Pickleball looks ridiculous. It sounds ridiculous. The problem is it's really fun. So I got into pickleball. Oh, no.

The New York Times trend story was ridiculous. It was basically like people doing things sometimes get hurt. That was essentially the story, but it was making a big deal about pickleball doing things that I went on many rants with friends about this this weekend.

I played Pickleball, sprained my wrist. Oh, no. Spaced your leg. My wrist. It's fine. It was that extra shame of being on a high horse about something and then having it all, you know, you fell off the horse and you sprained your wrist. It wasn't good.

Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics podcast. I'm Galen Drick after plenty of back and forth within the Democratic Party last Wednesday, President Biden announced a plan to use executive action to forgive student loan debt. It forgives $10,000 of debt for borrowers making under $125,000 a year or couples making under $250,000.

And the amount of debt forgiveness goes up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. The majority of whom come from families making less than $30,000 a year.

The plan also caps monthly payments on loans at 5% of the borrowers discretionary income down from 10%. Student loan forgiveness has become a priority for the left flank of the Democratic Party in recent years. But many wanted Biden to go further.

So what does Biden's plan tell us about the state of Democratic politics and what effect is it likely to have both practically and politically?

We'll also discuss a recent analysis of voter registration data that suggests the number of women registering to vote surged in some states after the Dodd's decision in June.

We'll change up our favorite question a little bit and ask if this is a good or bad use of data. Finally, we'll look at Joe Biden's approval rating, which has ticked up nearly five points since it's all time low of 37.5% in July.

To what does he owe that rebound?

Here with me to discuss it all is editor and chief neat silver. Hey Nate, how's it going?

Hey, guys.

Also here with us is senior politics writer Amelia Thompson to bow. Hey, Amelia. Hey, Gailin. And also here with us is deputy editor Chadwick Matlin. Hello, Chadwick. How are you?

I get on such a pleasure to be on this side of the podcast. I don't know if I've ever been the panelists before.

I know listeners may recognize their voice because you have filled in the host chair in the past and folks have almost certainly heard your name in the credits of this podcast. You Chad have also done reporting on student debt.

So we are very glad to have your expertise on that today. And that's how we're going to kick the show off. So let's dive in.

The debate within the Democratic Party that got by it into this point on student debt forgiveness was a long if not necessarily closely watched one.

A majority of Americans say in polls that they haven't been following the issue closely. Some on the left wanted more up to $50,000 in debt relief. And in some cases, even more than that.

On the other side of the debate, some swing state democratic candidates up for election this fall have said that the announced plan goes too far. Meanwhile, Republicans have been uniformly opposed suggesting it's unfair to most taxpayers who don't have loans, particularly those who never went to college.

Only 14% of Americans had federal student loans and two thirds of Americans don't have college degrees. So we're going to get into a lot of the nuances of this policy and the politics around it.

But first and foremost, since we love public opinion, is this debt forgiveness plan popular? Chad, I got a poll.

So Emerson College released poll on Friday, 1,000 people and a third only a third of voters say it's too much action.

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