A new YouGov poll finds only 11% of respondents said they expected there to be arguments about politics at their Thanksgiving celebration.
Over 30% said they’re at least somewhat likely to discuss politics at their dinner, but for the vast majority of U.S. adults, they don’t expect arguments this year.
Mark Leibovich: “Here’s yet another indication that Washington has been turned upside down in recent years: I saw Rachel Maddow at Dick Cheney’s funeral and didn’t give it a second thought. She was sitting with Anthony Fauci, in the same row as James Carville.”
“Such is life—and death—in the Trump years. You never know who will show up to pay respects at gatherings of this sort, or what odd alliances and strange bedfellows will reveal themselves.”
New polling from the Latino polling group Equis finds that President Trump has lost most of his 2024 gains with Latino voters, but Democrats haven’t won those voters back, Semafor reports.
The survey found 68% of Latino voters disapproving of how Republicans handled the “cost of living.”
Gallup: “For the second straight year, about one in five Americans say they would like to leave the U.S. and move permanently to another country if they could. This heightened desire to migrate is driven primarily by younger women.”
David Graham: “The nationalization of politics is a familiar story, especially in Congress. As the parties have become more polarized in recent years, voters have become less willing to cross the aisle or split their ballot between Democrats and Republicans—especially because animosity toward the other party is a central part of the polarization.”
“The weakening of local media outlets, especially newspapers, has also left citizens far more informed and invested in national political dynamics than matters closer to home.”
A new Politico poll finds a significant minority of the population — 24% — believes that there are some instances where political violence is justified.
“In a bitterly divided country, pessimism and cynicism reign supreme: Two-thirds of Americans say it is at least probably true that the government often deliberately lies to the people. That distrust cuts across partisan lines: Strong majorities of Donald Trump voters (64 percent) and Kamala Harris voters (70 percent) agree. Nearly half of Americans, 49 percent, say that the best times of the country are behind them, according to the Politico Poll.
“That’s greater than the 41 percent who said the best times lie ahead, underscoring a pervasive sense of unease about both individuals’ own futures and the national direction.”
A new PRRI poll finds 62% of Americans believe the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction, fueled by dissatisfaction with President Trump’s impact on the economy, immigration, race relations and the nation’s global standing.
Even among Republicans, a significant share — nearly 30% — gave Trump low marks on the economy and how the government is functioning.
A new AP-NORC poll found 69% of Americans thought the nation was headed in the wrong direction and 30% in the right direction.
A new Gallup poll finds 62% of Americans say the federal government has too much power, with most of the rest saying the government’s power is about right.
Gallup: “Sixty-two percent of Americans say the federal government has too much power, with most of the rest saying the government’s power is about right. This latest reading, the first in President Donald Trump’s second term, is up from 51% a year ago and is the highest in Gallup’s trend since 2002, by two percentage points.”
“Feeling more anxious? More unsure? Unless you’re heavily sedated, you should be: We’ve never witnessed so many population-wide shifts simultaneously in our lifetime,” Axios reports.
“Three titanic tectonic plates are shifting at once: our technology, our governing and our reality-shaping. Washington, D.C., is the epicenter of all three.”
“You can’t navigate business, politics, social media or life generally without understanding the speed, consequence and interconnectedness of these shifts.”
CNN: “Among independents, there is a subset that rejects party labels but aligns closely with one of the two major parties on many issues, which we’re calling Democratic Lookalikes and Republican Lookalikes. The poll also identifies two groups that remix the definition of a traditional swing voter — the Disappointed Middle and the Upbeat Outsiders. A fifth group — The Checked Out — is largely uninterested in politics.”
New York Times: “Though there is no way of determining exactly how many people have faced workplace consequences, The New York Times identified more than 145 such cases through news reports, public statements and interviews with several of those targeted. Those who have faced discipline are professors and health care workers, lawyers and journalists, restaurant workers and airline employees…
“Firings over controversial statements are not new, but they appear to have become more frequent in recent years as online armies seek to identify and assail the employers of people who say things they deem inappropriate. In the wake of Mr. Kirk’s death, Vice President JD Vance urged people to call the bosses of those who celebrated the assassination.”
“For the first time in nearly a decade of polling, more than half of Americans say the country’s best days are already behind it. Three-quarters think the country’s political system needs major reforms or a complete overhaul,” according to a new CNN poll.
A new Quinnipiac poll finds 79% of voters say the United States is in a political crisis, while 18% say it is not.
And 82% of voters think the way people talk about politics these days is contributing to violence in the United States, while 15% do not.
AP-NORC poll: “The share of Republicans who see the country headed in the right direction has fallen sharply in recent months…Today, only about half in the GOP see the nation on the right course, down from 70% in June. The shift is even more glaring among Republican women and the party’s under-45 crowd.”
“Overall, about one-quarter of Americans say things in the country are headed in the right direction, down from about 4 in 10 in June. Democrats and independents didn’t shift meaningfully.”
Playbook: “The anger is colossal today, visceral. And understandably so. Charlie Kirk was loved and admired by millions of people — he built a movement, from the ground up. You may have embraced his worldview or you may have vehemently disagreed with everything he said, but his approach was to persuade, to use charm and charisma and provocation and the power of argument to convince people of the righteousness of his cause.”
“And he had courage, taking his arguments out into the country, out to wherever his fans and his critics were. As so many people have already said — including his fiercest critics — this has to be the right approach. This is what we want from our politics. Yet this is also what put him in harm’s way. So where does our politics go from here?”
“It’s hard to be optimistic this morning about the road ahead. The sight of Congress erupting into another angry shouting match last night — in what should have been a solemn moment of reflection — was the most depressing, and revealing, reaction of all.“
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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