FiveThirtyEight’s top stories this week

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Popular This Week] Sunday, September 18, 2022 [1. Trust In Institutions Is Eroding On Both Sides Of The Pond, And The Queen Was Not Exempt]( [0916_POLLA-4×3]( Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. [Read more]( [2. Will The Polls Overestimate Democrats Again?]( [2022-ELECTIONUPDATE-0916-4×3]( As Democrats’ prospects for the midterms have improved — they’re now up to a 71 percent chance of keeping the Senate and a 29 percent chance of retaining the House, according to the 2022 FiveThirtyEight midterm election forecast — I’ve observed a corresponding increase in concern among liberals that the polls might overestimate Democrats’ position again, as they did in 2016 and 2020. Even among commenters who are analyzing the race from an arm’s-length distance, there sometimes seems to be a presumption that the polls will be biased toward Democrats. [Read more]( [3. Which NFL Running Backs Got The Best Chances In Week 1?]( [Jacksonville Jaguars v Washington Commanders]( It’s a common misconception that us quantitative types don’t care about running backs. While analysts have often pointed out that production from the position is more easily replaceable than it is from other players, ball-carriers still play an important role in the modern game by forcing defenses to respect the run. And a big way that plays out is in how an RB is deployed by his team. [Read more]( [4. This Candidate Thinks The 2020 Election Was Illegitimate. But He’d Rather You Didn’t Know That.]( [ELECTIO-DENIERS-AADLAND-4×3]( Roughly 200 Republican candidates running for Senate, House, governor, attorney general or secretary of state have indicated publicly that the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate, despite all the evidence to the contrary. [Read more]( [5. The Datasets We’re Looking At This Week]( [The words "data is plural" in white over a red background]( You’re reading Data Is Plural, a weekly newsletter of useful/curious datasets. Below you’ll find an updated version of the Sept. 14, 2022, edition, reprinted with permission at FiveThirtyEight. [Read more]( [6. Scott Frost Was Hired To Fix Nebraska Football. Instead, He Helped It Reach New Lows.]( [Georgia Southern v Nebraska]( On Sunday, Nebraska made Scott Frost a cautionary tale in college football coaching — the best proof yet that, no matter how spotless a hire might look, it can still flame out in spectacular fashion. That morning, athletic director Trev Alberts fired Frost at a cost of $15 million, viewing Frost’s exit as so urgent that it was not worth it to wait until Oct. 1 and save about $7 million. The night before, Frost’s Cornhuskers had lost to Georgia Southern, a Sun Belt opponent coming off a 3-9 year. That dropped the Huskers to 1-2 on the year and 16-31 in Frost’s four seasons and change. Less than a month ago, Frost looked poised to save his job by merely making a bowl in 2022, something he had not done in his first four years. With that possibility fading, the school did not waste time. [Read more]( [7. Why Monkeypox Wasn’t Another COVID-19]( [SAN FRANCISCO, CA – JULY 31: Attendees walk past a stand disper]( When you’ve lived through two-plus years of a pandemic, it can feel weird to see “disease” and “good news” in the same sentence. But here we are, watching a disease decline, with cautious optimism. Two weeks ago, the World Health Organization announced that monkeypox cases in Europe had fallen so fast, the outbreak could be eliminated there. And while the U.S. recently experienced its first monkeypox death, cases here have fallen by 40 percent between the middle and end of August. In other words, it’s too early to declare victory and dust off our hands, but the situation is generally improving. [Read more]( [8. Should Alabama Be Worried That It Almost Lost To Texas?]( [Alabama Texas Football]( Even by the seldom-threatened standards of Alabama’s dynasty, September is not traditionally a challenging month for the Crimson Tide. Since Nick Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa in 2007, Bama has averaged a 29-point margin of victory in the month of September and lost just three games in 61 tries. No Football Bowl Subdivision team has lost less often than Alabama in the first full month of the college football calendar over that stretch. For context, archrival Auburn, a program with a national championship and multiple double-digit-win seasons to its credit since Saban’s arrival, has lost five September games in the past seven seasons. [Read more]( [9. The NFL Is Back, And So Are The Wild Comebacks (And Kicking Woes)]( [SportsChat-0912-4×3]( maya (Maya Sweedler, copy editor): We’re ready for some football! The NFL is back, and so are FiveThirtyEight’s weekly Slack chats. Regular readers will see some familiar faces and some unfamiliar ones. (Hello! Excited to be here.) [Read more]( [10. Why Republicans Keep Failing To Pass Abortion Bans]( [Abortion South Carolina]( Republican legislators have been waiting for years to ban abortion. But now that their moment is here, they can’t agree about what to do with it. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: It’s Not Yet Time To Start Worrying About The Polls]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.