Part of me thinks so I got really sick in January 2020 after I went to the Iowa debate and part of me thinks I got COVID then and was like

patient five in the US and that the debate was a super spreader.

From a Bayesian point of view, that's not too likely.

Okay, what about this? I was in China in January 2020 and after I got back I got sick and so did Claire and I think you and I think

Micah because there was one podcast that we recorded where like maybe I was on the upswing a little bit but I was literally the only person in studio.

You gave COVID to everyone in the office in January 2021.

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

We are now five weeks away from election day and the forecasts are still in versions of each other.

Republicans have a 68% chance of winning the House and Democrats have a 68% chance of keeping their majority in the Senate.

As of the time of this recording, 62 deaths have been recorded as a result of Hurricane Ian and that number is expected to rise.

Natural disasters, particularly hurricanes, have a long history of shaping perceptions of politicians. So today we're going to talk about what that means for Florida governor,

Rhonda Santas and President Joe Biden a little over a month before election day.

We're also going to look at how natural disasters can shape the public's perception of climate change while individual weather events are hard to attribute to climate change.

Americans and politicians who experience extreme weather close to home appear likely to take human caused climate change seriously.

Later on, we'll turn our focus to Congress and answer a listener question that we didn't get to on last week's model talk.

Biden's pitch to the American public is that there's a lot more he could do with 52 senators than 50 senators.

Is that actually true?

And lastly, the Senate seems poised to pass the electoral count reform act. How far will it go in preventing any future attempts to overturn an election?

Here with me to discuss it all is editor and chief Nate Silver. Hey, Nate.

Hey, everybody.

All share with us is senior science writer Maggie Curry. Hey, Maggie.

Hello.

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