fivethirtyeight--2020-08-26--Is The Electoral Map Changing?

Is The Electoral Map Changing?

From one presidential election to the next , the battleground states that make — or break — the election remain largely the same .
But that doesn ’ t mean there aren ’ t gradual ( and sometimes , not so gradual ) shifts underway .
We zoomed in on how 16 battleground states have voted relative to the country as a whole since 2000 — or how much more Republican or Democratic they are relative to the nation1 — and we found an electoral map undergoing a series of changes , some steady and others abrupt .
Swing states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2016 How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a state ’ s popular vote was than the national popular vote in presidential elections , and how the state is forecasted to vote in 2020 , as of Aug. 25 Take Iowa and Ohio , which went from uber-competitive states to near blowouts for President Trump in 2016 .
Or Maine and Michigan , which hadn ’ t been all that competitive in 2008 or 2012 , but lurched to the right in 2016 .
In other words , 2016 marked a significant departure from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years ; each state swung 7 points or more to the right , the biggest swings in that election .
One explanation for why these four states moved so suddenly to the right is that they each have a large share of voters ( at least 55 percent2 ) who are non-Hispanic white with less than a bachelor ’ s degree , a bloc that moved sharply toward the GOP in 2016 .
Additionally , Iowa and Maine rank among the most rural states in the country , which is another predictor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ currently expects these states to step slightly to the left in 2020 , but there ’ s a lot of uncertainty here , especially in a state like Maine where the error bars are particularly large .
The next five states also shifted to the right in 2016 , but they didn ’ t veer quite as far as the previous four did .
States that moved just slightly to the right in 2016 How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a state ’ s popular vote was than the national popular vote in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is forecasted to vote in 2020 , as of Aug. 25 One reason why these states didn ’ t lurch as far to the right is that four of them3 have at least one large metropolitan area that votes heavily Democratic .
This offsets the rest of those states , which usually vote far more Republican .
However , as was true in the first four states we looked at , there has been a slow yet noticeable move to the right in these four states over the last several elections .
FiveThirtyEight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these states , like New Hampshire and Wisconsin , might bounce back slightly to the left in 2020 , but also that others , like Minnesota , may continue to shift to the right .
On the other end of the spectrum , some 2020 battleground states moved to the left — considerably so — in the last election .
These states predominantly lie in the South and West , and the following trio of traditionally red states could all be up for grabs this November .
How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than the national popular vote in presidential elections , and how the state is forecasted to vote in 2020 , as of Aug. 25 Arizona , Georgia and Texas all moved at least 4 points to the left in 2016 , and it ’ s possible they ’ ll move even farther in 2020 .
After all , the 2018 midterm elections showed these states could elect Democrats statewide , or at least , come very close .
Democrats won a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona for the first time since 1988 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Senate race and Georgia ’ s gubernatorial contest .
What explains the leftward shift in these traditionally Republican states ?
For one thing , these states are more racially and ethnically diverse than most of the other states we ’ ve looked at — Arizona and Texas have large Hispanic populations , for instance , while Georgia has a sizable Black electorate — and people of color tend to vote more Democratic .
But these fairly urban states have also seen their major metropolitan areas such as Atlanta , Dallas , Houston @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the surge in college-educated voters .
At present , the FiveThirtyEight forecast anticipates these states will lean similar to how they did 2016 , although further shifts to the left are plausible .
For Democrats , the hope would be that those three states trend in ways similar to Colorado and Virginia , two formerly red states whose diverse and highly educated electorates have moved them to the left over the past two decades .
How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a state ’ s popular vote was than the national popular vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state is forecasted to vote in 2020 , as of Aug. 25 Colorado ’ s population is about one-fifth Hispanic and Virginia ’ s is about one-fifth Black , and both are only about two-thirds white .
And white voters in these states are more likely to hold at least a four-year college degree than in the other states we ’ ve examined .
Driven by increasingly Democratic vote shares in suburban and urban areas — especially around Denver and Washington , D.C. — Colorado and Virginia have moved far enough to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which Joe Biden leads by about 9 points nationally , they lie at the periphery of the competitive states .
That said , Florida and North Carolina are also racially diverse and home to a decent number of highly educated voters , but they haven ’ t become liberal bastions .
Instead , they have tended to vote a bit to the right of the country with little variation in recent years .
Some states are just swing states How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a state ’ s popular vote was than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and how the state is forecasted to vote in 2020 , as of Aug. 25 Florida is a hard state to categorize politically .
It has an elderly population that usually leans toward the GOP , but it also has a large Hispanic and Black population that leans Democratic -- with the caveat that a large share of its Latino vote is Cuban American , a group that has shifted toward Democrats over the last decade but remains far more Republican-leaning than other groups of Latinos .
North Carolina is also a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fairly consistent Republican lean .
North Carolina ’ s white college-educated population share isn ’ t that much smaller than Virginia ’ s , but it has a larger share of white voters who don ’ t have a four-year degree .
Additionally , North Carolina ’ s white voters are somewhat more Republican-leaning , and the state tends to be more rural than Virginia .
As things stand , the forecast model expects these states to vote more or less like they did in 2016 — so they ’ ll be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all to say that 2020 will be a pivotal year in understanding underlying trends within the Electoral College .
Will states like Iowa or Ohio move further to the right ?
Georgia and Texas further to the left ?
Or should we expect more of a reversion to the mean ?
Suffice it to say that , with Trump on the ballot this November , many of the forces we saw in 2016 will be prevalent again in 2020 .
But those forces may also define the parties moving forward , which means @ @ @ @ @ @ @ great deal about how the electoral map will look beyond 2020 .

From one presidential election to the next, the battleground states that make — or break — the election remain largely the same. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t gradual (and sometimes, not so gradual) shifts underway. We zoomed in on how 16 battleground states have voted relative to the country as a whole since 2000 — or how much more Republican or Democratic they are relative to the nation1 — and we found an electoral map undergoing a series of changes, some steady and others abrupt.
Swing states that moved sharply to the right in 2016
How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a state’s popular vote was than the national popular vote in presidential elections, and how the state is forecasted to vote in 2020, as of Aug. 25
80% of outcomes fall in this range in our 2020 forecast AVERAGE PARTISAN LEAN
Iowa Ohio Maine Michigan
Take Iowa and Ohio, which went from uber-competitive states to near blowouts for President Trump in 2016. Or Maine and Michigan, which hadn’t been all that competitive in 2008 or 2012, but lurched to the right in 2016. In other words, 2016 marked a significant departure from how these states had voted in recent years; each state swung 7 points or more to the right, the biggest swings in that election.
One explanation for why these four states moved so suddenly to the right is that they each have a large share of voters (at least 55 percent2 ) who are non-Hispanic white with less than a bachelor’s degree, a bloc that moved sharply toward the GOP in 2016. Additionally, Iowa and Maine rank among the most rural states in the country, which is another predictor of GOP-leaning politics. FiveThirtyEight’s forecast currently expects these states to step slightly to the left in 2020, but there’s a lot of uncertainty here, especially in a state like Maine where the error bars are particularly large. The next five states also shifted to the right in 2016, but they didn’t veer quite as far as the previous four did.
States that moved just slightly to the right in 2016
How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a state’s popular vote was than the national popular vote in presidential elections, and how the state is forecasted to vote in 2020, as of Aug. 25
80% of outcomes fall in this range in our 2020 forecast AVERAGE PARTISAN LEAN
Minnesota Nevada Pennsylvania New Hampshire Wisconsin
One reason why these states didn’t lurch as far to the right is that four of them3 have at least one large metropolitan area that votes heavily Democratic. This offsets the rest of those states, which usually vote far more Republican. However, as was true in the first four states we looked at, there has been a slow yet noticeable move to the right in these four states over the last several elections. FiveThirtyEight’s forecast anticipates that some of these states, like New Hampshire and Wisconsin, might bounce back slightly to the left in 2020, but also that others, like Minnesota, may continue to shift to the right.
On the other end of the spectrum, some 2020 battleground states moved to the left — considerably so — in the last election. These states predominantly lie in the South and West, and the following trio of traditionally red states could all be up for grabs this November.
Republican-leaning states that shifted to the left in 2016
How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a state’s popular vote was than the national popular vote in presidential elections, and how the state is forecasted to vote in 2020, as of Aug. 25
80% of outcomes fall in this range in our 2020 forecast AVERAGE PARTISAN LEAN
Arizona Georgia Texas
Arizona, Georgia and Texas all moved at least 4 points to the left in 2016, and it’s possible they’ll move even farther in 2020. After all, the 2018 midterm elections showed these states could elect Democrats statewide, or at least, come very close. Democrats won a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona for the first time since 1988, while Republicans only narrowly won Texas’s Senate race and Georgia’s gubernatorial contest.
What explains the leftward shift in these traditionally Republican states? For one thing, these states are more racially and ethnically diverse than most of the other states we’ve looked at — Arizona and Texas have large Hispanic populations, for instance, while Georgia has a sizable Black electorate — and people of color tend to vote more Democratic. But these fairly urban states have also seen their major metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix become increasingly Democratic because of the surge in college-educated voters. At present, the FiveThirtyEight forecast anticipates these states will lean similar to how they did 2016, although further shifts to the left are plausible.
For Democrats, the hope would be that those three states trend in ways similar to Colorado and Virginia, two formerly red states whose diverse and highly educated electorates have moved them to the left over the past two decades.
Former red states that increasingly vote blue
How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a state’s popular vote was than the national popular vote in presidential elections, and how the state is forecasted to vote in 2020, as of Aug. 25
80% of outcomes fall in this range in our 2020 forecast AVERAGE PARTISAN LEAN
Colorado Virginia
Colorado’s population is about one-fifth Hispanic and Virginia’s is about one-fifth Black, and both are only about two-thirds white. And white voters in these states are more likely to hold at least a four-year college degree than in the other states we’ve examined. Driven by increasingly Democratic vote shares in suburban and urban areas — especially around Denver and Washington, D.C. — Colorado and Virginia have moved far enough to the left that, in an environment in which Joe Biden leads by about 9 points nationally, they lie at the periphery of the competitive states.
That said, Florida and North Carolina are also racially diverse and home to a decent number of highly educated voters, but they haven’t become liberal bastions. Instead, they have tended to vote a bit to the right of the country with little variation in recent years.
Some states are just perennial swing states
How much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a state’s popular vote was than the national popular vote in presidential elections, and how the state is forecasted to vote in 2020, as of Aug. 25
80% of outcomes fall in this range in our 2020 forecast AVERAGE PARTISAN LEAN
Florida North Carolina
Florida is a hard state to categorize politically. It has an elderly population that usually leans toward the GOP, but it also has a large Hispanic and Black population that leans Democratic -- with the caveat that a large share of its Latino vote is Cuban American, a group that has shifted toward Democrats over the last decade but remains far more Republican-leaning than other groups of Latinos. North Carolina is also a swing state, even though it has a fairly consistent Republican lean. North Carolina’s white college-educated population share isn’t that much smaller than Virginia’s, but it has a larger share of white voters who don’t have a four-year degree. Additionally, North Carolina’s white voters are somewhat more Republican-leaning, and the state tends to be more rural than Virginia. As things stand, the forecast model expects these states to vote more or less like they did in 2016 — so they’ll be as competitive as ever.
This is all to say that 2020 will be a pivotal year in understanding underlying trends within the Electoral College. Will states like Iowa or Ohio move further to the right? Georgia and Texas further to the left? Or should we expect more of a reversion to the mean? Suffice it to say that, with Trump on the ballot this November, many of the forces we saw in 2016 will be prevalent again in 2020. But those forces may also define the parties moving forward, which means this election could also tell us a great deal about how the electoral map will look beyond 2020.


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-26--What Went Down On Night 2 Of The RNC

What Went Down On Night 2 Of The RNC

What Went Down On Night 2 Of The RNC

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fivethirtyeight--2020-08-25--What To Watch For On Night 2 Of The RNC

What To Watch For On Night 2 Of The RNC

The crew discusses what to expect on the second night of the 2020 Republican National Convention , from the messages @ @ @ @ @ get across to the speeches you should pay particular attention to .

The crew discusses what to expect on the second night of the 2020 Republican National Convention, from the messages the party will try to get across to the speeches you should pay particular attention to.


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-25--Who Were Republicans Trying To Reach On Night 1 Of The RNC?

In this episode of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , the crew gives their overall impressions of the first night of @ @ @ @ @ National Convention .

Who Were Republicans Trying To Reach On Night 1 Of The RNC?
In this episode of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew gives their overall impressions of the first night of this year’s Republican National Convention.


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-25--Politics Podcast: It Was Trumpism vs. Traditionalism At Night 1 Of The RNC

On the first night of the 2020 Republican National Convention , traditional Republicans like former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and @ @ @ @ @ that sharply contrasted with the Trump enthusiasts who spoke , like Donald Trump Jr. and @ @ @ @ @ Guilfoyle .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew makes sense of the varied night .

Politics Podcast: It Was Trumpism vs. Traditionalism At Night 1 Of The RNC
On the first night of the 2020 Republican National Convention, traditional Republicans like former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott delivered speeches that sharply contrasted with the Trump enthusiasts who spoke, like Donald Trump Jr. and former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle. The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew makes sense of the varied night.


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-28--Biden’s Voters Appear Far More Likely To Vote By Mail Than Trump’s. That Could Make For A Weird Elec

Biden’s Voters Appear Far More Likely To Vote By Mail Than Trump’s. That Could Make For A Weird Election Night.

Welcome to Pollapalooza , our weekly polling roundup .
Because of the coronavirus pandemic , many states have taken steps to make it easier for people to vote by mail .
( We ’ re tracking them all here . )
Absentee ballots have constituted a majority of the votes cast in most primaries since the pandemic struck , and polling suggests a record number of people will vote by mail in the general election as well .
However , amid saturation coverage of problems with the U.S .
Postal Service , new polling from CNBC/Change Research suggests that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail has ticked down .
In early August , 38 percent of voters in six battleground states said they planned to vote by mail .
But in the pollster ’ s just-released Aug. 21-23 poll , the number of voters in those states saying they planned to vote by mail was down to 33 percent .
Among all voters nationwide , the share planning to vote by mail went from 36 percent to 33 percent — although that drop was within the poll ’ s margin of error .
Other recent polls agree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to vote by mail this year .
But not all voters plan to do so in equal numbers .
Democrats are much likelier than Republicans to say they will vote by mail — which makes sense given that Democrats also tend to be more supportive of mail voting .
( By contrast , the Republican standard bearer , President Trump , has repeatedly and inaccurately assailed mail voting as ripe for fraud . )
According to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll , 30 percent of registered voters said they planned to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said they planned to vote in person on Election Day .
But among Trump supporters , only 11 percent said they planned to vote by mail , and 66 percent said they planned to vote in person on Election Day .
Among Joe Biden backers , 47 percent said they planned to vote by mail , while only 26 percent said they planned to vote in person on Election Day .
( The share who said they would vote early in person was consistently 20-21 percent among all three groups : Trump supporters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) If this holds , it would mean votes cast on Election Day would skew heavily toward Trump , and votes cast by mail would skew heavily toward Biden .
This has serious implications for … well , democracy .
First , Trump could argue the mail ballots ( which , remember , could account for most of Biden ’ s votes ) were fraudulent and thus should not be counted .
Although it ’ s unlikely they ’ d actually be thrown out , this would damage the credibility of the election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Second , it could mean the first votes counted on election night will be disproportionately good for Trump , who might claim victory based on incomplete returns .
It might not be until days later , after a good chunk of the Democratic-leaning mail vote is counted , that Biden pulls ahead .
Let ’ s do a quick-and-dirty exercise to show what I mean .
In the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll overall , Biden led Trump by 9 percentage points among registered voters .
But Biden led Trump by 63 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ planned to vote by mail , and Trump led Biden by 33 points among voters who planned to vote in person on Election Day .
If this kind of partisan split occurred in every state , Biden would win the mail vote in all 50 states — from Alabama to Wyoming — and Trump would win the Election Day vote in all 50 .
To be clear , I don ’ t expect Trump to be leading in all 50 states when the first results are reported on Nov. 3 .
For one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Day and mail votes will surely vary from state to state ; I don ’ t literally think Trump will win the Election Day vote in every state , nor Biden the mail vote in every one .
For another , Election Day votes aren ’ t the only results we ’ ll get on election night : We ’ ll also get early in-person votes in states that have early voting , which should make things look better for Biden .
( Biden led Trump by 12 points among early in-person voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
And some mail votes will probably be counted by the time we go to bed as well .
Nevertheless , the gap between the Election Day and mail vote could be huge this year , which should serve as a stark reminder not to overreact to election-night returns .
We could — not necessarily will , but could — have absurd initial results like Trump winning Massachusetts or Illinois .
That would not mean he has won the election ; it takes days , sometimes even weeks , to count every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know the identity of the next president until mid-November .
• Although the Democratic National Convention ’ s TV ratings were lower than they were in 2016 , 50 percent of Americans told ABC News/Ipsos that they watched at least a little of the 2020 DNC .
Those who did were overwhelmingly satisfied with what they saw : 72 percent approved of what Democrats said and did at the convention , while just 26 percent disapproved .
• Last week , Trump said he wanted to send law enforcement officials to polling places @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not clear he has the authority to do so .
Although his statement disturbed voting watchdog groups , the American public had mixed feelings about it .
According to YouGov , 37 percent said this move would keep people from voting , 22 percent said it would protect against voter fraud and 23 percent said it would have no effect on voting .
The remaining 19 percent didn ’ t know .
• According to NBC News/SurveyMonkey , 48 percent of parents said their child ’ s schooling will be conducted entirely online @ @ @ @ @ @ @ child will attend school in person , while 25 percent said their child will have a mix of in-person and virtual schooling .
The number of parents reporting their child ’ s schooling will be fully online has increased by 7 percentage points since early August .
• Trump has two home states : New York , where he was born and rose to fame , and Florida , where he now claims residency .
But a new survey from Public Policy Polling found that neither state wants to claim him .
By @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , New Yorkers want Trump to claim Florida as his home state , but Floridians want him to claim New York 47 percent to 37 percent .
• On Tuesday , state Sen. Stephanie Bice won the Republican runoff to take on Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn in Oklahoma ’ s 5th District — perhaps the most vulnerable Democratic-held congressional seat in the nation .
However , shortly after Bice ’ s win , the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a GQR Research poll showing Horn at 51 percent and Bice at 46 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a tad too optimistic for the side releasing them , the Oklahoma 5th looks like a toss-up race .
According to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential approval tracker , 42.2 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president , while 54.3 percent disapprove ( a net approval rating of -12.1 points ) .
At this time last week , 41.8 percent approved and 54.2 percent disapproved ( a net approval rating of -12.4 points ) .
One month ago , Trump had an approval rating of 40.2 percent and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a net approval rating of -15.6 points .
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot , Democrats currently lead by 7.3 percentage points ( 48.3 percent to 41.0 percent ) .
A week ago , Democrats led Republicans by 7.4 points ( 48.4 percent to 41.0 percent ) .
At this time last month , voters preferred Democrats by 8.5 points ( 49.5 percent to 41.0 percent ) .
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight ’ s 2020 presidential forecast , as well as all the polls we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elections .

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the fortnight
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, many states have taken steps to make it easier for people to vote by mail. (We’re tracking them all here.) Absentee ballots have constituted a majority of the votes cast in most primaries since the pandemic struck, and polling suggests a record number of people will vote by mail in the general election as well.
However, amid saturation coverage of problems with the U.S. Postal Service, new polling from CNBC/Change Research suggests that the number of Americans planning to vote by mail has ticked down. In early August, 38 percent of voters in six battleground states said they planned to vote by mail. But in the pollster’s just-released Aug. 21-23 poll, the number of voters in those states saying they planned to vote by mail was down to 33 percent. Among all voters nationwide, the share planning to vote by mail went from 36 percent to 33 percent — although that drop was within the poll’s margin of error.
Other recent polls agree that about a third of voters intend to vote by mail this year. But not all voters plan to do so in equal numbers. Democrats are much likelier than Republicans to say they will vote by mail — which makes sense given that Democrats also tend to be more supportive of mail voting. (By contrast, the Republican standard bearer, President Trump, has repeatedly and inaccurately assailed mail voting as ripe for fraud.)
According to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 30 percent of registered voters said they planned to vote by mail, and 43 percent said they planned to vote in person on Election Day. But among Trump supporters, only 11 percent said they planned to vote by mail, and 66 percent said they planned to vote in person on Election Day. Among Joe Biden backers, 47 percent said they planned to vote by mail, while only 26 percent said they planned to vote in person on Election Day. (The share who said they would vote early in person was consistently 20-21 percent among all three groups: Trump supporters, Biden supporters and voters overall.)
If this holds, it would mean votes cast on Election Day would skew heavily toward Trump, and votes cast by mail would skew heavily toward Biden. This has serious implications for … well, democracy. First, Trump could argue the mail ballots (which, remember, could account for most of Biden’s votes) were fraudulent and thus should not be counted. Although it’s unlikely they’d actually be thrown out, this would damage the credibility of the election in the eyes of many Trump supporters. Second, it could mean the first votes counted on election night will be disproportionately good for Trump, who might claim victory based on incomplete returns. It might not be until days later, after a good chunk of the Democratic-leaning mail vote is counted, that Biden pulls ahead.
Let’s do a quick-and-dirty exercise to show what I mean. In the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll overall, Biden led Trump by 9 percentage points among registered voters. But Biden led Trump by 63 points (!) among voters who planned to vote by mail, and Trump led Biden by 33 points among voters who planned to vote in person on Election Day. If this kind of partisan split occurred in every state, Biden would win the mail vote in all 50 states — from Alabama to Wyoming — and Trump would win the Election Day vote in all 50.
To be clear, I don’t expect Trump to be leading in all 50 states when the first results are reported on Nov. 3. For one thing, the partisan split between Election Day and mail votes will surely vary from state to state; I don’t literally think Trump will win the Election Day vote in every state, nor Biden the mail vote in every one. For another, Election Day votes aren’t the only results we’ll get on election night: We’ll also get early in-person votes in states that have early voting, which should make things look better for Biden. (Biden led Trump by 12 points among early in-person voters in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.) And some mail votes will probably be counted by the time we go to bed as well.
Nevertheless, the gap between the Election Day and mail vote could be huge this year, which should serve as a stark reminder not to overreact to election-night returns. We could — not necessarily will, but could — have absurd initial results like Trump winning Massachusetts or Illinois. That would not mean he has won the election; it takes days, sometimes even weeks, to count every mail ballot, so we may not know the identity of the next president until mid-November.
Other polling bites
Although the Democratic National Convention’s TV ratings were lower than they were in 2016, 50 percent of Americans told ABC News/Ipsos that they watched at least a little of the 2020 DNC. Those who did were overwhelmingly satisfied with what they saw: 72 percent approved of what Democrats said and did at the convention, while just 26 percent disapproved.
Last week, Trump said he wanted to send law enforcement officials to polling places this fall, although it’s not clear he has the authority to do so. Although his statement disturbed voting watchdog groups, the American public had mixed feelings about it. According to YouGov, 37 percent said this move would keep people from voting, 22 percent said it would protect against voter fraud and 23 percent said it would have no effect on voting. The remaining 19 percent didn’t know.
According to NBC News/SurveyMonkey, 48 percent of parents said their child’s schooling will be conducted entirely online this fall; 17 percent said their child will attend school in person, while 25 percent said their child will have a mix of in-person and virtual schooling. The number of parents reporting their child’s schooling will be fully online has increased by 7 percentage points since early August.
Trump has two home states: New York, where he was born and rose to fame, and Florida, where he now claims residency. But a new survey from Public Policy Polling found that neither state wants to claim him. By a 53 percent to 22 percent margin, New Yorkers want Trump to claim Florida as his home state, but Floridians want him to claim New York 47 percent to 37 percent.
On Tuesday, state Sen. Stephanie Bice won the Republican runoff to take on Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn in Oklahoma’s 5th District — perhaps the most vulnerable Democratic-held congressional seat in the nation. However, shortly after Bice’s win, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a GQR Research poll showing Horn at 51 percent and Bice at 46 percent. Given that internal polls tend to be a tad too optimistic for the side releasing them, the Oklahoma 5th looks like a toss-up race.
Trump approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 42.2 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 54.3 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -12.1 points). At this time last week, 41.8 percent approved and 54.2 percent disapproved (a net approval rating of -12.4 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 40.2 percent and a disapproval rating of 55.8 percent, for a net approval rating of -15.6 points.
Generic ballot
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 7.3 percentage points (48.3 percent to 41.0 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 7.4 points (48.4 percent to 41.0 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 8.5 points (49.5 percent to 41.0 percent).
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight’s 2020 presidential forecast, as well as all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-28--What Went Down During President Trump’s Closing Speech At The RNC

What Went Down During President Trump ’ s Closing Speech At The RNC


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-28--What Trump Didn’t Say In His RNC Speech Is As Important As What He Did Say

What Trump Didn ’ t Say In His RNC Speech Is As Important As What He Did Say


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-28--Politics Podcast: What Trump’s RNC Speech Means For The Next Two Months

On the final night of the 2020 Republican National Convention , President Trump gave a historically long speech on the @ @ @ @ @ The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew takes stock of what he said and — perhaps more @ @ @ @ @ ’ t say .

On the final night of the 2020 Republican National Convention, President Trump gave a historically long speech on the White House South Lawn. The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew takes stock of what he said and — perhaps more importantly — what he didn’t say.


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-31--Why Minnesota Could Be The Next Midwestern State To Go Red

This is the third in a series of articles examining the politics and demographics of 2020 ’ s expected swing states .
In the fabled “ blue wall ” — the collection of historically Democratic states that pundits ( wrongly ) assumed gave Hillary Clinton an Electoral College advantage in 2016 — Minnesota is the cornerstone .
The Democratic candidate has won Minnesota in 11 straight presidential elections , the longest active streak in the country .
What ’ s more , no Republican has won any statewide election in Minnesota since 2006 — not for Senate , not for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s tempting to conclude from this that Minnesota is a safe Democratic state .
But Minnesota is much more evenly divided than that record suggests : For example , it came within a couple percentage points of voting for now-President Trump in 2016 .
And as Michigan , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — which voted Democratic in every presidential election from 1992 to 2012 — showed in 2016 , streaks are meant to be broken .
Most ominously for Democrats , there is evidence that Minnesota is becoming redder over time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point .
In 1984 , the state was 18.2 points more Democratic than the nation as a whole .
But in 2016 , for the first time since 1952 , Minnesota voted more Republican than the rest of the U.S. And Minnesota may be even further right in 2020 .
According to the current FiveThirtyEight forecast , Joe Biden is on track to defeat Trump by 4.2 points in Minnesota — 1.9 points better for Trump than our forecast for the national popular vote .
What explains Minnesota ’ s rightward shift ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and older are non-Hispanic white and lack a bachelor ’ s degree , a demographic with which Republicans — and especially Trump — have been gaining ground .
Historically , though , Minnesota ’ s predominantly white , working-class population has actually been quite progressive : The state ’ s many German and Scandinavian immigrants ( the biggest ethnic groups in Minnesota are German Americans , at 33 percent of the population , and Norwegian Americans , at 15 percent ) brought with them their progressive values and faith in government , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , more than 23 percent of Minnesota employees were members of a union ) rallied blue-collar workers around the Democratic Party .
In fact , Minnesota ’ s Democratic Party isn ’ t called the Democratic Party at all — it is the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party , reflecting its historical growth out of those two constituencies .
But in recent elections , Democrats ’ pro-environment and anti-gun positions have alienated these voters in places like the Iron Range , an ancestrally Democratic mining region , and in 2016 Trump was able to tap into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Democrats went from carrying Minnesota by 7.7 points in 2012 to carrying it by just 1.5 in 2016 .
Tellingly , the counties that shifted the most toward Trump were also the counties with the highest concentrations of white people without a college degree .
As you can see , 2016 also contributed to Minnesota ’ s ongoing urban-rural realignment .
One of the most important divides in Minnesota politics is between the diverse , cosmopolitan Twin Cities metro area and “ Greater Minnesota , ” whose residents often feel short-changed relative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every county in Greater Minnesota got redder , and 19 of them flipped from Barack Obama to Trump .
However , there is a silver lining for Democrats : Several counties in the metro actually got bluer in 2016 , powered by formerly Republican suburbs like Eden Prairie , Edina and Chanhassen .
Still , it wasn ’ t enough to counterbalance Democrats ’ losses in Greater Minnesota , so the state shifted toward Republicans overall .
So , robbed of the formula that fueled them for so long — an uncharacteristically strong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white voters — Democrats are now in serious danger of losing Minnesota for the first time since 1972 .
It might not happen this year : Biden , after all , leads by 4.2 points in our forecast there .
But that is more about Biden ’ s strength nationally than Minnesota being blue .
Indeed , Minnesota is now one of the likeliest states to be the Electoral College tipping point — the state that delivers the next president his decisive 270th electoral vote .
So assuming that future presidential elections are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be one of the main swing states going forward — and know that the next time a Republican wins the White House , there ’ s a good chance Minnesota ’ s blue streak will have come to a long-awaited end .

This is the third in a series of articles examining the politics and demographics of 2020’s expected swing states.
In the fabled “blue wall” — the collection of historically Democratic states that pundits (wrongly) assumed gave Hillary Clinton an Electoral College advantage in 2016 — Minnesota is the cornerstone. The Democratic candidate has won Minnesota in 11 straight presidential elections, the longest active streak in the country. What’s more, no Republican has won any statewide election in Minnesota since 2006 — not for Senate, not for governor, not even for state auditor.
It’s tempting to conclude from this that Minnesota is a safe Democratic state. But Minnesota is much more evenly divided than that record suggests: For example, it came within a couple percentage points of voting for now-President Trump in 2016. And as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — which voted Democratic in every presidential election from 1992 to 2012 — showed in 2016, streaks are meant to be broken.
Most ominously for Democrats, there is evidence that Minnesota is becoming redder over time, with 2016 being a particular inflection point. In 1984, the state was 18.2 points more Democratic than the nation as a whole. But in 2016, for the first time since 1952, Minnesota voted more Republican than the rest of the U.S.
Even as it votes for Democrats, Minnesota shifts right How Minnesota has voted relative to the nation as a whole in presidential elections since 1976 Minnesota Election Dem. GOP Margin National Margin Minn. Lean 1976 54.9% 42.0% D+12.9 D+2.1 D+10.8 1980 46.5 42.6 D+3.9 R+9.4 D+13.4 1984 49.7 49.5 D+0.2 R+18.0 D+18.2 1988 52.9 45.9 D+7.0 R+7.6 D+14.6 1992 43.5 31.9 D+11.6 D+5.8 D+5.8 1996 51.1 35.0 D+16.1 D+8.5 D+7.6 2000 47.9 45.5 D+2.4 D+0.5 D+1.9 2004 51.1 47.6 D+3.5 R+2.4 D+5.9 2008 54.1 43.8 D+10.2 D+7.3 D+3.0 2012 52.7 45.0 D+7.7 D+3.9 D+3.8 2016 46.4 44.9 D+1.5 D+2.2 R+0.7 Sources: Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, Minnesota Secretary of State, U.S. House of Representatives
And Minnesota may be even further right in 2020. According to the current FiveThirtyEight forecast, Joe Biden is on track to defeat Trump by 4.2 points in Minnesota — 1.9 points better for Trump than our forecast for the national popular vote.
What explains Minnesota’s rightward shift? Fifty-three percent of the population age 25 and older are non-Hispanic white and lack a bachelor’s degree, a demographic with which Republicans — and especially Trump — have been gaining ground. Historically, though, Minnesota’s predominantly white, working-class population has actually been quite progressive: The state’s many German and Scandinavian immigrants (the biggest ethnic groups in Minnesota are German Americans, at 33 percent of the population, and Norwegian Americans, at 15 percent) brought with them their progressive values and faith in government, and its active labor movement (in 1983, more than 23 percent of Minnesota employees were members of a union) rallied blue-collar workers around the Democratic Party. In fact, Minnesota’s Democratic Party isn’t called the Democratic Party at all — it is the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, reflecting its historical growth out of those two constituencies.
But in recent elections, Democrats’ pro-environment and anti-gun positions have alienated these voters in places like the Iron Range, an ancestrally Democratic mining region, and in 2016 Trump was able to tap into their racial and economic grievances as well. Democrats went from carrying Minnesota by 7.7 points in 2012 to carrying it by just 1.5 in 2016. Tellingly, the counties that shifted the most toward Trump were also the counties with the highest concentrations of white people without a college degree.
As you can see, 2016 also contributed to Minnesota’s ongoing urban-rural realignment. One of the most important divides in Minnesota politics is between the diverse, cosmopolitan Twin Cities metro area and “Greater Minnesota,” whose residents often feel short-changed relative to the metro. In 2016, every county in Greater Minnesota got redder, and 19 of them flipped from Barack Obama to Trump.
However, there is a silver lining for Democrats: Several counties in the metro actually got bluer in 2016, powered by formerly Republican suburbs like Eden Prairie, Edina and Chanhassen. Still, it wasn’t enough to counterbalance Democrats’ losses in Greater Minnesota, so the state shifted toward Republicans overall.
So, robbed of the formula that fueled them for so long — an uncharacteristically strong performance in rural areas and among non-college-educated white voters — Democrats are now in serious danger of losing Minnesota for the first time since 1972. It might not happen this year: Biden, after all, leads by 4.2 points in our forecast there. But that is more about Biden’s strength nationally than Minnesota being blue.
Indeed, Minnesota is now one of the likeliest states to be the Electoral College tipping point — the state that delivers the next president his decisive 270th electoral vote. So assuming that future presidential elections are closer contests, be prepared for Minnesota to be one of the main swing states going forward — and know that the next time a Republican wins the White House, there’s a good chance Minnesota’s blue streak will have come to a long-awaited end.


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-31--New U.S. Citizens Were One Of The Fastest-Growing Voting Blocs. But Not This Year.

On a Wednesday morning in late February , Annie Johnson Benifield was already through the doors of the M.O .
Campbell Education Center , in Houston by 5:30 a.m .
The occasion was a once-a-month naturalization ceremony , where anywhere between 1,700 to 2,600 legal permanent residents swear a 140-word oath in order to become U.S. citizens .
The ceremony wouldn ’ t begin until later in the morning , but Benifield and the 40 or so volunteers from the League of Women Voters ( LWV ) had arrived early to set up .
The League is the official registration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country .
And before the pandemic , these events happened frequently , taking place once , or sometimes twice , each month at U.S .
Citizenship and Immigration Services ( USCIS ) field offices as well as some federal courthouses .
The League had predicted that , in 2020 , it would interact with up to 200,000 new citizens and their family members in 1,000 events across the country .
The Houston chapter specifically had an 85 to 90 percent success rate in new voter registrations , for an annual average of 30,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But this year , with the widespread interest in the presidential elections , she thought registrations might crack 40,000 .
“ I was getting excited and feeling giddy about it , ” she told FiveThirtyEight , “ but COVID-19 had a different plan.
” Newly naturalized citizens are one of the fastest-growing voting groups in the United States .
In February , the Pew Research Center published a report that found that 23.2 million naturalized citizens would be eligible to vote in November ’ s presidential elections , making up a record 10 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to a February analysis by the National Partnership for New Americans ( NPNA ) , a coalition of immigrant advocacy organizations , 860,000 new Americans were expected to have naturalized by November before the pandemic brought things to a halt .
But not all eligible voters actually vote , and naturalized Americans have historically trailed native-born Americans at the polls .
In 2016 , for example , 54 percent of naturalized citizens voted in the general election compared with 62 percent of native-born citizens .
According to studies , one explanation is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this year : voter registration .
It ’ s not a lack of desire to participate , the study finds , but rather it ’ s an unfamiliarity with how or where to register , registration deadlines , and language issues .
Once these barriers are overcome and new Americans are registered , they tend to vote at the same rates as native-born members of their demographic group .
Take someone like Raz Ahmadi , a new U.S. citizen from Afghanistan .
For the past five years , he has worked as an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ environmental policies in Virginia .
And this year , after completing the naturalization process , which had been interrupted by COVID-19 , in mid-July , Ahmadi will finally be able to cast his own ballot .
Though he has already been involved in politics , Ahmadi says that being able to actually participate is a whole new feeling for him .
Being “ empowered to vote , mentally , it gives you a lot of power , ” he says .
“ It just personalizes a lot of things .
Now you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But even before COVID-19 , the wait time for citizenship applications had hit new highs under the Trump administration .
According to USCIS numbers , the naturalization process averaged 8.8 months in 2020 , compared with 5.6 months in 2016 and a peak of 10.3 months in 2018 , though in some cases , it could take up to three years .
COVID-19 exacerbated this delay .
On March 18 , USCIS temporarily shut down all public-facing activities , including interviews for visas , asylum and naturalization as well as oath ceremonies .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ virtual alternatives , bringing much of U.S. immigration to a halt .
For each day that USCIS remained closed , 2,100 potential new voters would be disenfranchised , according to a frequently cited report by Boundless , an immigration-services company co-founded by an Obama administration official .
USCIS field offices reopened on June 4 and prioritized in-person oath-swearing ceremonies .
Some field offices held drive-through ceremonies , while others held more frequent , but smaller , indoor or outdoor ceremonies .
By the end of July , the agency says that it has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delayed by its closures , as well as an additional 7,905 oath ceremonies not scheduled before the pandemic .
Still , these 7,905 new naturalizations in July represent a twelve-fold decrease than the typical 95,850 naturalizations completed each month .
So even though in-person oath ceremonies are continuing , “ the fact of the matter was that there was already a backlog of people waiting to be naturalized , ” says Jeanette Senecal , who oversees voter-engagement programs at the League of Women Voters , “ so unless USCIS is both increasing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at each one and offering more ceremonies , there ’ s really no way they can make that up.
” From the outset of USCIS ’ s closure , a diverse group of bipartisan policymakers , immigration lawyers , community advocates , and third-party voter-registration organizations like the League of Women Voters have called on USCIS to follow in the footsteps of other federal government agencies in moving activities online .
In June , the USCIS Ombudsman ’ s Office , a small , independent office in the Department of Homeland Security that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for USCIS , weighed in , calling remote oath ceremonies , held via video teleconferencing , “ a legally permissible and operationally feasible solution ” for the agency in the short term and a potential long-term solution to “ increase efficiencies ” in its annual report to Congress .
But still , the USCIS rejected a virtual option .
Spokespeople told FiveThirtyEight repeatedly , both before and after the Ombudsman ’ s report , that “ the statutory language mandated by Congress contains certain requirements that are logistically difficult for USCIS to administer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says that they ’ ve taken steps to clear the backlog in oath ceremonies , but these ceremonies are not the only steps in the naturalization process that are delayed .
Sarah Pierce , a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute , calls USCIS ’ s emphasis on clearing the backlog in oath ceremonies “ really misleading ” because it wasn ’ t just oath ceremonies that were paused during this time .
“ It was also interviews , which meant that naturalization applications weren ’ t being processed , ” said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was also trying to expedite processing of naturalization applications , there was “ no way ” the agency was going to be able to naturalize the same number of people by the election .
By the end of March , there were more than 700,000 naturalization applications waiting to be processed .
Dan Hetlage , a USCIS spokesperson , told FiveThirtyEight that the agency has also “ prioritized rescheduling interviews for naturalization and adjustment of status that were postponed , ” but as of early August , immigration lawyers I spoke with said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to schedule naturalization interviews .
There are currently 315,000 naturalization applicants awaiting their interviews , which on average occur two months before an oath ceremony , according to a Boundless analysis .
In two months it will be October , which is the deadline for voter registration in many states .
That means an unknown but likely significant number of those 315,000 applicants will not naturalize soon enough to register by October and vote in November .
It ’ s not just USCIS that has changed as a result of the pandemic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Institute cataloged 63 executive actions undertaken by the Trump administration since March that have further restricted immigration .
Pierce , who co-authored the report , says that these changes represented some of the Trump administration ’ s “ boldest actions on immigration to date ” that , in some cases , they had long been pushing but had been unable to achieve .
This includes a travel ban on 31 countries , the end of asylum at the southern border , and the suspension of immigration for many family- and employment-based categories as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ During an unprecedented pandemic , which includes both public health and economic crises , you would expect immigration to take a backseat , ” says Pierce , “ but rather , the opposite has been true.
” When USCIS offices reopened on June 4 , organizations like the League of Women Voters scrambled to help with voter-registration efforts .
Benifield , from LWV-Houston , recalls reaching out multiple times to the local field office .
“ We were prepared to go and set up in the parking lot … if they allowed us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end , her persistence paid off .
“ The branch chief … agreed that we could actually bring cards ” for officials administering the naturalization ceremony to give out .
The League can not be on-site to register applicants directly because of the continued threat the pandemic poses , but they can drop off folders containing voter-registration packets to the local field office to be distributed at the socially distant ceremonies .
USCIS is legally mandated to provide , at a minimum , voter-registration forms at each naturalization ceremony .
Benifiled said she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but she remained unsure how effective this form of voter registration would be .
“ Clearly , it will not be 30,000 like … last year.
” This is affecting the League ’ s activities across the country .
“ Spring and summer are usually really busy seasons for voter registration , but especially in presidential years , we usually see massive increases… [ in ] naturalization ceremonies , ” says Senecal , from the League ’ s national office .
Volunteers understand the public health prerogatives that prevent them from conducting registrations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ older and at higher risk for COVID-19 , but many , like Benifield , are concerned about the effect on registration numbers and broader civic engagement .
“ The opportunity cost is not just registration , ” adds Senecal , “ it ’ s also voter education.
” At a basic level , in-person voter registration provides necessary information in native languages , says Nancy Xiong , the communications director for Hmong Innovating Politics , a California-based nonprofit that aims to increase civic participation among Southeast Asian Americans .
Native language materials are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially in already marginalized communities , have challenges with English .
Even when they are provided with translated voting materials , Xiong adds , these materials “ may not always be helpful because county/state offices do a word-to-word translation , without much context.
” This can create the perception that these communities are uninterested in politics , leading to “ big campaigns never or rarely contact [ ing ] the Southeast Asian community , ” Xiong says , even though 92 percent of the 310,000 Hmong Americans are citizens , one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 45 percent are eligible to vote .
And this perpetuates a cycle of disenfranchisement , at the very moment when immigrant voters might be especially incentivized to vote , if previous elections in which immigration was a hot topic are any indication .
In 2008 , presidential candidate Mitt Romney ’ s suggestion that immigrants should “ self-deport ” and hardline views on DACA , for example , have been linked to a jump in voter registrations between 2008 to 2012 .
Sundrop Carter , the executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partners with the Philadelphia USCIS field office as its official third-party registration organization for naturalization ceremonies , told me part of the problem is that : “ [ B ] y definition new Americans have no voter history.
” As a result , she said , they ’ re often bypassed by most get-out-the-vote efforts .
“ New voters … they ’ re just invisible.
” This is despite the fact that in many battleground states , like Pennsylvania , where Carter is based , as well as Michigan , Florida and Nevada @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are eligible to vote now is larger than the margin of victory in the 2016 elections , according to the June 2020 report from the NPNA .
“ Newly naturalized citizens could help to sway the outcome of national elections , ” says Diego Iñiguez-López , the NPNA ’ s policy and campaigns manager .
But more importantly , he adds , “ what ’ s at stake is the political empowerment of newly naturalized citizens … and for the democratic ideals of this country to be fully realized and exercised.
” Community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the gap — and this year , just as the need for their services ramp up , COVID-19 has made them more difficult to deliver .
Hmong Innovating Politics ( HIP ) , in California , and the nonprofit Bonding Against Adversity in Houston , which works mostly with Latin American immigrants , are doing their best to adapt by moving their activities online .
HIP has switched to a text-messaging platform , which uses current friends-and-family circles to encourage contacts to register to vote .
Bonding Against Adversity , meanwhile , has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real-time immigration application help , and plans to restart an online version of their 14-session “ citizenship college ” civic-education program and application workshops in August .
Meanwhile , LWV-Houston members have paid for a QR code that brings up voter-registration information , which it is sharing on signs and , for a while , in person at public libraries , community and faith-based organizations , protests and even a taco chain restaurant .
But still , many organizations are afraid that some of the most vulnerable communities , who already feel left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fall through the gaps .
“ A lot of the communities that we work with have elementary education , are not computer-savvy , and don ’ t speak good English , ” says Mariana Sanchez , a co-founder of Bonding Against Adversity .
That ’ s why she says in-person registration and education is essential .
But the pandemic has put these in-person services on pause , and as a result , the applicants who need the most support are unable to access it .
COVID-19 shows little evidence of slowing down .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Texas that had avoided the early wave of infections were warning that hospital beds were close to full , and in-person voter-registration activities , which the League of Women Voters had just restarted alongside USCIS ’ s reopenings , were put on indefinite pause .
In the meantime , smaller oath ceremonies continue , with USCIS spokespeople emphasizing their adherence during the ceremonies to public-health guidelines , including masks and social distancing .
But it is not clear if USCIS has any contingency plans in place for alternatives to in-person activities .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local level is also a possibility , which would affect which activities USCIS could continue .
Guam ’ s USCIS office , for example , was shut down for a week as the territory ’ s COVID-19 case count led the governor to issue orders to shelter in place .
Hetlage , the USCIS representative , did not respond to a specific question on contingency plans but reiterated that virtual oath ceremonies weren ’ t possible .
This has many immigration advocates perplexed .
“ Almost every business , school district , university @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made adjustments to keep their organizations — and the country — moving , ” says Eric Cohen , the executive director of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center , an advocacy group .
“ Why should USCIS be any different ?
” The question represents an ongoing frustration : Yes , there is an unprecedented public-health crisis , but there is also a human-made immigration crisis stemming from the administration ’ s policies and USCIS ’ s decision-making during the pandemic .
“ It ’ s hard to look at the actions the administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and not think that there was some intent there , especially when you ’ re talking about an administration that is historic in its stance on legal immigration.
” says Pierce , of MPI , on whether the immigration agency ’ s decision-making could be political .
Beyond the 63 actions taken during the pandemic , Pierce ’ s report identified over 400 executive actions by the Trump administration taken in the past four years that have shifted the immigration system toward removing suspected undocumented immigrants , and away from processing applications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stands in stark contrast with the second night of the Republican National Convention , when Trump naturalized five new citizens at the White House in a prerecorded video .
The president welcomed them to “ a family comprised of every race , color , religion and creed united by the bonds of love , ” as he said in his concluding remarks .
“ We are one people sharing one home , saluting one great American flag.
” USCIS representatives did not respond to a request for comment on whether the five were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law .
Since early summer , USCIS has warned that if it does not receive $ 1.2 billion in emergency funding , the agency would furlough 13,000 workers – 70 percent of its workforce — and slow or pause many immigration processes .
On August 25 , after months of back-and-forth , Congress and USCIS reached an agreement that would avoid the furlough .
That agreement would not , however , avoid further delays in processing , as Joseph Edlow , deputy director for policy at USCIS , told The Washington Post : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ severe operational cost that will increase backlogs and wait times across the board , with no guarantee we can avoid future furloughs.
” In an effort to increase its financial sustainability , USCIS will increase fees by an average of 20 percent across the board , and more than 80 percent for naturalization applications .
For groups like Bonding Against Adversity and Hmong Innovating Politics , which were already under-resourced before the pandemic , these changes will only add to their immediate workload .
Sanchez says she ’ s already received more inquiries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ citizenship before application fees for naturalization increase .
“ The immigration laws are so difficult , ” says Sanchez , that “ the only way , for some of the people we serve to help their families is through citizenship…and voting.
” But USCIS is making the process more difficult .
That ’ s why the NPNA sees naturalization delays as an issue of voting rights .
“ It ’ s part of the larger anti-immigrant agenda that the Trump administration has pursued over the last few years , ” says Iñiguez-López .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ them afraid , keep them intimidated , and keep them away from knowing and asserting their votes , including their right to vote.
” In other words , while these would-be citizens are trying to follow the rules of the U.S. immigration system to naturalize and effect change through the established democratic processes , the system has itself become the barrier .
This story received support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism .
Rowan Copley contributed research .

New U.S. Citizens Were One Of The Fastest-Growing Voting Blocs. But Not This Year.
On a Wednesday morning in late February, Annie Johnson Benifield was already through the doors of the M.O. Campbell Education Center, in Houston by 5:30 a.m.
The occasion was a once-a-month naturalization ceremony, where anywhere between 1,700 to 2,600 legal permanent residents swear a 140-word oath in order to become U.S. citizens. The ceremony wouldn’t begin until later in the morning, but Benifield and the 40 or so volunteers from the League of Women Voters (LWV) had arrived early to set up.
The League is the official registration partner for many naturalization ceremonies across the country. And before the pandemic, these events happened frequently, taking place once, or sometimes twice, each month at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field offices as well as some federal courthouses. The League had predicted that, in 2020, it would interact with up to 200,000 new citizens and their family members in 1,000 events across the country.
The Houston chapter specifically had an 85 to 90 percent success rate in new voter registrations, for an annual average of 30,000 new voters, according to Benifield. But this year, with the widespread interest in the presidential elections, she thought registrations might crack 40,000.
“I was getting excited and feeling giddy about it,” she told FiveThirtyEight, “but COVID-19 had a different plan.”
Newly naturalized citizens are one of the fastest-growing voting groups in the United States. In February, the Pew Research Center published a report that found that 23.2 million naturalized citizens would be eligible to vote in November’s presidential elections, making up a record 10 percent of the total electorate. And according to a February analysis by the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA), a coalition of immigrant advocacy organizations, 860,000 new Americans were expected to have naturalized by November before the pandemic brought things to a halt.
But not all eligible voters actually vote, and naturalized Americans have historically trailed native-born Americans at the polls. In 2016, for example, 54 percent of naturalized citizens voted in the general election compared with 62 percent of native-born citizens. According to studies, one explanation is an element that could be missing again this year: voter registration. It’s not a lack of desire to participate, the study finds, but rather it’s an unfamiliarity with how or where to register, registration deadlines, and language issues. Once these barriers are overcome and new Americans are registered, they tend to vote at the same rates as native-born members of their demographic group.
Take someone like Raz Ahmadi, a new U.S. citizen from Afghanistan. For the past five years, he has worked as an organizer registering voters and advocating for progressive environmental policies in Virginia. And this year, after completing the naturalization process, which had been interrupted by COVID-19, in mid-July, Ahmadi will finally be able to cast his own ballot.
Though he has already been involved in politics, Ahmadi says that being able to actually participate is a whole new feeling for him. Being “empowered to vote, mentally, it gives you a lot of power,” he says. “It just personalizes a lot of things. Now you’re more involved in the community.”
But even before COVID-19, the wait time for citizenship applications had hit new highs under the Trump administration. According to USCIS numbers, the naturalization process averaged 8.8 months in 2020, compared with 5.6 months in 2016 and a peak of 10.3 months in 2018, though in some cases, it could take up to three years.
COVID-19 exacerbated this delay. On March 18, USCIS temporarily shut down all public-facing activities, including interviews for visas, asylum and naturalization as well as oath ceremonies. The agency did not make plans for virtual alternatives, bringing much of U.S. immigration to a halt.
For each day that USCIS remained closed, 2,100 potential new voters would be disenfranchised, according to a frequently cited report by Boundless, an immigration-services company co-founded by an Obama administration official.
USCIS field offices reopened on June 4 and prioritized in-person oath-swearing ceremonies. Some field offices held drive-through ceremonies, while others held more frequent, but smaller, indoor or outdoor ceremonies. By the end of July, the agency says that it has cleared the backlog of 110,000 oath ceremonies delayed by its closures, as well as an additional 7,905 oath ceremonies not scheduled before the pandemic.
Still, these 7,905 new naturalizations in July represent a twelve-fold decrease than the typical 95,850 naturalizations completed each month. So even though in-person oath ceremonies are continuing, “the fact of the matter was that there was already a backlog of people waiting to be naturalized,” says Jeanette Senecal, who oversees voter-engagement programs at the League of Women Voters, “so unless USCIS is both increasing the number of people who are getting naturalized at each one and offering more ceremonies, there’s really no way they can make that up.”
From the outset of USCIS’s closure, a diverse group of bipartisan policymakers, immigration lawyers, community advocates, and third-party voter-registration organizations like the League of Women Voters have called on USCIS to follow in the footsteps of other federal government agencies in moving activities online. In June, the USCIS Ombudsman’s Office, a small, independent office in the Department of Homeland Security that appeals specific immigration cases and suggests improvements for USCIS, weighed in, calling remote oath ceremonies, held via video teleconferencing, “a legally permissible and operationally feasible solution” for the agency in the short term and a potential long-term solution to “increase efficiencies” in its annual report to Congress.
But still, the USCIS rejected a virtual option. Spokespeople told FiveThirtyEight repeatedly, both before and after the Ombudsman’s report, that “the statutory language mandated by Congress contains certain requirements that are logistically difficult for USCIS to administer naturalization oaths virtually or telephonically.”
USCIS says that they’ve taken steps to clear the backlog in oath ceremonies, but these ceremonies are not the only steps in the naturalization process that are delayed.
Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, calls USCIS’s emphasis on clearing the backlog in oath ceremonies “really misleading” because it wasn’t just oath ceremonies that were paused during this time. “It was also interviews, which meant that naturalization applications weren’t being processed,” said Pierce. She added that unless USCIS was also trying to expedite processing of naturalization applications, there was “no way” the agency was going to be able to naturalize the same number of people by the election.
By the end of March, there were more than 700,000 naturalization applications waiting to be processed.
Dan Hetlage, a USCIS spokesperson, told FiveThirtyEight that the agency has also “prioritized rescheduling interviews for naturalization and adjustment of status that were postponed,” but as of early August, immigration lawyers I spoke with said that their clients had not been contacted to schedule naturalization interviews.
There are currently 315,000 naturalization applicants awaiting their interviews, which on average occur two months before an oath ceremony, according to a Boundless analysis. In two months it will be October, which is the deadline for voter registration in many states. That means an unknown but likely significant number of those 315,000 applicants will not naturalize soon enough to register by October and vote in November.
It’s not just USCIS that has changed as a result of the pandemic. A recent report from the Migration Policy Institute cataloged 63 executive actions undertaken by the Trump administration since March that have further restricted immigration.
Pierce, who co-authored the report, says that these changes represented some of the Trump administration’s “boldest actions on immigration to date” that, in some cases, they had long been pushing but had been unable to achieve. This includes a travel ban on 31 countries, the end of asylum at the southern border, and the suspension of immigration for many family- and employment-based categories as well as four temporary-worker programs.
“During an unprecedented pandemic, which includes both public health and economic crises, you would expect immigration to take a backseat,” says Pierce, “but rather, the opposite has been true.”
When USCIS offices reopened on June 4, organizations like the League of Women Voters scrambled to help with voter-registration efforts. Benifield, from LWV-Houston, recalls reaching out multiple times to the local field office. “We were prepared to go and set up in the parking lot … if they allowed us,” she said.
In the end, her persistence paid off. “The branch chief … agreed that we could actually bring cards” for officials administering the naturalization ceremony to give out. The League cannot be on-site to register applicants directly because of the continued threat the pandemic poses, but they can drop off folders containing voter-registration packets to the local field office to be distributed at the socially distant ceremonies. USCIS is legally mandated to provide, at a minimum, voter-registration forms at each naturalization ceremony.
Benifiled said she was glad they could distribute materials, but she remained unsure how effective this form of voter registration would be. “Clearly, it will not be 30,000 like … last year.”
This is affecting the League’s activities across the country. “Spring and summer are usually really busy seasons for voter registration, but especially in presidential years, we usually see massive increases… [in] naturalization ceremonies,” says Senecal, from the League’s national office.
Volunteers understand the public health prerogatives that prevent them from conducting registrations in person, especially since many are older and at higher risk for COVID-19, but many, like Benifield, are concerned about the effect on registration numbers and broader civic engagement.
“The opportunity cost is not just registration,” adds Senecal, “it’s also voter education.”
At a basic level, in-person voter registration provides necessary information in native languages, says Nancy Xiong, the communications director for Hmong Innovating Politics, a California-based nonprofit that aims to increase civic participation among Southeast Asian Americans.
Native language materials are essential, since many new citizens, especially in already marginalized communities, have challenges with English. Even when they are provided with translated voting materials, Xiong adds, these materials “may not always be helpful because county/state offices do a word-to-word translation, without much context.”
This can create the perception that these communities are uninterested in politics, leading to “big campaigns never or rarely contact[ing] the Southeast Asian community,” Xiong says, even though 92 percent of the 310,000 Hmong Americans are citizens, one of the highest rates among Asian Americans, and 45 percent are eligible to vote. And this perpetuates a cycle of disenfranchisement, at the very moment when immigrant voters might be especially incentivized to vote, if previous elections in which immigration was a hot topic are any indication. In 2008, presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s suggestion that immigrants should “self-deport” and hardline views on DACA, for example, have been linked to a jump in voter registrations between 2008 to 2012.
Sundrop Carter, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition (PICC), which partners with the Philadelphia USCIS field office as its official third-party registration organization for naturalization ceremonies, told me part of the problem is that: “[B]y definition new Americans have no voter history.” As a result, she said, they’re often bypassed by most get-out-the-vote efforts. “New voters … they’re just invisible.”
This is despite the fact that in many battleground states, like Pennsylvania, where Carter is based, as well as Michigan, Florida and Nevada, the number of new Americans who are eligible to vote now is larger than the margin of victory in the 2016 elections, according to the June 2020 report from the NPNA. “Newly naturalized citizens could help to sway the outcome of national elections,” says Diego Iñiguez-López, the NPNA’s policy and campaigns manager. But more importantly, he adds, “what’s at stake is the political empowerment of newly naturalized citizens … and for the democratic ideals of this country to be fully realized and exercised.”
Community organizations have always tried to fill in the gap — and this year, just as the need for their services ramp up, COVID-19 has made them more difficult to deliver.
Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP), in California, and the nonprofit Bonding Against Adversity in Houston, which works mostly with Latin American immigrants, are doing their best to adapt by moving their activities online. HIP has switched to a text-messaging platform, which uses current friends-and-family circles to encourage contacts to register to vote. Bonding Against Adversity, meanwhile, has expanded another SMS-based communications platform to provide real-time immigration application help, and plans to restart an online version of their 14-session “citizenship college” civic-education program and application workshops in August.
Meanwhile, LWV-Houston members have paid for a QR code that brings up voter-registration information, which it is sharing on signs and, for a while, in person at public libraries, community and faith-based organizations, protests and even a taco chain restaurant.
But still, many organizations are afraid that some of the most vulnerable communities, who already feel left out of the political process, will fall through the gaps. “A lot of the communities that we work with have elementary education, are not computer-savvy, and don’t speak good English,” says Mariana Sanchez, a co-founder of Bonding Against Adversity. That’s why she says in-person registration and education is essential.
But the pandemic has put these in-person services on pause, and as a result, the applicants who need the most support are unable to access it.
COVID-19 shows little evidence of slowing down. By June, hospitals in states like Texas that had avoided the early wave of infections were warning that hospital beds were close to full, and in-person voter-registration activities, which the League of Women Voters had just restarted alongside USCIS’s reopenings, were put on indefinite pause.
In the meantime, smaller oath ceremonies continue, with USCIS spokespeople emphasizing their adherence during the ceremonies to public-health guidelines, including masks and social distancing. But it is not clear if USCIS has any contingency plans in place for alternatives to in-person activities.
The potential of more stay-at-home orders at a local level is also a possibility, which would affect which activities USCIS could continue. Guam’s USCIS office, for example, was shut down for a week as the territory’s COVID-19 case count led the governor to issue orders to shelter in place. Hetlage, the USCIS representative, did not respond to a specific question on contingency plans but reiterated that virtual oath ceremonies weren’t possible.
This has many immigration advocates perplexed. “Almost every business, school district, university and government agency across the country has made adjustments to keep their organizations — and the country — moving,” says Eric Cohen, the executive director of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, an advocacy group. “Why should USCIS be any different?”
The question represents an ongoing frustration: Yes, there is an unprecedented public-health crisis, but there is also a human-made immigration crisis stemming from the administration’s policies and USCIS’s decision-making during the pandemic.
“It’s hard to look at the actions the administration has taken that result in decreased immigration, and not think that there was some intent there, especially when you’re talking about an administration that is historic in its stance on legal immigration.” says Pierce, of MPI, on whether the immigration agency’s decision-making could be political. Beyond the 63 actions taken during the pandemic, Pierce’s report identified over 400 executive actions by the Trump administration taken in the past four years that have shifted the immigration system toward removing suspected undocumented immigrants, and away from processing applications for naturalization and legal immigration.
It stands in stark contrast with the second night of the Republican National Convention, when Trump naturalized five new citizens at the White House in a prerecorded video. The president welcomed them to “a family comprised of every race, color, religion and creed united by the bonds of love,” as he said in his concluding remarks. “We are one people sharing one home, saluting one great American flag.”
USCIS representatives did not respond to a request for comment on whether the five were given voter-registration forms, as required by law.
Since early summer, USCIS has warned that if it does not receive $1.2 billion in emergency funding, the agency would furlough 13,000 workers – 70 percent of its workforce — and slow or pause many immigration processes. On August 25, after months of back-and-forth, Congress and USCIS reached an agreement that would avoid the furlough.
That agreement would not, however, avoid further delays in processing, as Joseph Edlow, deputy director for policy at USCIS, told The Washington Post: “Averting this furlough comes at a severe operational cost that will increase backlogs and wait times across the board, with no guarantee we can avoid future furloughs.”
In an effort to increase its financial sustainability, USCIS will increase fees by an average of 20 percent across the board, and more than 80 percent for naturalization applications. For groups like Bonding Against Adversity and Hmong Innovating Politics, which were already under-resourced before the pandemic, these changes will only add to their immediate workload.
Sanchez says she’s already received more inquiries from people who want to apply for citizenship before application fees for naturalization increase. “The immigration laws are so difficult,” says Sanchez, that “the only way, for some of the people we serve to help their families is through citizenship…and voting.”
But USCIS is making the process more difficult. That’s why the NPNA sees naturalization delays as an issue of voting rights.
“It’s part of the larger anti-immigrant agenda that the Trump administration has pursued over the last few years,” says Iñiguez-López. “Keep immigrants feeling unwelcome, keep them afraid, keep them intimidated, and keep them away from knowing and asserting their rights, including their right to vote.”
In other words, while these would-be citizens are trying to follow the rules of the U.S. immigration system to naturalize and effect change through the established democratic processes, the system has itself become the barrier.
This story received support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Rowan Copley contributed research.
CORRECTION (September 1, 2020, 9:40 a.m.): An earlier version of this article misquoted Diego Iñiguez-López of the NPNA as saying the larger anti-immigrant issue was meant to keep immigrants “from knowing and asserting their votes, including their right to vote.” In fact, he said it’s meant to keep them “from knowing and asserting their rights, including their right to vote.”


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-31--There’s Not Enough Evidence Yet To Know Whether Unrest In Kenosha  And Portland Will Affect The Elec

In this week ’ s FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , the crew asks whether there is evidence that civil unrest will @ @ @ @ @ chances in the 2020 election .
They also preview the Democratic Senate primary race in @ @ @ @ @ and Rep. Joe Kennedy III .

There’s Not Enough Evidence Yet To Know Whether Unrest In Kenosha And Portland Will Affect The Election
In this week’s FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew asks whether there is evidence that civil unrest will harm Joe Biden’s chances in the 2020 election. They also preview the Democratic Senate primary race in Massachusetts between Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Joe Kennedy III.


fivethirtyeight--2020-08-31--Politics Podcast: We Don’t Know Yet Whether Unrest In Kenosha And Portland Will Help Trump

There ’ s been media speculation over the past week that unrest in places like Kenosha , Wisconsin , and @ @ @ @ @ reshape the presidential race and hurt Democratic nominee Joe Biden .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast @ @ @ @ @ not yet evidence to back up these assertions .
They also preview Tuesday ’ s @ @ @ @ @ Massachusetts between incumbent Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Joe Kennedy III .
You can listen @ @ @ @ @ the “ play ” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in @ @ @ @ @ or your favorite podcast platform .
If you are new to podcasts , learn how @ @ @ @ @ Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners discover the show by @ @ @ @ @ review on iTunes .
Have a comment , question or suggestion for “ good polling @ @ @ @ @ Get in touch by email , on Twitter or in the comments .

Politics Podcast: We Don’t Know Yet Whether Unrest In Kenosha And Portland Will Help Trump
There’s been media speculation over the past week that unrest in places like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon, could reshape the presidential race and hurt Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew discusses why there is not yet evidence to back up these assertions. They also preview Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary race in Massachusetts between incumbent Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Joe Kennedy III.
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.