Don’t forget to make your midterm election predictions! 

When the ballot closes at 5 p.m. ET on Election Day, the consensus prediction of Political Wire members will be posted.

If you wanted a Blue Wave T-Shirt, they’re selling quickly.

I’ve been making a number of improvements to Political Wire in recent weeks — making it easier to find what matters, save what interests you and catch up on what you missed.

Here’s what’s new:

• A more organized My Political Wire. The member sidebar is now grouped into Analysis, Resources, Saved and Feeds, with new archives for Talking Points, Inside Elections and Ballot Access News.
• A fresh look for member pages. Trending, Polling, Political Calendar, Books and the Weekly News Quiz now share a clean, consistent design in both light and dark mode.
• Political Wire, like an app. Add Political Wire to your iPhone’s Home Screen and it opens full screen with its own icon, without the browser clutter. In Safari, tap Share → Add to Home Screen; in Chrome, choose Install. Members also get a tab bar for Latest, Trending, Polling and Trial Balloon, plus a Back button and pull-to-refresh.
• In Case You Missed It. A new widget in the right-hand column highlights a few of the most-read stories from the past couple of days that you may have scrolled past.
• Your own reading list. Members can save any book mentioned on Political Wire with one click, mark it Want to Read, Reading or Read, and share their list with friends by link. There’s also a gift guide drawn from members’ favorites.
• Folders for your favorite posts. Members can now organize saved posts into folders — and share any list or folder with friends or colleagues.
• A rebuilt Trial Balloon page. Find every podcast episode, complete with show notes and the stories we discussed, plus search and a year filter. Our own player remembers where you left off, lets you adjust playback speed and keeps playing as you browse.
• Your Weekly News Quiz history. See the quizzes you’ve taken and your scores, and play any you missed.
• Better search. Sort results by newest or most relevant, filter by week, month or year, and see snippets with your search terms highlighted. Searches for political terms also bring up definitions from the Political Dictionary.

These improvements are entirely made possible by members, whose support makes Political Wire possible. If you’re not yet a member, join today for instant access.

Thank you for reading — and let me know what you think!

My son Alex, the creator of the Political Trivia site, has just released Econ Arcade, a new suite of games about money and markets. Fair warning: they’re very addictive. 

Check it out. 

Check out the latest games at Political Trivia.

They’re surprisingly addictive — and there are new ones every day.

And don’t forget the Weekly News Quiz to see how well you were paying attention this week.

This email from a reader really made my day:

I just wanted to express my appreciation for the Political Wire and all the work you have done to make this the best place to come to for news, politics, and analysis. The additions you have added to the members side of the Political Wire have been great!

I really appreciate the polling page during this election season and I am beyond happy with the new book recommendation page. I just noticed the ability to flag a book for a personal reading list. This is such a great addition for so many of your members, like myself, who love reading the types of books that you mention. I work for a public library and I have many patrons who also enjoy these kinds of titles. Having a book list to help me find interesting nonfiction titles that I can then share with my patrons is so wonderful.

Thank you again for all that you do. My subscription to the Political Wire is some of the best money I have spent.

Readers may have noticed a small change in how I feature Trial Balloon, the weekly podcast I host with Chris Riback.

Instead of publishing a separate post announcing each new episode, I’ve added a small audio player at the top of Political Wire. It appears whenever a new episode is released and stays there for 48 hours before disappearing until the next one.

I’ve also created a dedicated Trial Balloon page where you can easily find and listen to every episode.

But there’s an even better way to listen: Subscribe to Trial Balloon in your favorite podcast app.

That’s really how podcasts are meant to be enjoyed. New episodes automatically appear in your app as soon as they’re released. You can listen in the car, at the gym, on a walk, or while doing chores around the house. You can pause and pick up where you left off, download episodes for offline listening, and never worry about missing one.

And you only have to subscribe once.

Just visit the Trial Balloon page on your phone and tap on “Add Trial Balloon to your podcast app.” It takes just a few seconds.

The goal of these changes is to make Trial Balloon easier to find and enjoy, without adding another post to the daily stream of political news.

New feature for members: When you add a political book to your own reading list, you can now easily share a link to it with anyone. 

The new Political Books page is a big hit.

In the coming weeks, I’m going to compile a list of the books Political Wire members have on their personal reading lists.

So if you haven’t saved any books featured here to your reading list, add them today! 

When readers email me, they ask for book recommendations more than almost anything else. So I built a better answer.

Political Books collects every book that has been mentioned on Political Wire, nearly 800 so far, in one place. It’s searchable and sortable, and it updates itself whenever a new book appears in a post.

Search everything. Type a title, subtitle or author and results appear instantly as you type.

Sort it your way:

• Recently mentioned: the books in the news right now.
• Newest: the latest releases.
• Coming soon: upcoming books with their release dates, so you can pre-order.
• Most mentioned: the books we’ve returned to again and again.

Every book has its own page. It shows the cover, the available formats (hardcover, paperback, Kindle and audiobook) and every Political Wire post that discussed the book. You can see why it mattered, not just that it exists.

Members can also save books to their reading list. Just click “Save to reading list” next to any book on the Political Books page or in any post. When you’re ready for your next book, it’s waiting. You can view your saved reading list in the “My Political Wire” section in the right column of the site. 

If you’re not a member yet, join here. The reading list is one more reason to.

Over the summer, my son Alex launched a terrific new game called Yea or Nay, which tests how well you know the key votes taken by the U.S. Senate.

It quickly went viral — enough that the Washington Post wrote a very nice piece about the game and its surprising popularity.

Alex followed that up with Split Decision, which tests your knowledge of Supreme Court decisions, and Pollster, which asks you to guess where public opinion stands on some of the biggest issues of the day.

Now he’s brought them all together — along with a new Daily Trivia game — on a new site called Political Trivia.

And because he’s clearly better at this than I am, Alex also completely rebuilt my game, The Way It Was, and added that to the site too.

The games have gotten enough attention that a major news organization has asked Alex to develop a new game for them, which is expected to launch early next year.

So give Political Trivia a try — and share it with your friends!

And if you have feedback — or if you’re interested in working with Alex — please get in touch.

I don’t know if it’s a leading indicator or not, but sales of the Blue Wave T-Shirt were surging over the weekend.

I’ve made a bunch of changes over the last few weeks to improve the Political Wire experience. 

A cleaner, faster design:

• A new theme built just for Political Wire will allow me to make modifications more quickly. Navigation is simpler and search now sits in the menu bar, one tap away.
• Pages should open more quickly, especially on phones and slower connections.
• There’s a new phone layout with a cleaner header and menu.

Read it your way:

• A new “Aa” button in the menu bar let’s you pick your theme and text size. Switch between light and dark mode, and choose small, medium or large text. Members’ settings are remembered separately for phone and computer, so large text on your phone doesn’t follow you to your laptop.
• Better previews when you share a post. Links to Political Wire on social media and in texts now show a proper image card: the poll chart for poll posts, a quote card for Quote of the Day, or a branded headline card.
• A new member profile module gives you easier access to your account at a glance.

Find more of what matters:

• A new “In Case You Missed It” panel partway down the front page brings back what I think are important stories that may have scrolled out of view.
• The Polling Dashboard now tracks key governor’s races as well as Senate races.

I hope these changes make reading Political Wire an even better experience!

If you have any other suggestions, just send them my way.

This email from a Political Wire reader really made my day:

Just wanted to compliment and thank you for the wonderful upgrades that have been blooming on Political Wire the last few months. I know how hard it is to design and execute truly useful and pleasant to engage with features, and you’ve really done a bang up job throughout — as well as adding new features like the Trending News and Polling Dashboard.

I’m sure you could just coast without the upgrades, but they really make a difference in user experience. Just wanted to call ’em out and say thanks.

It’s been a ton of fun making Political Wire better — and there’s more to come.

If you’re not yet a member, join today for instant access.