Election 2020: Final Stretch, Voting Challenges, Prop 21
With Election Day just five days away, the campaigns of President Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden are making their closing pitches to the electorate in an election season upended by the pandemic. Roughly 80 million voters have already cast their ballots by mail as coronavirus cases spike throughout much of the U.S., including Wisconsin, Iowa and other electoral battlegrounds. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed to challenge changes spurred by the public health crisis to how Americans are voting this year. This week, the Supreme Court gave conflicting decisions on accepting mail-in ballots that arrive after Nov. 3 in the swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Meanwhile, in California, a poll released this week by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies surveyed opinions on the dozen statewide ballot measures, including Proposition 16, which would lift a ban on affirmative action, and Proposition 21, an effort to expand rent control in the state.
Guests:
- Scott Shafer, KQED politics and government senior editor
- Marisa Lagos, KQED politics and government correspondent
‘Lost in a Gallup’
We hear from W. Joseph Campbell, an academic and author of the new book “Lost in a Gallup,” which reveals the fraught history of polling in U.S. elections including, most notably, the 2016 presidential race, when seasoned pollsters and media outlets wrongly predicted a Hillary Clinton victory.
Guest:
- W. Joseph Campbell, author, “Lost in a Gallup,” and professor, American University School of Communication
Dating and Politics
A new national poll conducted by the Associated Press shows that 85% of registered voters describe Americans as being greatly divided in their values. As political partisanship has grown, studies also show the number of marriages between people in different political parties shrinking significantly. Popular dating sites such as Bumble, Tinder and Hinge allow users to prominently display their political beliefs and filter prospective dates according to political affiliation or stances such as allyship with Black Lives Matter, for example. But what happens when two young people with opposing political views meet for a first date, socially distanced, over Zoom? The podcast Dateable recently conducted this social experiment and learned how a political discussion can change perceptions between two people seeking romantic connection.