Hello from Washington. I'm Chuck Todd and this is the Chuck Todd cast. So my

guest today is my good friend Dante Cheney. He's the director of the American Communities Project, which uses data to track out trends in politics,

and economics for local communities and how that's how they sort of are intertwined across the country.

He both helps segment the country and then at the same time shows you how communities in one region

versus another actually have more in common sometimes than people that live in the same region.

He's also a great guy to dig deep into what are we really seeing in these polling trends.

As you know, I believe the worst place to look for polling

information is Real Clair Politics or 538. I think it's only ends up making you less informed about polling, not more informed because of how many

crappy polls they choose to use there.

So we're going to do a lot with Dante there, but I'm going to force him into a conversation

that I know he's willing to have because unlike most data-driven reporters, he's actually

talks to real people too. A lot of data-driven reporters, he's actually talks to real people too.

A lot of data-driven reporters sit in databases, do terrific work looking at databases, but

you still need the qualitative.

The quantitative is amazing, you still need the qualitative. The quantitative is amazing, you still need the qualitative.

And it, because I want to kick off our conversation

with the subject of my column that's also been uploaded this morning.

As you're listening to this it's already there

at NBCNews.com of course don't miss it

and it really is

where my lead is this

and I think you'll know where I'm going

...