The curse of the midterms

Explain It to Me

Vox Media Podcast Network

Education, Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 7.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dylan Matthews and Jerusalem Demsas are joined by Vox’s Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) to talk about the midterm elections. More specifically, why the president’s party almost always loses seats in Congress. They discuss the theories of this phenomenon and what, if anything, can work on the margins. Plus, a white paper about Obamacare and the 2010 midterm elections. References: Why the president’s party almost always has a bad midterm The political science of door-knocking and TV ads White paper: “One Vote Out of Step? The Effects of Salient Roll Call Votes in the 2010 Election” Dylan’s old, wrong article arguing that congressional position-taking doesn’t matter much Hosts: Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox Credits: Sofi LaLonde, producer Dara Lind, engineer Libby Nelson, editorial adviser Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weedsletter Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:04.3	Biverism.
1:18.9	Hello and welcome to another episode of The Weeds I'm your host Dylan Matthews and I am
1:23.6	joined to date in studio by my co-host Ruslim Demsys. Hello. And by Vox senior correspondent Andrew
1:30.4	Prokop. Hello. We're going to be talking about the midterm elections later this year and whether
1:35.4	Democrats are set for a wipeout akin to those in 2010 or 1994. But first, Ruslim has some news
1:42.3	to share. Ruslim. Yes, hi everyone. So this is a bit bittersweet but I have accepted a position
1:49.1	at the Atlantic when we're joining them on their idea section. It has been one of the coolest
1:54.9	things I've ever done in my life being a part of The Weeds and getting talked to some of the smartest
1:57.8	people I've ever read before I got here and I'm so glad to have been a part of it and I'm sure
2:02.2	there will be times where I'll be back but I'll hear for a few more weeks and yeah, you can
	...

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