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Podcast: The people who choose the president

Podcast: The people who choose the president

Podcast playlist: The people who choose the president

Three weeks ago the Supreme Court decided what had once seemed like an obscure corner of constitutional law, but which might have huge ramifications for this year's presidential election and beyond: The court ruled unanimously that states could punish or remove members of the Electoral College who refuse to vote for the candidate they were pledged to support.

The "faithless elector" decision is the topic of the latest installment of our podcast partnership with The Democracy Group, a podcast network at Penn State University, to share thought-provoking discussions about efforts to fix the American political system.


In this episode, Democracy Works podcast host and producer Jenna Spinelle leads a discussion with:

  • Lawrence Lessig, Harvard law professor and prominent democracy reform advocate who argued before the court that electors should be free to vote as they please.
  • Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, one of the advocacy groups that filed briefs in the case arguing the states should have the power to punish electors who go rogue.
  • Michael Baranowski, a political scientist at Northern Kentucky University who is focused on the practical implications of the court's decision.
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Sharp Gender Divide Among Latino Voters

A new analysis from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) and the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) reveals significant political differences between Latinas and Latino men in California — especially among younger voters and those without bachelor’s degrees. The findings, drawn from the May 2026 Berkeley IGS Poll of 1,912 Latino registered voters, challenge the notion that California’s Latino electorate behaves as a single political bloc.

California Latinas are more likely than Latino men to prioritize protecting immigrant communities, opposing the Trump administration’s agenda, and defending democracy and voting rights. According to the report, 69% of Latinas say protecting immigrant communities is “very important,” compared with 52% of Latino men. On “fighting the Trump agenda,” the gap is identical: 68% of Latinas versus 51% of Latino men. Democracy and voting rights receive the strongest support across both groups, with 87% of Latinas and 77% of Latino men rating the issue as very important.

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unrecognizable businessman giving speech to professional audience

Brain science explains why voters reward charisma over results — and why the leaders who "fix" the most get credit for the least. A behavioral look at elections.

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The Résumé Should Outvote the Smile

There's an old joke about a couple who finally solved years of arguing over decisions. "Since you're the man of the house," the wife said, "you handle the big things -- our stance on foreign wars, who we send to the Senate. I'll take care of the small stuff: groceries, the mortgage, where we live, what we eat." The husband agreed happily, certain he had won the better half of the deal. A few years later he realized the trade had gone entirely the other way. He held forth on geopolitics at dinner parties while his wife quietly ran every detail that actually touched his life: what he ate, where he lived, how his money was spent. What looked like ultimate authority was, in practice, near-total abdication over the things that shaped his days.

Voters make the same trade, and pay for it the same way. We keep hiring leaders for the qualities we would want in a spouse -- warmth, charm, a commanding voice, the sense that they see us -- instead of the qualities we would want in a mechanic: someone who can find what is broken and fix it before the whole system fails. We evaluate candidates the way we choose intimate partners, not the way we hire people to run complex, high-stakes systems.

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