FiveThirtyEight

03/03/2025

The president is constitutionally obligated to report to Congress on the state of the country and recommend policy measures that Congress should consider, traditionally through the State of the Union address.

Presidents traditionally use this speech to advance their agenda and push for new legislation, while also claiming credit for perceived successes.

On Tuesday, Pres. Trump will make the first such speech of his second term — technically a joint address to Congress and not a State of the Union, though it will receive the same type of coverage.

The event comes just ahead of a key federal funding deadline on March 14, at which point the federal government will run out of money. https://abcnews.link/qgkG9f5

02/27/2025

Other award shows can help us predict the winners of the 2025 Oscars.

02/25/2025

With the severity and scope of the administration's actions rapidly ramping up — including looming mass federal firings and a tariff war that threatens price hikes for key goods such as groceries, cars and electronics — it's worth asking how much the public actually supports what the White House is doing.

Looking at all the polls that have been released since President Trump took office, FiveThirtyEight found that while Americans express support for some of Trump's immigration policy and broad government reform in principle, they oppose most of what he has done in his first month as president. https://abcnews.link/jDPPKz3

02/24/2025

In the immediate aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, there was a brief window in which Americans seemed committed to opposing racism in all its forms.

Those efforts and sentiments did not last.

Instead, the brief wave of racial progress in the early 2020s has been countered by successive waves of counter-messaging starting in 2021 that has escalated into a tsunami of policy backlash in 2025.

An analysis found that the way news stations reported on racial equity issues has changed multiple times over the past five years. https://abcnews.link/pk5NKNo

02/20/2025

In late January, many federal websites took down entire datasets to avoid possibly violating a series of executive orders from President Trump.

The Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-directed task force that is slashing government operations, has also canceled contracts for the collection of data and cut workers who analyze and evaluate information about various facets of American life, such as education, housing and consumer protection.

These developments sparked widespread concern that some data that researchers have long relied on the government to collect would no longer be readily available.

Although some information has come back online, the availability and transparency of government-collected data is suddenly no longer a given. https://abcnews.link/3AbB2Hs

02/20/2025

Recent polling suggests that Pres. Trump's plan for the U.S. to take over Gaza is unpopular and may raise concerns about the direction of Trump’s foreign policy.

Read more for polls on U.S. expansion, the Russia-Ukraine war and Trump's approval rating: https://abcnews.link/9s1Bqt5

02/18/2025

Egg prices did not go down on "day one" as Pres. Trump promised. In fact, the latest monthly consumer price index showed that the average price of a dozen eggs reached a record high of $4.95 in January.

While eggs are just one product, they're a useful case study in how many factors can influence the price of food, and what — if anything — the president can do about it.

The reality is that the White House is limited in how much influence it has over the price of goods in a free market, and the actions that Trump has taken so far are more likely to increase those prices than decrease them. https://abcnews.link/Jk61JIv

02/11/2025

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been increasing the number of arrests of people allegedly in America illegally, according to both media reports and official data.

But a lot of that data is incomplete — and what we do know suggests that Pres. Trump isn't sticking to his exact campaign promises of prioritizing arrests for migrants who have committed violent crimes or reaching the number of arrests promised.

Read more: https://abcnews.link/BsLrsPv

02/10/2025

Let’s look back just eight years ago to Jan. 20, 2017. On the day Donald Trump took office for the first time, there were 293 Republican members of the House and Senate. Few, if any, of them were products of the Trump movement; the new president had won the Republican nomination over the opposition of many GOP elites, and few had expected him to win the general election and actually serve alongside them.

He proved his doubters wrong and quickly got to work refashioning the Republican Party into the party of Trump. The proof of his success is in the numbers: Today, only 121 of those 293 B.T. (Before Trump) Republican legislators (41%) still have an office on Capitol Hill. https://abcnews.link/QuII6vQ

02/10/2025

While executive orders have sometimes, controversially, been used as a last resort after a president is unable to garner legislative support to codify their policy goals, Trump has used executive orders to rapidly jump-start his agenda from the get-go, seemingly without regard for any potential obstacles in Congress or the bureaucracy that would otherwise carry these directives out — building on a pattern from his first term.

President Donald Trump has already issued (and revoked) a record number of executive orders.

02/05/2025

While Lake Michigan isn't known for massive waves, political developments in Michigan last week look likely to make a sizable splash in the 2026 election cycle.

Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced on Jan. 28 that he would not seek reelection, leaving Democrats without an incumbent to defend a pivotal Senate seat in a state that has consistently ranked as one of the most competitive in the country.

Sen. Gary Peters's decision to retire will affect control of the Senate, presidential aspirants and the rise or fall of other notable figures in Michigan politics.

02/03/2025

How do President Donald Trump's picks to run federal agencies this term compare to previous presidents' choices?

As the confirmation process continues, we took a look at how the career paths of the highest-profile members of the Trump administration stack up to those of their predecessors.

Read more: https://abcnews.link/L19Ynj6

01/31/2025

This week, Pres. Trump started making good on one of his highest-profile and most controversial immigration promises: deporting millions of migrants from the U.S.

At first look, Americans seem to approve of deporting undocumented immigrants. But if you dig deeper into the polling, it turns out that support for mass deportations varies a lot depending on how the question is asked, making it tricky to assess how Americans really feel about what Trump is doing — and how they will react to it.

FiveThirtyEight broke down the latest polls: https://abcnews.link/PXviOcA

01/28/2025

FiveThirtyEight has unveiled a new polling average for President Donald Trump's job approval rating.

Based on the 11 polls released since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump's average approval rating starts off at 50%, while 43% disapprove of the job he is doing as president.

Trump's initial net approval rating of +7 percentage points is lower than that of any newly elected president since World War II, with one exception — Trump himself during his first term.

Read more: https://abcnews.link/uMGL7aO

01/24/2025

He focused on immigration over the economy and continued to play to his base.

President Donald Trump's first week in office focused on immigration over the economy and continued to play to his base.

01/23/2025

The legality of President Trump's move to end birthright citizenship is highly disputed — it's already subject to multiple legal challenges, and a federal court temporarily blocked its implementation on Thursday.

It also represents a seismic break with a longstanding status quo, and would remove the U.S. from the 30-plus countries that grant citizenship to just about any person born within their national borders.

Read more: https://abcnews.link/pAOK2nX

01/22/2025

FiveThirtyEight dug up recent polling on 15 of the policies President Trump has already issued.

While Americans as a whole support some of them, particularly the ones cracking down on immigration, most of the other executive actions he took on Monday are unpopular among the public. https://abcnews.link/he5LOGU

01/21/2025

Political scientists who have studied the erosion of democracy in other countries emphasize that it's a gradual, even subtle process that often leaves the trappings of democracy in place. In fact, those experts say, U.S. democracy was already eroded under Donald Trump's first term — and the most serious danger is that his second will see more of the same.

Read more: https://abcnews.link/SkxAN9b