Power and Flour Podcast

Jan 28 2025 19 ep. 32 mins 7

Power and Flour Podcast artwork

A podcast by political consultant John Hagner and political scientist Seth Masket. We look at the development and background of the 2024 presidential election, and we also make and discuss pastries. https://powerflour.substack.com/ Audio produced by Eli Masket. Title idea by Julia Azari.

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Episode 2-3: Polarization

Jan 28 2025 38 mins

You can’t really talk about U.S. politics today without talking about polarization, but that concept is sometimes very murky, and can even be a distraction or a dodge. In this episode, John asks Seth some key questions about polarization — is it getting stronger, how is it related to the media, is it a dodge, is it related to gerrymandering, might it actually be good, can it be

Episode 2-2: The DNC Chair Race

Jan 26 2025 48 mins

John and Seth are honored to be joined by Boris Heersink, the author of National Party Organizations and Party Brands in American Politics, for a discussion about the upcoming contest for chair of the Democratic National Committee. We discuss just what national party organizations are, what chairs do, and why the next DNC chair might have more power to shape a functionally leaderle

Episode 2-1: The Trump Resistance(?)

Jan 16 2025 38 mins

John and Seth examine how the Democratic response to the 2025 Trump transition is so different from what they did in 2017, and discuss just what is the best approach for an opposition party. Should they fight Trump on everything? Try to work with him where they can? Is it best just to let voters actually see what happens when Republicans get what they want? Also, we discuss yeast,

Episode 16: What the hell happened

Nov 21 2024 34 mins

John and Seth sort through the remains of the 2024 presidential election to figure out what kind of campaign effects they can detect in there. They also look at just how good polling was and what kinds of narratives are being drawn from the campaign, and discuss tips for making really good ice cream.Power & Flour will be on hiatus through the month of December, but we will return i

Episode 15: It's all over but the counting... and everything else

Nov 03 2024 30 mins

This election season started in late 2022, and somehow, a mere 1,000 years later, it’s about to end. John and Seth discuss what to expect in the coming week. What actually will happen once the votes are in? What patterns will we likely see as the ballots are counted? Which states will take a while to count and which will go quickly? How soon will we likely know the winner (possib

Episode 14: The Ground Game

Oct 23 2024 29 mins

John and Seth look at the Trump and Harris campaigns’ ground games — their efforts to go door-to-door to turn out supportive voters in swing states. They discuss the existing research on just how much ground games matter, and then dig into Harris’ efforts to build on existing Democratic infrastructure, and Trump’s efforts to create something on the fly with millions in Musk

Episode 13: Polls and the Electoral College

Oct 16 2024 34 mins

In this episode, John and Seth look at how polling organizations have tried to adjust to some misses in 2016 and 2020, where they understated Trump’s support by 3 to 4 points. Some polling organizations are attempting to weight their current polls by people’s recall of the vote from four years ago, and our hosts get into the pluses and minuses of doing that. John and Seth also

Episode 12: Early Voting

Oct 10 2024 33 mins

In this episode, John and Seth discuss the early vote in 2024. Who has voted so far? What kind of voters tend to vote early and what kind don’t? What are the consequences of an election “day” that lasts more than a month? Can we learn anything in advance by knowing who is voting now? Some links:* Early voting statistics from the University of Florida’s Election Lab.* Target

Episode 11: Grading the candidates

Sep 27 2024 36 mins

John and Seth talk with DC political consultant Joe Fuld, founder of the Campaign Workshop, to discuss the skills and training of the current presidential and vice presidential candidates. How much does candidate skill actually matter? How well are these candidates doing? Could Kamala Harris have had a more successful rollout? Is Trump campaigning differently from 2016 or 2020? We

Episode 10: Concepts of a Plan

Sep 11 2024 36 mins

It’s our quick-turnaround presidential debate special! Seth and John discuss just who undecided voters are and what they saw in this debate (if any of them watched), the differences between prepping male and female candidates for a debate and the expectations they’re held to, whether it helps Trump to go deep into the Fox Cinematic University during debates, and what kind of ef