FiveThirtyEight’s top politics stories this week

[FiveThirtyEight]( Popular in Politics Thursday, September, 05, 2024 [1. Can a smartphone app conduct political polls?]( [Can a smartphone app conduct political polls?]( If you, like me, spend too much time perusing [538's polls page]( you may have noticed this summer has seen a lot of polls from a new-ish pollster: [ActiVote](. Since Aug. 1, ActiVote has completed 25 horse-race polls — more than all but two other pollsters in our database. [Read more]( [2. How 538 is adjusting our election model for Harris versus Trump]( [How 538 is adjusting our election model for Harris versus Trump]( On Thursday, Aug. 22, Vice President Kamala Harris officially accepted the Democratic Party's nomination to be its 2024 candidate for president. The following day, we turned on [our election forecast]( for the race between Harris and former President Donald Trump. [Read more]( [3. Is the Democratic Party a strong party?]( [Is the Democratic Party a strong party?]( For years, the prevailing wisdom was that American politics [embodies a perilous paradox](. On the one hand, partisanship is at one of its highest levels ever: Democrats and Republicans have [grown further and further apart]( and voters increasingly [see the other side as the enemy]( not just the opposition. On the other hand, political parties themselves are weak: Politicians do what they want, with little fear of official sanction, and voters often snub the preferred candidates of party leaders. As a result, voters are in thrall to individual candidates who lack guardrails that compel them to act in the best interest of the party — or the country. [Read more]( [4. Can you guess how Americans feel about Harris's platform?]( [Can you guess how Americans feel about Harris's platform?]( Vice President Kamala Harris launched her run for president just 107 days before Election Day, so she's had to cram a lot of campaigning into the last few weeks. This includes reintroducing herself as a top-of-the-ticket candidate to voters and laying out her policy platform. She's done much of this through speeches, including her nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in mid-August. [Read more]( [5. JD Vance is more unpopular than Sarah Palin]( [JD Vance is more unpopular than Sarah Palin]( It's important to make a good first impression — whether you're on a first date, interviewing for a job or running to be vice president of the United States. And the two men who recently joined the Republican and Democratic presidential tickets have made very different first impressions. [Read more]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe](