Decision Desk HQ Podcast

In this week’s podcast, we dug into polling, which is such a huge part of the conversation around elections. Beyond knowing who is in the lead and by how much, surveys can help us understand what issues are driving voters and what people think about the parties and their leaders. However, individual polls are subject to different forms of error that can affect their results. And pollsters can sometimes encounter challenges — think of 2016 and Donald Trump, white working class voters, and the Midwest — that can produce widespread, systematic error. So, the election community likes to track how well pollsters perform individually and as a whole.To explore this topic, we welcomed Silver Bulletin Senior Election Analyst Eli McKown-Dawson and DDHQ Director of Data Science Scott Tranter onto the podcast. We focused mainly on McKown-Dawson’s new analysis of how the polls performed in the 2025 elections and recent trends in polling error published on Silver Bulletin. We talked about what might have led to some sizable polling misses in New Jersey and Virginia, what goes into polling error and polling bias (the statistical form of bias), the choice by some pollsters to weight their samples by recalled vote, and what all this could mean for polling in the 2026 midterms.Subscribe now This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

This week, the Decision Desk HQ podcast examined the messy state of affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives. There, Republicans hold just a 218-213 majority (with four vacancies), an edge so thin that GOP absences have at times left Democrats with more voting members on the House floor than Republicans. These trying governing circumstances have only made life more difficult for Speaker Mike Johnson, who has regularly had to navigate internal conflicts within the House GOP conference, all while having only a slim majority.To dig into this topic, DDHQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by Joshua Huder, a senior fellow at The Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. Huder has expansive expertise in the internal procedures, politics, and institutional makeup of the House — and how they have changed over time. Huder also his own Substack newsletter, Seat of Democracy, where he explores congressional politics, past and present. And he hosts the Georgetown GAI’s podcast, Congress, Two Beers In.The two discussed the challenges Speaker Johnson has faced, including the revolts from his left and right flank in the House GOP conference. More broadly, they examined the anti-establishment surges that have affected the politics of both parties, and how this trend has clashed with the top-down nature of the House’s legislative process. They also explored the impact of discharge petitions to push forward legislation, and how this tool to circumvent leadership has grown in use. All of this discussion included Huder’s deep knowledge of the House’s evolution as an institution, which enabled him to make comparisons with how the House functioned in the past that can help us understand today’s political situation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

Welcome to the official midterm year of 2026! Looking ahead to what could happen this November, the podcast zoomed in on the electoral situations in Minnesota and Virginia. To do this, Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by J. Miles Coleman, the Associate Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. The two led off with the big news in Minnesota, where Democratic Gov. Tim Walz decided to abandon his campaign for a third term in the face of an ongoing crisis regarding government fraud. With the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president out of the race, it looks like Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar may run, and her strong electoral track record might make her an imposing candidate for Democrats. From there, they reviewed some of Miles’s recent findings about the 2025 Virginia election that suggest voters of color who backed President Donald Trump in 2024 may have been more likely to stay home in 2025 than other voters around the state. They then turned to Virginia’s involvement in the national redistricting battle. Virginia’s state legislature is about to take up a constitutional amendment that would potentially allow the Democratic-led body to redistrict the state’s congressional districts. What will that entail and what kind of gerrymander could Democrats draw if they succeed?Subscribe now This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

Happy New Year! With electoral politics briefly paused for the holiday season, Decision Desk HQ decided to do something a little different for this podcast episode. Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley took a spin in the time machine, going back more than 100 years to look at the electoral career of Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman ever elected to Congress.Rankin initially made her name as a women’s suffrage advocate before winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1916 — four years before the 19th Amendment fully gave women the vote across the entire country. Having made history as the first woman elected to Congress, she then became famous (or infamous) for voting against American entry into both world wars. Rankin served only two terms separated by more than two decades, but happened to be in the House each time the nation declared war in the 20th century.Yet a major reason why Rankin had such a long hiatus was due to mid-decade redistricting, a subject very much on our minds in the 2026 election cycle. Rankin had been elected as one of Montana’s two at-large representatives, but after the 1916 election the state legislature split the state into two single-member districts. She had to decide what electoral path to trod in 1918, eventually mounting a failed bid for U.S. Senate. It would be another 22 years before she won a place back in Congress in 1940. We explore Rankin’s fascinating electoral trajectory in this special holiday episode of the DDHQ podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

It’s been a busy couple of months since we began the DDHQ Podcast. But heading into the holiday period, we decided to focus our last regular podcast of 2025 on the 36 gubernatorial contests that will be on the ballot in 2026! To explore this rich topic, DDHQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by Jessica Taylor from The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Jessica is the Senate and Governors Editor for Cook, so she was the ideal person to dig into all the gubernatorial action happening in 2026.We discussed the overall governor picture, where Republicans hold a slight majority of seats nationally. But with it being President Trump’s second midterm, Democrats hope to capture a majority of governorships for the first time since before 2010. They have a path, including targeting GOP-held toss-ups in Nevada and Georgia. But Republicans will have a shot at flipping Democratic-held seats in red-leaning Kansas and purple Michigan and Wisconsin. All told, it turns out that red-leaning states like Iowa might prove critical to deciding which party holds more top state executive posts after the 2026 election.Subscribe now This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the candidate filing deadline for the state’s 2026 primaries. To help unravel what happened around Texas’s Dec. 8 filing date and what to look ahead to in 2026, Decision Desk HQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley was joined by Gabby Birenbaum, the Washington Correspondent for The Texas Tribune. We dug into many of Texas’s key primaries that will take place on March 3, the potential runoffs that could happen on May 26, and the potential November ramifications of those nomination contests.There was too much to talk about, really. In the state’s marquee Senate race, Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett launched her candidacy while former Rep. Colin Allred dropped down to run for a seat in the House. Meanwhile, deadline day confirmed the three-way primary for the Republican Senate nomination involving Sen. John Cornyn, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Rep. Wesley Hunt. Plus, other would-be candidates like Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey also made last-minute changes to their 2026 plans. We also discussed some of the other recent events that will affect Texas’s 2026 electoral picture. Last week, President Donald Trump pardoned conservative Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, who had faced charges of bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy. Then the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas’s newly-drawn congressional map would remain in place for the 2026 election, giving Republicans an opportunity to add as many five seats to their tally in Texas. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

On Tuesday, the special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District drew the attention of election watchers everywhere. Naturally, then, the race in the Volunteer State vacuumed up our attention for this week’s podcast! Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn by 9 percentage points, 54%-45%, to keep the 7th District in Republican hands. However, that still represented a 13-point swing to the left from the 2024 election, when President Donald Trump carried the seat by 22 points, 60%-38%.With the calendar about to turn to 2026, this special election served as a appetizer for next year’s midterm contests. To help unpack what happened in Tennessee and what it could say about the larger electoral situation, Decision Desk HQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley spoke with Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor of Inside Elections. They explored the special election’s high turnout, the district’s swing to the left from 2024, the higher levels of spending from outside groups, and how the result fits into broader special election trends since Trump took office. They then discussed what all of this could mean for next year’s U.S. House elections. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

One of the leading stories this year has been mid-decade redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump began encouraging Republican-run states to create more favorable congressional maps for the GOP, starting with Texas. Democrats have responded with their own redistricting moves, including a redraw in California via the voter-approved Proposition 50. This week, the redistricting saga encountered its latest twist when a federal judicial panel blocked Texas’s new map, ruling it an illegal racial gerrymander — a decision that Texas Republicans have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.To review the redistricting drama we’ve seen so far in 2025, DDHQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley spoke with Nathaniel Rakich, managing editor for Votebeat. We examined the overall redistricting picture, including how it compares to mid-decade redistricting historically and how the new lines may affect the 2026 midterm chances for each party. We then took a detailed tour of the six states that have implemented new maps, including a look the main changes in each state and the political winners and losers in each remap. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

With the 2025 election in the rearview mirror, Decision Desk HQ wanted to take a look at polling. After all, public opinion surveys play an important role in trying to understand how Americans feel about politics and how they plan to vote in elections. DDHQ tracks many major topics with our own polling averages, such as presidential job approval. To plunge into the polls, DDHQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley spoke with two cofounders of FiftyPlusOne, a polling aggregation website built by a group of FiveThirtyEight alumni: Mary Radcliffe, FiftyPlusOne’s head of research, and G. Elliott Morris, head of analytics and author of the Strength in Numbers Substack.We talked about FiftyPlusOne’s work and why polling is vital in a democratic society. We explored the challenges involved in polling aggregation, what happened with polling in 2025, and what pollsters need to watch out for in the future. The rich conversation even includes discussion of a poll that Mary and Elliott helped conduct ahead of the 2025 election and the curiously simple text message that improved their response rate among young voters. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com

The 2025 election is in the books! Decision Desk HQ had all the results and a livestream to cover the vote as it came in. But now it’s time to start making sense of what happened and what it could mean moving forward. To do that, DDHQ Chief Elections Analyst Geoffrey Skelley welcomed two of his DDHQ colleagues, Director of Data Science Michael Pruser and Data Scientist Zachary Donnini, to discuss their initial takeaways from the 2025 contests.The crew examined the broad pro-Democratic swing that occurred across most of the country. Almost every locality in Virginia swung left as Democrats cruised to double-digit wins for governor and lieutenant governor, and they even managed to win the attorney general’s race despite their nominee’s various problems. In New Jersey, Democrats rebounded from big GOP gains in 2024 to restore their large margins in many ethnically and racially diverse communities in North Jersey. And in New York City, Zohran Mamdani won the mayor’s race by turning out his core supporters and winning over many rank-and-file Democrats. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decisiondeskhq.substack.com