The Focus Group Podcast will be back for real in a couple of weeks, but by popular demand, Sarah and her producer, Conor Kilgore, take on some of our listeners' frequently asked questions about how and why they do all these focus groups.

Our season finale is a bit of a pep talk. America is in a precarious place, but Americans everywhere are speaking up against the authoritarian threat.

The New York City mayoral primary is "dumb" and getting lots of "dumb attention," at least according to our (radically candid) guest. Democratic voters face a choice between disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and the inexperienced socialist state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.

Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill is moving through Congress, and you may be surprised by some former Trump voters' reactions.

The Democratic primary for New Jersey governor is crowded, and Democratic voters all over the map. But as always, they're united in wanting a candidate who can fight the Trump administration effectively.

With the recent revelations about Joe Biden's mental state during his term, we asked a couple of groups of Democrats what they thought during (and after) his presidency, and how it might inform their thinking going forward.

Trump is looking to pass his Big, Not-So-Beautiful Bill through Congress. To do it, he needs to get it past congressional Republicans. So what do Republican voters think of congressional leaders, and whether this bill is as big and beautiful as it seems?

JD Vance is one heartbeat away from the presidency, and he's a big part of the Republican Party's future. His ideas are also part of the reason the second Trump term has been a lot more pure MAGA than the first.

With Trump's approval ratings falling, that means some of his voters aren't getting what they voted for. We talked to those voters, to find out what that does and doesn't mean about their relationship to this administration.

Sarah didn't think she'd be looking to Bernie and AOC as examples of good Democratic communicators. But all of a sudden, they're some of the only people in the Democratic Party showing how to get the Trump opposition engaged.

Donald Trump's first 100 days in office have been marked by a lot of aspiring autocratic behavior...like deporting a legal resident without due process, targeting his political enemies, to walking right up to the line of ignoring the Supreme Court.

Trump has plunged the markets into chaos over the last couple of weeks with his tariffing, and un-tariffing, and possible re-tariffing. The Biden-to-Trump voters we've talked to were a mixed bag on this.

We've heard from a lot of Dems who want the party to be more moderate, and many who want the party to be more progressive. But they all agree that the party needs to fight harder in this moment.

We check in with Biden-Trump voters on Signal-gate, and talk to Trump's base about whether they'd want him for a third term and how they feel about the economy (which may surprise you). Plus, the state of the MAGA media ecosystem.

We're checking in with 2024's non-voters, and Sarah has a (friendly) fight with Jen Psaki over whether Kamala should have closed the 2024 campaign with Liz Cheney.

We check in on first-time Trump voters as his reign of chaos continues. Some love what they're getting, while others wonder when he'll get around to fixing the economy. Mark Leibovich joins Sarah.

Five years ago this week, the Covid pandemic came to the U.S., and with it a level of suffering and distrust of authority (and each other) we haven't fully reckoned with.

What do remaining pro-Ukraine Republicans think of America's role in the world? Tommy Vietor joins Sarah to discuss the future of foreign policy in Trump 2.0.

We're doing something different this week: We're giving you nearly an hour of audio from a recent focus group of men aged 18-29 who voted for Donald Trump in 2024.