew Stettner , a co-author of the new study from the progressive-leaning think tank the Century Foundation .
Stettner says two important federal pandemic jobless relief programs have been a lifeline for people such as Anderson who have exhausted their state unemployment benefits or did n't qualify .
But with Congress stuck in a months-long stalemate over another relief bill , these programs are set to expire .
`` Those will come to a crashing halt on Dec. 26 , the day after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says this is happening just as the pandemic is raging across the country and states and cities are reimposing restrictions on businesses and schools .
Congress ' inability to compromise comes `` at a time when things are getting worse with the virus rather than better , making it harder and more dangerous for people to go back to work , '' he says .
An alarming number of people will lose the jobless benefits that are just barely keeping them afloat , he says .
`` That 's the thin line for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ falling into poverty and hardships that could scar them and their children for a lifetime , '' Stettner says .
To save money , Anderson and his kids have been living in a tiny 400-square-foot cabin in the woods .
There was n't even room for a table at which to eat .
But with winter coming that setup was n't going to work much longer .
So Anderson says he was able to borrow a little money from family to pay for the security deposit on a small house for he and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I sat down the first night after we moved in , and they watched me cry because we could sit around a table and we did n't do that for six months , '' he says , getting emotional just talking about it .
`` To be able to have dinner together , as a dad , that 's kind of important to me .
So we just try to muscle through , and I try not to tell them that we 're broke . ''
There are many people calling for Congress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more relief for out-of-work people and small-business owners the economy will be damaged more than it needs to be .
President-elect Joe Biden on Monday called for Congress to put differences aside and provide `` immediate relief . ''
`` The refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another is not due to some mysterious force beyond our control , '' he said .
`` It 's a conscious decision .
It 's a choice that we make . ''
President Trump too has said he supports another pandemic relief bill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Republicans want to spend less , and so far the two sides still appear dug in and far apart from getting it done .
Meanwhile , Anderson is doing the best he can raising his four kids with barely enough money to survive .
`` I 'm pretty honest and open with them , '' he says .
`` They know we 're in a spot right now .
So , you know , I 'm not trying to be a mean dad when I say , 'Do n't leave a light @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay the electric bill , ' `` Anderson says.
`` 'You 've got to eat what 's for dinner because we do n't have money to buy something else . '
`` Note : After the radio version of this story aired , Todd Anderson says he heard from an estranged relative who says he will help the family pay the rent .

12 Million To Lose Jobless Benefits The Day After Christmas Unless Congress Acts
Enlarge this image toggle caption Todd Anderson Todd Anderson
Updated at 8:48 a.m. ET
The day after Christmas, millions of Americans will lose their jobless benefits, according to a new study. And that could spell financial ruin for many people, like 44-year-old Todd Anderson in the small town of Mackinaw City, Mich.
Anderson's a single dad with four kids — two of them 5-year-old twins. He lost his income after the pandemic hit in the spring. He did landscape design at resorts that host big weddings, and he says all that's been shut down.
His $362 a week in unemployment benefits is barely enough to live on. So he's been selling off his belongings to try to get by — some cabinets he had, a pair of hiking boots. "I sold tools, tools of my trade," he says. "I sold hoping that I can re-buy them as I get on my feet."
Millions of people all over the country are living similarly close to the edge.
"Congress is set to cut off 12 million Americans from the only thing holding them back from falling into financial wreckage and disaster," says Andrew Stettner, a co-author of the new study from the progressive-leaning think tank the Century Foundation.
Stettner says two important federal pandemic jobless relief programs have been a lifeline for people such as Anderson who have exhausted their state unemployment benefits or didn't qualify.
But with Congress stuck in a months-long stalemate over another relief bill, these programs are set to expire.
"Those will come to a crashing halt on Dec. 26, the day after Christmas," Stettner says. He says this is happening just as the pandemic is raging across the country and states and cities are reimposing restrictions on businesses and schools.
Congress' inability to compromise comes "at a time when things are getting worse with the virus rather than better, making it harder and more dangerous for people to go back to work," he says. Just last week, more than 1 million new unemployment claims were filed.
An alarming number of people will lose the jobless benefits that are just barely keeping them afloat, he says. "That's the thin line for them between holding it together and really falling into poverty and hardships that could scar them and their children for a lifetime," Stettner says.
To save money, Anderson and his kids have been living in a tiny 400-square-foot cabin in the woods. There wasn't even room for a table at which to eat. But with winter coming that setup wasn't going to work much longer.
toggle caption Todd Anderson
So Anderson says he was able to borrow a little money from family to pay for the security deposit on a small house for he and his kids to move into.
"I sat down the first night after we moved in, and they watched me cry because we could sit around a table and we didn't do that for six months," he says, getting emotional just talking about it. "To be able to have dinner together, as a dad, that's kind of important to me. So we just try to muscle through, and I try not to tell them that we're broke."
There are many people calling for Congress to act. Economists warn that without more relief for out-of-work people and small-business owners the economy will be damaged more than it needs to be.
President-elect Joe Biden on Monday called for Congress to put differences aside and provide "immediate relief."
"The refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another is not due to some mysterious force beyond our control," he said. "It's a conscious decision. It's a choice that we make."
President Trump too has said he supports another pandemic relief bill. But Democrats want to spend more, Republicans want to spend less, and so far the two sides still appear dug in and far apart from getting it done.
Meanwhile, Anderson is doing the best he can raising his four kids with barely enough money to survive. "I'm pretty honest and open with them," he says.
"They know we're in a spot right now. So, you know, I'm not trying to be a mean dad when I say, 'Don't leave a light on because I don't want to pay the electric bill,' " Anderson says. " 'You've got to eat what's for dinner because we don't have money to buy something else.' "
Note: After the radio version of this story aired, Todd Anderson says he heard from an estranged relative who says he will help the family pay the rent.


npr--2020-11-19--Why Were The Polls Off? Pollsters Have Some Early Theories

Why Were The Polls Off ?
Pollsters Have Some Early Theories At some point on election night 2020 , as CNN 's `` KEY RACE ALERTS '' rolled in and the map turned red and blue , things started to feel eerily like election night 2016 .
Specifically , it was that déjà vu feeling of `` Huh , maybe the polls were off . ''
It was a feeling that grew as states such as Iowa and Ohio swung even harder for President Trump than polls seemed to indicate , key counties were tighter than expected and Republicans picked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Yes , Joe Biden ended up winning , as forecasters predicted .
But polls overestimated his support in multiple swing states — not to mention the fact that Democrats both lost House seats and did n't win the Senate outright , despite being favored to do the opposite .
It will likely be months until pollsters can study this year 's misses thoroughly ( a comprehensive study came roughly six months after the 2016 election ) .
However , for now , pollsters have some educated guesses about what may have thrown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off Let 's start with the presidential election .
Nationally , the polls said Biden would win the popular vote handily — by somewhere around 7.2 percentage points , according to RealClearPolitics ' polling average .
That 's nearly double the current margin , which stands at 3.8 percentage points , a little more than two weeks after Election Day .
It 's a smaller margin than there appeared to be on election night , with votes still waiting to be counted .
( New York , for example , had about 84 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Wednesday — so this could still shift a bit . )
Meanwhile , polling nearly perfectly captured presidential vote preferences in some battleground states , but it was off by a wide enough margin in others that it threw off election forecasters .
In a handful ( Arizona , Nevada , North Carolina , Pennsylvania ) , polling was fairly accurate , off by around a point or even less .
In Florida , Iowa , Ohio , Texas and Wisconsin , the polls were off sizably — by more than 4 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the polls underestimated Trump 's performance in relation to Biden .
This echoes 2016 polls , which also underestimated Trump 's standing in key states in relation to Hillary Clinton .
What may ultimately set this year apart from 2016 is that national polls four years ago were very close to the final result — just 1.2 points away .
This year , once all ballots are counted , it may be the case that polls were off significantly both nationally and across swing states .
Importantly , not only did polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ race , but they also appear to have underestimated Republicans in congressional races .
One telling statistic : Of the seats that were considered `` toss-ups '' by the Cook Political Report , which NPR often references , every single one that has been called by The Associated Press so far has gone to a Republican .
Not only that , but nearly one-third of `` lean Democratic '' House races ended up going to Republicans , whereas every `` lean Republican '' seat thus far has gone Republican .
Why the polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overwhelmingly off in Biden 's favor .
That indicates the error was systematic and not random .
`` It 's safe to say that we do n't have enough Republicans in our samples , '' said Cliff Zukin , a retired professor of political science at Rutgers University who worked in the polling industry for four decades .
To start to explain this , one possibility is partisan non-response .
The Pew Research Center reported in 2019 that the response rate to its phone polls had dropped to 6 % , from 36 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ID have a lot to do with this , as many people do n't answer calls from numbers they do n't recognize .
Certain types of people are also more likely to answer their phones than others .
Combine that with shifting partisan alignments among particular demographics , and it can throw polls off .
`` You almost always have too many college graduates who took the survey because they 're just more amenable to doing it , '' said Courtney Kennedy , director of survey research at the Pew Research Center .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that 's correlated with support for Democrats . ''
It 's also possible that Trump supporters are uniquely averse to answering polls , said Sean Trende , senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics .
`` The No .
1 prediction of being a Trump supporter was agreeing with the statement , 'People like me do n't have much say in this country , ' `` Trende said .
`` And those are the exact people that when you hear a phone call and the person says , 'Hi , I 'm from The New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call ? '
just go click . ''
On top of that , it 's possible that Democrats were especially likely to answer polls this year , as they both were enthusiastic about defeating Trump and isolated themselves at home , David Shor recently told Vox 's Dylan Matthews .
`` So the basic story is that , particularly after COVID-19 , they were donating at higher rates , etc.
, and this translated to them also taking surveys , because they were locked at home and did n't have anything else to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem of non-response is whether pollsters can adjust for the fact that they had few non-college-graduate respondents — a process called weighting .
In 2016 , the American Association for Public Opinion Research found that a failure to weight for education led to an underestimation of Trump support .
This year , more pollsters weighted based on education , Kennedy explained , and pollsters were also making sure they had enough Republican respondents .
`` And yet we had the results that we did , '' Kennedy said .
`` So what does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans taking the polls may not have been good proxies for all of the Republicans . ''
One final complicating factor : ultrahigh turnout this year .
Pollsters try to figure out what the electorate will look like .
But it may have been that predicting that was even harder this year with an electorate that was so much bigger than in recent years .
In attempting to figure out the shape of the electorate , pollsters try to figure out which people are most likely to vote .
Many pollsters choose not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they intend to vote or not .
That 's because many people will say they intend to vote but then wo n't actually go do it .
Instead , some pollsters have more complicated likely-voter models , taking into account things such as whether a person has voted in the past or how much the person is paying attention to the current election .
`` The likely-voter models that we use may be biased and may discount Republicans , '' Zukin said .
He hypothesizes that this may result from not taking voter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
`` The Trump voters were much more enthusiastic about casting an affirmative vote for their guy than the Biden voters were , '' he said .
In the final poll from YouGov , for example , 4 in 10 Biden voters said they were voting for him , as opposed to against Trump .
Meanwhile , 8 in 10 Trump voters said they were voting for him .
Pollsters insufficiently taking this into account in their likely-voter models , Zukin said , may explain why Trump underperformed in polls .
Interestingly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America does n't use those models .
J. Ann Selzer is the head of Selzer & Company , an Iowa polling firm .
`` My method is just that simple : I ask people how likely they are to vote , '' she said in an email .
`` In a general election , I take them only if they say 'definitely . '
Not 'probably , ' not 'might ' or 'might not . '
`` Days before the election , Selzer 's poll found Trump ahead in Iowa by 7 points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ race or even a Biden lead .
Selzer turned out to be closest , as Trump won the state by more than 8 points .
It may be that other likely-voter models are overcomplicating things .
Or it may be that certain models work in some places and not in others .
`` In Iowa , her approach may work really well , whereas in other states , it might not , like in a state that has lower [ political ] engagement , like my own state of New Jersey , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and turnout patterns really does help you do better at polling there , '' said Patrick Murray , director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute .
3 ) There 's something about Trump It 's not as if pollsters somehow lost their touch in 2016 and never got it back .
After all , the polls were pretty accurate in the 2018 midterms .
`` I 'm a little less worried about the state of polling this time around than I was after Election Day four years ago , '' Murray said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phenomenon that whenever Donald Trump is on the ballot and that 's who we 're asking about , that polling just seems to be off . ''
So , what is it about Trump ?
One possibility that surfaced in 2016 and this year alike is the `` shy Trump voter '' phenomenon .
The idea is that people who support Trump are uncomfortable saying so and lie to pollsters , as opposed to simply not responding to a pollster .
While there may have been anecdotal evidence of this in 2016 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found little evidence that the phenomenon swayed polls that year .
Pollsters will likely look into the question again , but one study has already notably found evidence of roughly equal numbers of `` shy Trump '' and `` shy Biden '' voters .
`` I think the bigger issue is that if you look around the world , we have a lot of these misses , '' Trende said .
Polls , for example , failed to capture the U.K. 's vote for Brexit , as well as Australian Prime Minister Scott @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kind of populist-right candidates have outperformed polls — not all the time , but more than 50-50 .
I think there 's a bigger issue going on , '' Trende said .
Kennedy sees two possibilities about the ramifications of Trump himself throwing polls off .
`` If it 's really because of his unique political profile , his unique ability to turn out voters who are not easily modeled , not easily identified , not easily reachable — is it that , or is it something more long lasting and something more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these days ? ''
she said .
The latter is a scary possibility — it means pollsters have not only serious problems to fix but problems they have n't identified .
On the other hand : `` If it 's the first one , then an election in the future when there 's no Donald Trump on the ballot , then maybe we go back to more normal times , '' she said .
Still , that 's not a satisfying answer .
Furthermore , another politician like Trump , who similarly confuses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .

Why Were The Polls Off? Pollsters Have Some Early Theories
Enlarge this image toggle caption Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images
At some point on election night 2020, as CNN's "KEY RACE ALERTS" rolled in and the map turned red and blue, things started to feel eerily like election night 2016.
Specifically, it was that déjà vu feeling of "Huh, maybe the polls were off." It was a feeling that grew as states such as Iowa and Ohio swung even harder for President Trump than polls seemed to indicate, key counties were tighter than expected and Republicans picked up one toss-up House seat after another.
Yes, Joe Biden ended up winning, as forecasters predicted. But polls overestimated his support in multiple swing states — not to mention the fact that Democrats both lost House seats and didn't win the Senate outright, despite being favored to do the opposite.
It will likely be months until pollsters can study this year's misses thoroughly (a comprehensive study came roughly six months after the 2016 election). However, for now, pollsters have some educated guesses about what may have thrown polls off.
How much polls were off
Let's start with the presidential election. Nationally, the polls said Biden would win the popular vote handily — by somewhere around 7.2 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics' polling average.
That's nearly double the current margin, which stands at 3.8 percentage points, a little more than two weeks after Election Day.
It's a smaller margin than there appeared to be on election night, with votes still waiting to be counted. (New York, for example, had about 84% of its vote total reported as of Wednesday — so this could still shift a bit.)
Meanwhile, polling nearly perfectly captured presidential vote preferences in some battleground states, but it was off by a wide enough margin in others that it threw off election forecasters.
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In a handful (Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania), polling was fairly accurate, off by around a point or even less.
In Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin, the polls were off sizably — by more than 4 points. In all of these cases, the polls underestimated Trump's performance in relation to Biden. This echoes 2016 polls, which also underestimated Trump's standing in key states in relation to Hillary Clinton.
What may ultimately set this year apart from 2016 is that national polls four years ago were very close to the final result — just 1.2 points away. This year, once all ballots are counted, it may be the case that polls were off significantly both nationally and across swing states.
Importantly, not only did polls underestimate Trump's performance in the presidential race, but they also appear to have underestimated Republicans in congressional races.
One telling statistic: Of the seats that were considered "toss-ups" by the Cook Political Report, which NPR often references, every single one that has been called by The Associated Press so far has gone to a Republican. Not only that, but nearly one-third of "lean Democratic" House races ended up going to Republicans, whereas every "lean Republican" seat thus far has gone Republican.
Why the polls were off
1) Who's answering their phones
The polls this year were overwhelmingly off in Biden's favor. That indicates the error was systematic and not random.
"It's safe to say that we don't have enough Republicans in our samples," said Cliff Zukin, a retired professor of political science at Rutgers University who worked in the polling industry for four decades.
To start to explain this, one possibility is partisan non-response.
The Pew Research Center reported in 2019 that the response rate to its phone polls had dropped to 6%, from 36% in 1997. Cellphones and caller ID have a lot to do with this, as many people don't answer calls from numbers they don't recognize.
Certain types of people are also more likely to answer their phones than others. Combine that with shifting partisan alignments among particular demographics, and it can throw polls off.
"You almost always have too many college graduates who took the survey because they're just more amenable to doing it," said Courtney Kennedy, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center. "And in this political era, that's correlated with support for Democrats."
It's also possible that Trump supporters are uniquely averse to answering polls, said Sean Trende, senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics.
"The No. 1 prediction of being a Trump supporter was agreeing with the statement, 'People like me don't have much say in this country,' " Trende said. "And those are the exact people that when you hear a phone call and the person says, 'Hi, I'm from The New York Times. Would you take a call?' just go click."
On top of that, it's possible that Democrats were especially likely to answer polls this year, as they both were enthusiastic about defeating Trump and isolated themselves at home, David Shor recently told Vox's Dylan Matthews.
"So the basic story is that, particularly after COVID-19, they were donating at higher rates, etc., and this translated to them also taking surveys, because they were locked at home and didn't have anything else to do."
1.5) Weighting
Closely related to that problem of non-response is whether pollsters can adjust for the fact that they had few non-college-graduate respondents — a process called weighting.
In 2016, the American Association for Public Opinion Research found that a failure to weight for education led to an underestimation of Trump support. This year, more pollsters weighted based on education, Kennedy explained, and pollsters were also making sure they had enough Republican respondents.
"And yet we had the results that we did," Kennedy said. "So what does that mean? That means that the Republicans taking the polls may not have been good proxies for all of the Republicans."
One final complicating factor: ultrahigh turnout this year. Pollsters try to figure out what the electorate will look like. But it may have been that predicting that was even harder this year with an electorate that was so much bigger than in recent years.
2) What makes a "likely voter"?
In attempting to figure out the shape of the electorate, pollsters try to figure out which people are most likely to vote.
Many pollsters choose not to simply go by whether voters say they intend to vote or not. That's because many people will say they intend to vote but then won't actually go do it. Instead, some pollsters have more complicated likely-voter models, taking into account things such as whether a person has voted in the past or how much the person is paying attention to the current election.
"The likely-voter models that we use may be biased and may discount Republicans," Zukin said. He hypothesizes that this may result from not taking voter enthusiasm into account enough in those models.
"The Trump voters were much more enthusiastic about casting an affirmative vote for their guy than the Biden voters were," he said.
In the final poll from YouGov, for example, 4 in 10 Biden voters said they were voting for him, as opposed to against Trump. Meanwhile, 8 in 10 Trump voters said they were voting for him.
Pollsters insufficiently taking this into account in their likely-voter models, Zukin said, may explain why Trump underperformed in polls.
Interestingly, one of the most accurate pollsters in America doesn't use those models. J. Ann Selzer is the head of Selzer & Company, an Iowa polling firm.
"My method is just that simple: I ask people how likely they are to vote," she said in an email. "In a general election, I take them only if they say 'definitely.' Not 'probably,' not 'might' or 'might not.' "
Days before the election, Selzer's poll found Trump ahead in Iowa by 7 points, when other polls saw a closer race or even a Biden lead. Selzer turned out to be closest, as Trump won the state by more than 8 points.
It may be that other likely-voter models are overcomplicating things. Or it may be that certain models work in some places and not in others.
"In Iowa, her approach may work really well, whereas in other states, it might not, like in a state that has lower [political] engagement, like my own state of New Jersey, where knowing a lot about past voting history and turnout patterns really does help you do better at polling there," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
3) There's something about Trump
It's not as if pollsters somehow lost their touch in 2016 and never got it back. After all, the polls were pretty accurate in the 2018 midterms.
"I'm a little less worried about the state of polling this time around than I was after Election Day four years ago," Murray said, "because we seem to have this phenomenon that whenever Donald Trump is on the ballot and that's who we're asking about, that polling just seems to be off."
So, what is it about Trump?
One possibility that surfaced in 2016 and this year alike is the "shy Trump voter" phenomenon. The idea is that people who support Trump are uncomfortable saying so and lie to pollsters, as opposed to simply not responding to a pollster.
While there may have been anecdotal evidence of this in 2016, the American Association for Public Opinion Research found little evidence that the phenomenon swayed polls that year. Pollsters will likely look into the question again, but one study has already notably found evidence of roughly equal numbers of "shy Trump" and "shy Biden" voters.
"I think the bigger issue is that if you look around the world, we have a lot of these misses," Trende said. Polls, for example, failed to capture the U.K.'s vote for Brexit, as well as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's 2019 win. "These kind of populist-right candidates have outperformed polls — not all the time, but more than 50-50. I think there's a bigger issue going on," Trende said.
Kennedy sees two possibilities about the ramifications of Trump himself throwing polls off.
"If it's really because of his unique political profile, his unique ability to turn out voters who are not easily modeled, not easily identified, not easily reachable — is it that, or is it something more long lasting and something more fundamental to how surveys are being done these days?" she said.
The latter is a scary possibility — it means pollsters have not only serious problems to fix but problems they haven't identified.
On the other hand: "If it's the first one, then an election in the future when there's no Donald Trump on the ballot, then maybe we go back to more normal times," she said.
Still, that's not a satisfying answer. Furthermore, another politician like Trump, who similarly confuses the polls, could always come along.
With reporting from NPR's Susan Davis.