The Strength In Numbers Podcast with G. Elliott Morris

A reminder: Very few people support Donald Trump's presidency

On this week’s Strength In Numbers podcast — the last live episode before Elliott heads off on paternity leave — Elliott and David break down just how historically unpopular Donald Trump has become and dig into the surging public appetite for age limits on members of Congress, the presidency, and the Supreme Court. Here are the big takeaways: * Nobody likes Trump, and gas prices are only part of the story. Trump is sitting at roughly 36.8% approval and 59.7% disapproval in the 50+1 polling average [http://fiftyplusone.news] — a net rating of about -23, making him the most unpopular president at this point in his term in modern history, worse even than Joe Biden during the 2022 inflation panic. He’s underwater in roughly 40 states, including big red ones like Georgia, Florida, and Texas, and all the swing states. On prices, his net approval is a brutal -40. Trump’s recent collapse tracks almost perfectly with the war in Iran: from late February to now, gas prices are up about 54% — and Trump’s approval on inflation is down by about the same percentage. And don’t count on a bounce-back — even if gas prices fall, Biden’s presidency suggests voters don’t forgive you for price shocks on your watch — and logistically it can take months to ship and refine oil imported from Iran, even if Trump does resolve the crisis. * Voters are losing confidence in Trump’s mental fitness for the job. Worse for the president, 61% of adults (including 30% of Republicans) say Trump has become erratic with age, and only 45% call him mentally sharp enough for the job (down from 54% pre-2024), and just 32% are extremely or very confident in his mental fitness per the Pew Research Center. Among independents, the “mentally sharp” percentage has cratered from 53% to 36%. Those numbers are still about ten points better than Biden’s in April 2024 — but the trend is not Trump’s friend. * Voters support term and age limits for federal officials. Roughly 80% of American adults — including 78% of Democrats, 83% of Republicans, and 79% of independents — back a maximum age for House and Senate candidates, a level of cross-partisan agreement that’s almost unheard of on a high-salience issue. Additionally, 61% of independents and 73% of Republicans back a presidential age limit, with 54% picking a cap of 79 or younger; 65% support an 18-year Supreme Court term limit, and 74% favor a maximum age for justices. The catch: the 1995 U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton decision held that states can’t add to the constitutional qualifications for Congress, likely dooming most age-limit laws — though North Dakota recently passed an age-limit law the Court could use to update the precedent, if challenged. In the meantime, primary voters are increasingly opting for candidates Since this is the last live show for a while, Elliott has pre-recorded a couple deep dives that will trickle into your feed over the next 4-6 weeks. If you value this work and want to help keep it going, please consider becoming a premium subscriber to Strength In Numbers. Paid subscriptions support this podcast, the newsletter, and the time it takes to do this kind of data-driven analysis of politics and elections. Paying subscribers also gain the ability to send in questions during our live streams, so you can directly shape the conversations we’re having on the podcast. If you missed our video livestream, you can watch it by clicking play on the web version of this post at gelliottmorris.com [http://gelliottmorris.com/]. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/podcast] to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show! A reminder that paid subscribers to [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe]Strength In Numbers [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] get to participate in our live Q&A! [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so: If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com [https://the-downballot.com/]. And if you’re coming from David’s site, subscribe here [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] to get the numbers behind the news. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Deep Dive episode: Democracy 2.0, with Lee Drutman

In this Deep Dive episode of the Strength In Numbers podcast, Elliott sits down with Lee Drutman, senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Representation in America [https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Two-Party-Doom-Loop-Multiparty/dp/0190913851], to talk about whether the way out of America’s escalating gerrymandering war isn’t legislation for fairer maps or redistricting commissions, but maybe doing away with districts altogether. Lee is one of the country’s leading advocates for proportional representation, and has a vision for a better democracy that is worth paying attention to! We cover the history of how the U.S. wound up with single-member districts in the first place, why proportional representation would render gerrymandering irrelevant and make multiple parties possible, what PR would actually look like from the voters’ perspective, and how Congress could move to a multi-party system without amending the Constitution. Here are the big takeaways: * Single-member districts are the problem, not how we draw them. Drutman argues that no “fair map” standard can resolve the underlying contradictions of the single-winner district, which force an impossible trade-off between partisan proportionality, competitiveness, compactness, communities of interest, and minority representation. * Proportional representation would make every vote count and give voters real choices. Under an open-list PR system, states divide voters into multi-member districts where parties win seats roughly in proportion to their vote share, making third and fourth parties viable and every district competitive. Lee that PR systems also produce more diverse representation, not less, because party leaders want to put forward lists that appeal to broad constituencies. * It could happen with one act of Congress — and the moment may be closer than people think. PR for House elections doesn’t require a constitutional amendment; Congress can amend the 1967 Uniform Congressional District Act under its Article I, Section 4 powers, and pair it with fusion voting (already legal in New York and Connecticut) for inherently single-winner offices like the presidency. Drutman thinks 2029 could open a window for a broader “democracy reconstruction” with PR as one piece. Thanks again to Lee for joining me for this special Deep Dive episode of the show. If you value this work and want to help keep it going, please consider becoming a premium subscriber to Strength In Numbers. Paid subscriptions support the podcast, the newsletter, and the time it takes to do this kind of analysis well. Paying subscribers also gain the ability to send in questions during our live streams, so you can directly shape the conversations we’re having on the podcast. A reminder: Elliott and David Nir record the usual Strength In Numbers podcast live every Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned topics and then answer questions submitted live by viewers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/podcast] to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show! A reminder that paid subscribers to [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe]Strength In Numbers [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] get to participate in our live Q&A! [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

America's new redistricting doom loop

On this week’s Strength In Numbers podcast, Elliott and David briefly revisit Elliott’s hypotheses on why economic vibes are still so sour before turning to the alarming speed at which Republican-led states are moving to redraw their congressional maps in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Callais decision last week. Here are the big takeaways: * The economic vibes may not be “normal” again until 2029 at the earliest — and that’s the optimistic scenario. Consumer sentiment is at its lowest level in the 60+ year history of the University of Michigan’s survey. Our model says the main (but not only) culprit is “excess prices”: Household goods cost roughly 15% more than they would have under the pre-2020 trend of 2% inflation, and people haven’t yet forgotten. If inflation returns to ~2.7%, sentiment recovers to its historical median around April 2029. If inflation stays at 3.5% or higher (as Trump’s tariffs, deportations, and the Iran war suggest it might), sentiment may take decades to recover to pre-COVID levels. An anecdote from a reader in Austria suggests it took residents about eight years to stop complaining about euro prices [https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/wps/ceps/0020913/index.html] after the country switched its currency from the schilling, which lines up eerily well with our 2029–2030 projection. * Republican states are dismantling Black voting districts at breakneck speed after Callais. One week after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, the dominoes are already falling. Louisiana’s governor canceled the state’s primaries by invoking a statute normally deployed after hurricanes; Alabama is passing a law to allow do-over primaries so it can erase the Black-majority district created in 2024; and Tennessee just released a map that surgically splits Memphis into three almost equal pieces, turning one majority-Black district into three Trump+20 white districts. Combined with potential moves elsewhere throughout the South, Republicans could net 13–15 seats from racial gerrymandering alone—and in time for the 2026 elections. * We’re in a redistricting doom loop, and the only way out is structural electoral reform. America has a severe racial and partisan gerrymandering problem. Once one party abandons fairness, the other has to respond — and it’s a race to the bottom that shafts us, the voters. Elliott coded a computer redistricting simulator to show just how easily a 55-45 state can be turned into 80% one-party representation when partisan maximization replaces fair drawing. The Roberts Court has now ruled four times that partisan gerrymandering isn’t justiciable, and Republicans in Congress have derailed Democratic attempts at a remedy. Elliott vouches for a system of proportional representation, arguing that America’s district-based system was built for an era without parties and is no longer fit for purpose. If you value this work and want to help keep it going, please consider becoming a premium subscriber to Strength In Numbers. Paid subscriptions support this podcast, the newsletter, and the time it takes to do this kind of data-driven analysis of politics and elections. Paying subscribers also gain the ability to send in questions during our live streams, so you can directly shape the conversations we’re having on the podcast. If you missed our video livestream, you can watch it by clicking play on the web version of this post at gelliottmorris.com [http://gelliottmorris.com/]. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned topics and then answer questions submitted live by viewers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/podcast] to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show! A reminder that paid subscribers to [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe]Strength In Numbers [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] get to participate in our live Q&A! [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so: If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com [https://the-downballot.com/]. And if you’re coming from David’s site, subscribe here [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] to get the numbers behind the news. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Deep Dive episode: Political scientists were right about Trump

In this Deep Dive episode of the Strength In Numbers podcast, Elliott sits down with Seth Masket [https://smotus.substack.com/], political scientist at the University of Denver and author of the Smotus Report Substack, to swap interviews on what political scientists got right (and wrong) about Donald Trump, the constitutional fallout of Trump’s second term in general and the post-VRA redistricting arms race, and what Democrats actually learned — or refused to learn — from the 2024 election. Masket is the author of the new book The Elephants in the Room [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/elephants-in-the-room/8FE569EDD4526D7085BA1E63D022DEAF], a review of what the Republican Party learned from its loss in 2020 and how that shaped its decisions (or not) in 2024. Here are the big takeaways: * What political scientists got right about Trump in 2020 and 2024. Masket readily admits the discipline underestimated Trump’s ability to win the 2016 Republican primary, expecting his celebrity-without-insider-support campaign to flame out the way most do. But once Trump was in office, political scientists were largely correct in warning about election denial, attacks on the press, threats of political violence, and the refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. And after 2020, plenty of pundits wrote that Trump would simply “fade away” — despite primary elections and media coverage showing his iron grip on the GOP. * The Callais decision is supercharging a redistricting arms race. With the Supreme Court effectively gutting the protections of minority-majority districts, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, and other Republican-controlled states are moving to redraw maps mid-decade. Masket is optimistic and speculates that now that both parties are going to war over new maps, they may try to find some truce in new redistricting guidelines so they aren’t drawing new gerrymanders every two years. Both Elliott and Masket are increasingly drawn to proportional representation as a structural fix to these problems. A system where politicians can’t draw their own district lines has its own advantages, and having third, fourth, and even regional parties could force coalition-building and blunt the worst effects of partisan sorting. Some sort of system that acknowledges the primacy of parties, instead of denying them wholesale, is probably way healthier for democracy in the long run. * Media pundits and DC analysts learned the wrong lesson from 2024. Masket surveyed hundreds of Democratic county chairs after the election and found the single most common explanation for Harris’s loss was inflation and anti-incumbent backlash. He thinks that’s roughly right — and notes there is little the party could have done to avoid it. Joe Biden’s stimulus, labor support, and broadly effective economic policy yielded him “roughly nothing in terms of politics.” Elliott’s working theory for what actually moves voters is that highly visible, durable empathy with working-class people can buy an incumbent party that is presiding over economic stress some clout with voters, such as the case of Zohran Mamdani in NYC and Taylor Rehmet in Texas’ 9th state seat district. This is an are both agree the parties and policymakers are having trouble figuring out. Thanks again to Seth for joining this second Deep Dive version of the show. It was a lot of fun, and I (Elliott) personally learned a lot! If you value this work and want to help keep it going, please consider becoming a premium subscriber to Strength In Numbers. Paid subscriptions support the podcast, the newsletter, and the time it takes to do this kind of analysis well. Paying subscribers also gain the ability to send in questions during our live streams, so you can directly shape the conversations we’re having on the podcast. A reminder: Elliott and David Nir record the usual Strength In Numbers podcast live every Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned topics and then answer questions submitted live by viewers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/podcast] to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show! A reminder that paid subscribers to [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe]Strength In Numbers [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] get to participate in our live Q&A! [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

What the SCOTUS VRA decision means for the midterms — and the future

On this week's Strength In Numbers podcast, Elliott and David unpack the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf] and explain what it means for the midterms and beyond. Then Elliott pushes back on a trendy take that Democrats' "only" 7–8 point generic ballot lead, despite Trump's –22 net approval, proves the party is fundamentally misaligned with voters on cultural issues. Here are the big takeaways: * Republicans could redraw ~10-15 seats because of the Callais decision. Plaintiffs in racial gerrymandering cases now have to prove intentional discrimination, which is nearly impossible since states can just say they drew maps for partisan reasons. Eight Southern states hold at least a dozen VRA-protected districts that Republicans can now dismantle, with Louisiana already racing to redraw its map before 2026. * The U.S. is increasingly governed by minority rule, and Callais is the latest symptom. Democrats have won the effective popular vote for the Senate in every cycle but one since 1992, yet two popular-vote-losing presidents went on to stack the Court with justices confirmed by a minority-elected Senate that have decided cases decisively against the popular majority on dozens of key cases. That Court just trashed legislation 67% of voters say is still needed — and 65% of voters now support Supreme Court term limits. * The “Democrats should be up 20 points” narrative is built on a misunderstanding of the data, and the claimed cause (crime and social issues) is wrong. Our investigation of the Trump disapprovers in the Strength In Numbers poll finds that most disapprovers who have not committed to voting Democratic on the generic ballot are in fact “closeted partisans” — voters who say they identify as Republicans and are strong conservatives. Accounting for that, the realistic ceiling for Democrats is around D+13, not D+20; treating every Trump disapprover as a winnable Democratic vote is a misread of the data. Additionally: only 3% of persuadable Trump-disapprovers name crime as their top issue, while 66% cite the economy, prices, or health care — and most say they don’t even know which party to trust on those issues. If you value this work and want to help keep it going, please consider becoming a premium subscriber to Strength In Numbers. Paid subscriptions support the podcast, the newsletter, and the time it takes to do this kind of analysis well. Paying subscribers also gain the ability to send in questions during our live streams, so you can directly shape the conversations we’re having on the podcast. If you missed our video livestream, you can watch it by clicking play on the web version of this post at gelliottmorris.com [http://gelliottmorris.com/]. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned topics and then answer questions submitted live by viewers. You can also subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/podcast] to listen on your own time. And if you do listen via one of those apps, please drop us a five-star rating and review if you feel we’ve earned it — it really helps people discover the show! A reminder that paid subscribers to [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe]Strength In Numbers [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] get to participate in our live Q&A! [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] You can also read the transcript of our conversation by clicking the headline of this article to take you to the web version of the podcast, then clicking the button just below the byline that looks either like a piece of paper or is labeled “Transcript,” like so: If you’re a reader of Strength in Numbers and haven’t yet subscribed to David’s newsletter, head to the-downballot.com [https://the-downballot.com/]. And if you’re coming from David’s site, subscribe here [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe] to get the numbers behind the news. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]