While no one knows how this November’s election is going to go in the U.S., there’s one thing most experts agree on: It’s likely going to be close. Very close. Poll after poll suggests that, especially in a few key states, support for the two candidates is evenly split in a way we haven’t seen in decades. 

So, with just about four weeks to go before election day, Dan Richards spoke with two experts about the key factors shaping this race. They discuss why neither Biden’s winning coalition in 2020 nor Trump’s coalition in 2016 seem likely to re-form and what this all means for American politics beyond November 5. 

Guests on this episode: 

• Wendy Schiller is a political science professor and director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. She is also the interim director of the Watson Institute. 
• Katherine Tate is a professor of political science at Brown University and an expert on public opinion and Black politics in the U.S. 

Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts

Learn more about Watson’s Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy

[MUSIC PLAYING]

DAN RICHARDS: From the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, this is Trending Globally. I'm Dan Richards. While no one knows how this November's election in the US is going to go, there's one thing most experts agree on. It's likely going to be close, very close.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Poll after poll after poll suggests that especially in a few key states, support for the two candidates is evenly split in a way we haven't seen in decades. So with just about four weeks to go before election day, we're going to hear from two experts about why this election appears so close and about how to think about this race as it enters its homestretch. What are the issues?

And who are the voters that will define this race in the end? Why does it seem like neither Biden's winning coalition in Twenty Twenty nor Trump's coalition in Twenty Sixteen seem likely to reform? And what does it all mean for our country's politics beyond November 5?

Wendy Schiller is a political scientist and Director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at the Watson Institute. She's also the Institute's interim director. Katherine Tate is a Professor of Political Science at Brown University and an expert on public opinion and Black politics in the United States. Here is our conversation.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Wendy Schiller, Katherine Tate, thank you so much for coming on to Trending Globally.

WENDY SCHILLER: Our pleasure to be here.

KATHERINE TATE: Thank you.

DAN RICHARDS: I want to start with just the nature of this race right now. In Twenty Twenty, President Biden won the popular vote by some 7 million votes. He won the electoral college by over 30 votes. And right now, most polls have this race as likely to be a lot closer than that. And I guess before we get into some of the specifics, kind of big picture, what are the main factors that you think are making it so much closer?

KATHERINE TATE: I think voters still don't feel like they know Harris very well, while Trump is very familiar. And although it's a Harris versus Trump election, this election is much like Twenty Twenty. I'm not sure there'll be as strong a turnout in Twenty Twenty-Four as in previous elections because they're not really given a real choice. It's Harris is new, but still she's with the Biden administration.

And I think that voters are not going to necessarily turn out at high numbers because of that and because the polls may be inaccurate because of the turnout problem. Trump is doing well among working-class whites, but they tend not to vote. And so I think college-educated voters are more likely to surge at the polls for this election.

WENDY SCHILLER: Professor Tate brings up a terrific point about the switch in the fundamentals of each party, because 20 years ago, we would have said that working class voters, even working class white voters, were core to the Democratic Party. But now the Democratic Party seems to have the majority of college educated white voters and college educated Black voters. And so that is a very different ballgame.

There are fewer of those, only 40% of America has any college at all. However, they are still more likely to vote, even with the Trump enthusiasm from Twenty Sixteen. So that's the big question mark is in Twenty Sixteen, Donald Trump brought a lot of people without a college education to the polls. They got out the door.

In Twenty Twenty, it was quite a mixed result, and he himself discouraged people from voting by mail in a pandemic. And I think that affected some of the turnout. Even though he did very well, historically well, for the Republicans in turnout, that still lingers a little bit.

And I think the Democrats are better at saying, vote whatever way you can. So in certain areas, particularly suburbs, you probably will expect college-educated voters to turn out in bigger numbers. And that is something, I think, that we're not quite seeing as starkly in the polls, as we might.

DAN RICHARDS: Vice President Harris, obviously part of the Biden administration, but also clearly did change the race when she entered into the race. And I was thinking, maybe we could start first with some aspects of Vice President Harris's identity that are just profoundly different than what we had been expecting from the Democratic candidate. She's of course, the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket. And I'm wondering, are either of you surprised with how race and gender have or have not affected the race so far?

KATHERINE TATE: I'm not surprised Trump has made race and gender issues. He calls Vice President Harris dumb. That's a loaded term for women. He's talked about her racial identity, saying that she only recently called herself Black.

Harris has refused to answer questions about her identity and just brushes them off. And in fact, the historic nature of the race, she has not made much mention of that either the fact that she could be the first woman elected and certainly the first Black female, first Black-Indian female, South Asian female president. So I think she's trying to keep race from becoming a major issue in the election and avoid a trap that Trump has laid out. I think that he's, like I said, his efforts to inject race in the campaign have been bold-- the lie about Haitians eating family pets. He recently just said that he would change back Fort Liberty's name back to Fort Bragg, a Confederate name, so that he's, I think, aggressively injecting race into the campaign.

DAN RICHARDS: And why do you get the sense that Vice President Harris is maybe less interested in making race a central issue? Does she see it as a risk in some ways?

KATHERINE TATE: Yes. I think that instead of focusing on her qualifications, they would just focus on her race and gender and vote accordingly. I think that people are looking for more policy direction in this election. And we had a historic election in Two Thousand Eight when Barack Obama was elected the first Black president. And I think it's just too dangerous of an arena for her to enter, if she talks about her race and gender.

WENDY SCHILLER: She's been selective about it. If you look at the swing state map, she's gone in Michigan and really emphasized that she's a Black woman and really tried to motivate Black female voters, particularly in cities like Detroit. And then when she goes to Arizona, she talks about the border. And then when she goes to North Carolina, she, I don't know if we'd say de-emphasize this, her identity as a Black woman, but she's not using it in the same way. And so everywhere she goes, she has to channel a different aspect of her candidacy to appeal to that slice of voters that she thinks she can win.

DAN RICHARDS: Katherine this makes me think of something I wanted to ask you about as well. You've spoken about how pragmatism and fear have affected political decisions of Black Americans when it comes to voting. What role do you think those factors are playing in this election?

KATHERINE TATE: I think that when Biden was going to drop out, you had young Black Americans mostly saying they wanted him to drop out. I think older Blacks were going to stick by Biden no matter what. They really fear a second term for Donald Trump.

So when Biden dropped out and Harris stepped up, I think, Blacks were a little hesitant at first to say, Hallelujah. They just are concerned that this country has a race, gender problem, that it was one thing to elect a Black male president, but it's another thing to elect a Black female president. There's just this concern that the election is so close. I'm not sure that they would say Biden should have stayed in. But people are concerned that because of race and gender, Harris might not win.

DAN RICHARDS: You brought up some divisions along age as well in the electorate. How do you both think Kamala Harris's entry into the race has been received by younger voters? Has it brought more younger voters into the Democratic side? Or has it just energized the existing ones? How do you see that?

KATHERINE TATE: Harris brought back enthusiasm and energized the base. There's the record, donations given to her campaign. But young Black Americans are the ones who say that it's about the economy and that they are concerned about inflation and high interest rates and despite Trump's abrasive personality, still feel that Trump will do better on the economic front than Harris will.

And so I think that this is a sort of reckoning for the Democratic Party. They have benefited from the lion's share of the Black vote for so long. I think young Black voters need a new reason to embrace the party. And I'm not sure any Democrat at the top of the ticket could give young Blacks what they want to hear at this point. But I think that it's something that has to be addressed in the future as well.

DAN RICHARDS: Is it almost like in a generational way how the stereotype is younger people are a little more open to taking risks? And you were just saying how a lot of older Black voters have a real strong sense of pragmatism. And is there just this kind of inherent generational thing that younger voters might be a little more willing to say, let's try something totally different?

KATHERINE TATE: I think that it's not just Trump's personality. I think that they just want an alternative to the Democratic Party so that this is something that in Twenty Twenty-Eight, they'll have to concern themselves with in terms of how to ensure that they don't lose this young generation of Black voters to the Republican Party. But I also think that we see this with Latino voters as well that young Latinos are also more likely to say they're going to support Trump. And I think that some of this has to do with the fact that both groups, I think, there is less group consciousness among them that they are more pocketbook voters than concerned about their communities, looking at it more narrowly than the older generation that was somehow affected directly by the Civil Rights movement. So I think that the Democratic Party will have to work hard on these two minorities to secure their votes.

WENDY SCHILLER: 48% of people under the age of 30, 34 years old vote, and 72% of people over the age of 65 vote. So for me, I'm not sure I'm going to read into a lot for this election among Black or Latino men or women who are voting under the age of 30. I just think that's the least big turnout.

I think about the fact that they haven't really lived through an era where their rights were curtailed, and they don't fear Trump the way that people who are older fear Trump. I think also, they don't see where Democratic policies and even the rule of law theoretically matters to them, particularly Black men who are most prone to police violence and mistreatment by law enforcement, the rule of law doesn't do that much good if you cannot protect people from being murdered in their own homes. And I think that matters for young people.

And I've always been very interested in the chase for Latino voting. Latino voting also, 48% of registered Latinos vote. It does not change. It just simply doesn't budge. So more than half of registered Latinos don't vote.

DAN RICHARDS: More than half of registered--

WENDY SCHILLER: Latinos don't vote. So the question is that number, the population is getting increasing at a faster pace than Black Americans. But if that number 48% stays the same, yes, you'll have more Latinos voting. Arizona's almost 30% of the voting population is Latino, but the older Latinos will still determine the outcome of the election.

DAN RICHARDS: So, do you feel like this chasing of the younger voters is a little bit overblown? I feel like at least in my news diet, it takes up a lot of discussion about how this election is going to go. It's sort of what podcast can you go on to get what younger voters to turn out? Is it maybe not as critical as it can seem?

WENDY SCHILLER: I think Twenty Twenty-Eight will prove to be, as Professor Tate said--

DAN RICHARDS: Twenty Twenty-Eight?

WENDY SCHILLER: Twenty Twenty-Eight, because four years of Trump unfettered with immunity, maybe he runs again or tries to run again, even though constitutionally he's prohibited from doing so. I think under that regime, they may feel much more heavily that their rights and their opportunities are constrained. And so maybe that pushes them back to the Democrats.

I'd like to ask Professor Tate, we have seen some interesting polling, and I'm not sure if I should believe it or not, but have you seen that-- Republicans typically have an advantage with seniors over the age of 65, usually somewhere between an 8 and 10-point advantage in the electoral share. But this year, it seems polling is far more even across older people that the Trump doesn't have the kind of advantage that Romney had, for example. And I'm wondering is that the generation that worries about democracy and the rule of law? Is that the generation that worries about their grandchildren's future?

KATHERINE TATE: I don't know. We haven't talked about the gender gap. And so I think that we're looking at women, the older women voters who are going to support Harris over Trump, because I do think that they just find him too divisive and just alarmed by his rhetoric. So I think that Trump has not tried to present himself any differently than when he was president, so that they know exactly what they're going to get if they vote for him a second time or a third time.

But I do think that white identity politics is important. And so I do think that Trump is going to secure the lion's share of the white vote. I would just say, these older white males are going to just still show up for Trump.

WENDY SCHILLER: And the polling can be tricky in this circumstance. We saw this a couple of years ago before Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v Wade. In Mississippi, there was a referendum, a statewide referendum, whether to protect abortion or not. And the polling going in had 59% in support of removing protection for abortion, 41% keeping it. And it turned out that when it is on the ballot, it was the reverse. It was the mid-50s to say, yes, keep the right to abortion.

DAN RICHARDS: So that's a huge swing.

WENDY SCHILLER: And that was because women answering the phone in their household would not say in front of their husbands that they were going to vote the other way. And here, I think, that those people are still answering cell phone or landline, if they're in front of their family, they may say, I'm voting for Trump, if I'm in a Republican household, but I'm in fact not. I'm an older woman and I'm going to vote for Harris.

And then, I think, the stigma of voting for Trump among the base Trump supporter is gone. I think they are going to say they're very proud of it. They're very loyal. They want to wear it on their sleeve.

I don't think there's as much of a hidden vote for Trump as there is a hidden vote for abortion rights. And we're going to see this in Florida and Arizona. So the thing that might save Arizona for Harris is, again, that abortion is on the ballot in Arizona.

DAN RICHARDS: And it's interesting there, though, that you didn't exactly say there's a hidden Harris voter, but a hidden abortion voter, which then would likely vote for Harris. But that brings up an idea I wanted your opinion on that some analysts have put forth lately, that this push by Democrats to put abortion issues on the ballot this year at the state level in terms of ballot initiatives or referendum could inadvertently potentially hurt Harris in those states because it might let some people who want to support reproductive rights but otherwise think that Trump is maybe better for the economy. It would allow those types of voters to effectively split their ballots.

They could vote for measures that support reproductive rights and feel like they've done that and then go ahead and vote for President Trump. What do you think of the relationship between these statewide fights over reproductive rights and how it's going to affect the election? Is it just a one way it's going to help Harris? Or is it a more complicated than that?

WENDY SCHILLER: And that's part of the issue with having swing state Democratic governors. So if you live in Michigan, they've enshrined the right to abortion, I think, up to 15 weeks, at least, maybe 16 weeks in the Constitution. So it's a right. So you don't have to worry about that anymore, if you live in Michigan. Therefore, you can feel more free to vote for Donald Trump.

I don't know how many people are like that because the Democrats have been trying to make a national ban an issue. Trump's punted it, JD Vance not so much. And so that's the big question mark.

Pennsylvania is the same. It's got a less Democratic legislature, but a Democratic Governor. So I think that's where the swing states are problematic on the issue of abortion. It won't win you as many votes because right now some of them feel quite protected.

KATHERINE TATE: Trump tried to confuse voters on this score. He said that he was initially going to vote to restore abortion rights in Florida, and then he quickly said no to that. And then Melania Trump has said in her biography that she is for abortion rights. And so I'm not sure that the Trump supporters really understand that Donald Trump is against abortion rights.

DAN RICHARDS: I wanted to go back to this idea that younger voters aren't as sort of experienced with the feeling of losing rights maybe as older voters. I think especially for younger voters of color who lived through saw the protests over George Floyd in Twenty Twenty, which I think really brought about a lot of really strong feelings around race and inequality. And then also Trump's just toxic rhetoric and behavior around the border while he was in office, you're saying that maybe wasn't enough of a kind of series of threats to really shake younger voters about what's at stake or enough younger voters, rather?

KATHERINE TATE: We're struggling to determine whether it's just disaffection with the Democratic Party or it's a real appeal of the Republican Party and particularly Trump. So we don't really know. I tend to stress that it's disaffection with the Democratic Party, that they have to somehow address the concerns of younger voters, that they unlike the baby boom generation are seriously disadvantaged economically with the way things are headed in terms of the price of housing and the fact that inflation has caused groceries to go up in price significantly.

But the economy is doing well. Harris has emphasized that. But I still think student loan forgiveness bombed in the end because of the courts.

WENDY SCHILLER: Although student loan-- I mean, I'm not sure I'd agree with that. I think that for the two year professional schools and the trade schools, which were disproportionately lower income people and some people of color, those all went through. So those private trade schools that you take out a loan, you give them your $5,000 or your $10,000, then they close their doors a week later, those have been forgiven. So I do think there have been some people who are disillusioned who got forgiveness. It's that I think--

DAN RICHARDS: Under the Biden administration?

WENDY SCHILLER: Under the Biden administration. I think the middle class where it was like, oh, we're going to forgive loans because you borrowed too much money, not because the school went under. That's where the court said, no. And I think those are the people who feel like, OK, I didn't get anything from that.

I also think for human security, I don't think that the Biden administration has solved the problem, as I said, of police shootings predominantly of Black Americans. And I think you think, well, what difference does it make if Trump says A, B, or C? Biden hasn't fixed this. And I think that is a big deal.

And I also think the last thing is that Latinos are a very diverse group. There's also gradation and notorious discrimination in Latin American countries based on skin color, like are you lighter? Or are you darker?

So there's all sorts of dynamics in the Latino community in this. And I think to think, for example, that Mexicans who are here for two generations care about Guatemalans or Hondurans coming over the border, I don't know why we make that assumption. So I think that doesn't affect their views.

And when he talks about that, they don't think he's talking about me. I've been here. My family's been here for 40 or 50 years.

KATHERINE TATE: I think it is dramatic change, though, that immigration is not hitting the Latino community in the way that we would expect it to. I think that there has to be more research on the Latino community and their politics. But we have people interviewed saying that, one, they don't think that the mass deportation that Trump has pledged to engage in will actually be implemented.

Others say that they are negatively impacted by illegal immigration themselves, and so that they don't see commonality between themselves and the plight of these migrant workers. One scholar is suggesting that the negative stereotypes about Latinos is also believed by minorities themselves. And so that there is sort of internalized racism that is playing out in the Latino community as well.

WENDY SCHILLER: And even in African-American communities and Black communities as well, or South Asian communities. If you are any background and you are trying to make rent, you're trying to get your food bills, you're trying to put a roof-- keep your family together-- and yet you see migrants getting hotels, staying in hotels for weeks and weeks and weeks at a time. And the government's paying for that you say, wait, nobody's paying my rent. And I do think that is a significant issue for people of any background.

And I don't think the Democrats have had a very good answer on it. They certainly shut the border down in June and illegal border crossings have diminished dramatically. And we don't have these busloads of people being, quote unquote, "shipped places." Two summers ago, I think that would be really problematic for the Harris campaign.

And legal immigration, the polling has flipped from maybe 30 years ago on legal immigration, where in those days, 60 plus, 65%, or more than that said, immigrants are a burden. Immigrants don't contribute, even though most of America is immigrant in some way, shape, or form. And in the 30s said, no, they add to the economy, they add to our country, and now it's flipped.

The most recent Twenty Nineteen polling has been or Twenty Twenty from Pew says that 60-plus percentage of America says immigrants are good for the economy, good for the country. And it's only 30-something percent that say no. But that's legal immigrants.

So people like to say, documented undocumented. But the American voter, for the most part, distinguishes between legal and not legal. And I think that is the big distinction the Democrats have failed to address ever since Barack Obama. It's been 15 years at least, and they have not come up with a good answer to that question.

DAN RICHARDS: So one other topic I wanted to get your thoughts on, we're recording this on October 7, one year after Hamas militants led an attack on Israel and Israel's invasion of Gaza that followed that attack, and now the sort of widening crisis in the Middle East stemming from all of this appears to be factoring into the election in multiple ways. It became maybe most visible during the Michigan Democratic primary in February, when over 100,000 people, about 13% of the vote, voted uncommitted in a protest to Biden's handling of the war in Gaza.

This in a pivotal swing state, it only went for Biden by some 150,000 votes in Twenty Twenty. Do you think Democrats are taking this issue seriously enough? Is there a meaningful group of voters who could be persuaded to stay home, who would otherwise be supporting Biden?

KATHERINE TATE: I think it will hurt Harris in Michigan, because the war in Gaza is now expanded to Lebanon and might even go further to Iran. And people know relatives whose houses have been bombed. But I think that because it's not Biden and that it's Harris who stepped in only recently that this has quieted the movement down some. So the uncommitted are not as vocal as they had been when Biden was the candidate. But I think it's just-- it's a big mess for the Democratic Party right now because they've got progressives who want a ceasefire today, and Israel is headed in a very different direction.

WENDY SCHILLER: Yeah. And I would say, Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, I mean, this is they have all a pretty strong interest in keeping the conflict going. And so does Iran, which funds Hezbollah and Hamas. So this is an intractable problem for the ages.

The interesting twist to me in this is twofold. One is that Trump is a guy who implemented the Muslim ban, meaning if you come from seven predominantly Muslim countries, you couldn't come to the United States at all. No visas, nothing. So for those people who are in Michigan, who of our Muslim descent, who have people in the Middle East that they want to bring over or from North Africa or Central Africa, you're not going to get them into the country, if Trump is President. So you can lodge a protest vote against the Democrat Party because you're unhappy that they're supporting Israel-- the Biden administration supporting Israel-- but you will end up with a regime that is much less friendly to your interests.

And two, Trump will allow-- I mean, at this point, if you think Netanyahu is unfettered in Israel now, Trump will just say, do whatever you have to do. We'll just support you no matter what. So then what do you do with that? It just gets so much more complicated.

So I think there will be people who stay home who are protest votes. I think that their ultimate foreign policy goals will not be met by the Trump administration, but it will take three or four years for them to figure that out. And you have to-- we know this from political science, voters do not like to regret their vote.

They want to minimize the regret associated with their vote. And if they feel that they just can't vote for the Biden-Harris administration because of this issue, they will stay home. Whether that results in a policy outcome that's better for them, that's not always related to their capacity to gauge how regretful they will be with their vote.

DAN RICHARDS: And as far as the amount of people it seems to be moving or catalyzing, you don't see it as an issue that really requires a big strategic change from the Harris campaign?

WENDY SCHILLER: Well, there's no real strategic-- she's already on record as saying she wants a ceasefire. She's already on record she wants people to stop being killed. We are an ally of Israel, and particularly since Iran is attacking Israel now multiple times, now, I think, there's no going back because Iran is, quote unquote, "our enemy." So I think that, as I said, strategically kind of puts the Democrats in a little bit of a better position.

I also think the alliance, in terms of Arab-Americans, Palestinian-Americans and African-Americans, particularly in Michigan and Detroit, that's a really big, important factor here. And you can see at least among Black women who are polled or interviewed, they say, we don't love that policy, but now we have a chance to have a Black woman as president. So we are going to vote for her and hope for change. So you may see 50,000, 75,000 people stay home, but I don't think you'll see all those uncommitted people stay home.

DAN RICHARDS: Are there issues or trends that you both think are being undervalued or underexamined right now. I mean, we've talked about some of them already, but things that in the middle of November and December, people are going to be going, how did we not think about the effects this was X was going to play in the election? Whether it's an issue or a demographic trend, is there anything that we're sort of missing as we're looking at it right now?

KATHERINE TATE: The fact that so many people are concerned about voter fraud in this election as well is, I think, surprising and one for historians to really wrestle with. An NPR Marist Poll found that 6 in 10 are concerned about fraud in this election.

DAN RICHARDS: 6 in 10 Americans?

KATHERINE TATE: Yes.

DAN RICHARDS: Oh, wow.

KATHERINE TATE: And Republicans the most. But it's still there are some among the Democrats as well.

WENDY SCHILLER: Well the Democrats afraid of fraud on the Trump side or the Democratic side, because the people who are convicted in Twenty Twenty were Trump supporters.

KATHERINE TATE: Yeah. No, they're concerned about that if Trump loses, he's not going to go away. He's probably going to argue that Twenty Twenty, this again was another case of fraud.

But we've got so many Americans who see this issue of our election somehow system is spoiled or is ruined or fraudulent. I think this is something that we'll have to concern ourselves with. And then there's the question of violence. Will there be violence if Trump loses?

WENDY SCHILLER: I think there could be violence in some areas amongst core Trump supporters if he loses. But I still believe most Americans are worried about their families, their housing, their kids, their rent, their groceries, and schooling. And they just want to live life in peace. I think that's one thing.

I think the question is, who will bring that peace? And so that's where I think Israeli, Gaza, and Hezbollah conflict comes into play, is that people think, well, Trump was a lot of things, but we didn't seem to have all this chaos. And there wasn't Ukraine, Russia conflict. There wasn't Middle East conflict. So maybe he can bring us peace.

And so rather than thinking of his regime as vitriolic and angry and scary and chaotic, people are thinking maybe he can get a handle on not only in domestic politics, but also international politics. So I think it's an unseen, especially among suburban men and independent voters who may think, I actually think maybe he can calm the world down because of his personality. It's a long shot, but I think that's one element that we're not really thinking about.

On the other hand, I think, people have not forgotten, but overlooked the fact that in Twenty Twenty, there were 60 cases, all challenges by the Trump administration, and all of them rejected in the federal courts by Bush appointees, Obama appointees, Clinton appointees, and Trump appointees. Now you've got a whole layer of Biden appointees in the federal system, not as many district court appointments as Trump. There weren't as many vacancies.

Nonetheless, you've only added Democratic-leaning judges to the federal system. So I do think that the challenges won't go all that far. But I agree that he won't go away.

The question mark is, when will the Republicans who want their party back and want to run for president in '28, if you like, Brian Kemp of Georgia, for example, when will they just say, we're done? It's enough. You lost. We really need to move on, and we want a fresh start. We want to be able to win. And I'm waiting for that.

KATHERINE TATE: But I think even if he loses that, he's had a big impact on the party, the Republican Party so that I'm not sure they will ever go away from this way of saying that the enemies are Democrats and that they're trying to replace us with immigrant voters, and that we have to worry about their mobilization efforts, that they're registering fraudulent people. And I think that--

WENDY SCHILLER: That will resonate. I agree with you. And Trump will file to run again, if he wins. He will. He'll run-- he'll file to run again, whether he loses or he wins. He will because then he can keep raising money.

And the FEC will not be able to stop him because he'll make the argument that maybe he can get the 22nd Amendment repealed by the time '28 comes around. So they can't legally bar him from running again. And that's I think, whether he wins or loses, that's what we're going to see after inauguration day.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

DAN RICHARDS: Oh my, well, just thinking about Twenty Twenty-Eight makes me want to crawl under the desk, but-- [LAUGHS]

WENDY SCHILLER: Nope, it's a good thing. Looking ahead to free and fair and regularly scheduled elections is a fundamental feature of our Constitution. And we should all be excited to look ahead to future elections.

DAN RICHARDS: Yes. Yes. That is a great note to end it on. We are excited for that.

Wendy and Katherine, thank you both so much. This was such a helpful and insightful and thought-provoking conversation. And I look forward to having you both back on again sometime soon, and we can see where we stand.

WENDY SCHILLER: Thanks.

KATHERINE TATE: Thank you.

DAN RICHARDS: This episode was produced by me, Dan Richards and Zach Hirsch. Our show was engineered by Eric Emmer. Our theme music is by Henry Bloomfield. Additional music by the Blue Dot Sessions.

If you like Trending Globally, leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you haven't subscribed to our show, please do that, too. It really helps other people to find us.

If you have any questions or ideas for guests or topics for Trending Globally, send us an email at trendingglobally@brown.edu. Again, that's all one word, trendingglobally@brown.edu. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of Trending Globally. Thanks for listening.

[MUSIC PLAYING]