The polls have varied significantly heading into Tuesday’s special Senate election in Alabama. The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team discusses why turnout is so difficult to predict and how different groups of voters could affect the outcome. The crew also assesses how Sen. Al Franken’s resignation has shaped the political conversation surrounding sexual misconduct allegations — […]
Sen. Al Franken announced on Thursday that he will resign from the U.S. Senate following multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. Once Franken officially leaves office, Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton will appoint a replacement (possibly Lt. Gov. Tina Smith) who will hold the seat through the 2018 midterm elections. In 2018, a special election will take […]
Three weeks ago, after Leeann Tweeden accused Minnesota Sen. Al Franken of groping her and kissing her without her consent, we argued that Democrats ought to have pushed for Franken to resign. Doing so would have allowed them to claim the moral high ground at a time when allegations of sexual misconduct had implicated both […]
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. Today’s theme song: “Making Our Dreams Come True” from the television show “Laverne & Shirley.” Poll of the week A new YouGov survey shows that Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to believe that sexual harassment is a serious problem in the United States. As on many […]
Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited. micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Welcome, friends! I hope everyone had a thankful Thanksgiving! 🦃 harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): I had turkey. I wish I had duck. clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): “#sex-misconduct-2020” — what a name for a […]