Podcast — EP 63: The economic perceptions driving U.S. politics

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Graphic of Jeremy Mayer and Jennifer Victor on green ombre background with the podcast title and the George Mason logo.

Another presidential election has come and gone. Reactions to the reelection of Donald Trump are wide and varied. And we’re facing a growing divide across our nation as we transition, once again, from one party in control to another. How did we get here? Are these truly unprecedented times?

On this riveting episode of Access to Excellence, President Washington is joined by two experts on the political process—Jeremy Mayer and Jennifer Victor, associate professors of political science in the Schar School—to discuss the impacts of polls, economic perceptions, and more on the 2024 presidential election.

 

"Every single county in Virginia had lower turnout in 2024 than they did in 2020, every single county. But as you know, there is a voting precinct on George Mason's campus in Merten Hall. And that voting precinct, yes, had lower turnout, but it only had one percentage point down lower turnout. It was one point lower, whereas all the rest of the county was on average, nine points lower. So that to me says our efforts to encourage Mason students to vote had an eight point impact. We did eight points better than we would have in terms of voter turnout at Merten Hall, at that particular precinct than we would have in the absence of this effort we put together." — Jennifer Victor

"I think the word [unprecedented] is overused, but for this election, I don't think it's overused. And here's why. You have a president who faced two impeachments, who tried to steal the last election by causing a riot, uh, to stop the count...He should be labeled an unprecedented victor in the sense that no one has ever come back from this kind of infamy. It would be like Nixon after Watergate somehow working his way into the 1980 election. And that was absolutely inconceivable. Well, Trump conceived it and accomplished it." — Jeremy Mayer