News Items Weekend Edition.
Tomorrow, not today.
1. The Weekend Edition of News Items will be distributed tomorrow (Sunday) morning.
2. At Political News Items, we’ve posted a new Mary Walsh piece on The Minnesota State Board of Investment, whose ex-officio chairman is Gov. Tim Walz.
3. There’s a new episode of ‘Night Owls’, part one of which is now available on the major podcast platforms (and in the hyperlink to it at the end of this note). The new episode features UT (Austin) Political Science Professor Daron Shaw, whose resume is enormously and annoyingly impressive. To wit:
Professor Shaw earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to accepting a position at the University of Texas in the fall of 1994, he worked in several political campaigns as a survey research analyst. Professor Shaw also served as a strategist in the 2000 and 2004 presidential election campaigns. His research and teaching interests include American Government, Campaigns and Elections, Political Parties, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior, and Applied Survey Research. He is one half of the bipartisan team that conducts the Fox News Poll, co-director of the University of Texas Poll, director of the Texas Lyceum Poll, and associate Principle Investigator for the 2020 and 2024 American National Election Studies. Professor Shaw is also a member of the national decision team for Fox News, and serves on the advisory boards for the MIT Election Data & Science Lab, the Annette Strauss Institute, and the Ulysses S. Grant Institute. Formerly, he served as President George W. Bush’s representative on the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and as one of the academic directors for President Barack Obama’s Commission for Election Administration.
Professor Shaw’s most recent book is Battleground: Electoral College Strategies, Execution and Impact in the Modern Era (Oxford University Press, co-authored with Scott Althaus and Costas Panagopoulos). He has also written The Appearance of Corruption (co-authored with Brian Roberts), The Turnout Myth (co-authored with John Petrocik), Unconventional Wisdom: Facts and Myths about American Voters (co-authored with Karen Kaufmann and John Petrocik) and The Race to 270. In addition, Professor Shaw has published articles in the leading journals in the discipline, including American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Communication, Political Geography, PS: Political Science, Party Politics, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and American Politics Research.
Daron and I talked about polling, modern politics and the 2024 presidential election for roughly 75 minutes. If you’re interested in American politics, it really is an interesting discussion, entirely because of Daron’s knowledge and insight.
Ordinarily. we present an individual episode of ‘Night Owls’ in one piece. This one is a two-parter. Each part is roughly 35 minutes long. Here’s Part One:
Shaw. Part One.
We’ll ship Part Two later today.
Editor’s Note: Joe Klein was off this week, so I conducted the interview solo.