I have to stipulate for the sake of this podcast that I am high on cold medicine right now.

Welcome back to like the common cold. Literally a cold open.

Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics podcast. I'm Galen Druke.

First of all, thanks to Michael for filling in for me last week. I was on vacation.

Now I'm a little sick so bear with me if I'm a little raspy today. But anyway,

last week over 100 Republicans signed a letter threatening to split from the Republican party.

If the party does not make changes, those changes largely having to do with breaking with

Trumpism. The list included former elected officials like former Virginia

Representative Barbara Comstock, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman,

and other outspoken critics of President Trump. As we've talked about on this podcast,

a viable third party seems like a stretch. But today we're going to talk about what would

actually have to happen for the GOP to split and have a third party emerge in American politics.

So not will this effort work as much as what would have to happen in order for any effort to work.

Then later on in the show, our science team is going to join to discuss the CDC's new guidance

that vaccinated people don't need to wear masks or socially distance indoors. The CDC doesn't

set the law, of course, so that guidance will interact with politics and perceptions of the CDC

that have evolved over the past year and a half. We'll also take a look at how vaccination

efforts are going and how Americans are thinking about the risks of the coronavirus at this point

in the pandemic. And we're going to ask our favorite question, good use of polling or bad use of

polling. So let's get to it here with me, our politics editor, Sarah Frostensen. Hello, Sarah.

Hey, Caleb, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. All you have to do is elections analyst,

Jeffrey Scully. Hey, Jeff, Hey, Gail and welcome back. Thank you. You know, I feel like getting

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