After President Trump bombed Iran, Democrats in Congress declared the action illegal. But it follows a long history of increased presidential control of military operations along with congressional deference and abrogation of war powers. How did we get here? Casey Dominguez finds that although the founders bestowed war powers with Congress, by the Spanish-American war legislators had expanded their view of the president’s powers and begun applying a more expansive view to their own party’s presidents. The role of nationalism, the rise of American power, and polarization all have echoes today.

Politicians are launching outlandish negative attacks and Americans have developed more negative views of the other party. But how connected are polarizing politicians and a polarized electorate? Mia Costa finds that political elites have more polarized views of the other side than the public but they still benefit electorally and legislatively from avoiding negative partisan attacks. Divisive rhetoric still breeds viral tweets, cable news appearances, and donations, but Americans mostly don’t like it or reward it. The polarizers just get more attention.

Politics seems to be holding us back in a world of technological and social progress. Research has found health cures, invented magic new tools, and connected us all, often with public policy assistance. Yet, the American political system remains deeply divided and dysfunctional, with the relationship between science and government at a low point. Can we use social science not just to improve policy choices, but also to improve the functioning of the political system? Cowen—an influential researcher, blogger, podcaster, and author—has led the Progress Studies movement, which seeks to understand why progress happens and how to accelerate it. The movement has gained institutional support and stimulated new policy ideas to improve living standards and human flourishing. But it has not yet cracked the code on translating these ideas into political success. How can science can be deployed to improve the American political process, and how much does the Progress Studies movement depend on successful politics?

President Trump is claiming power over independent agencies and trying to redirect the administrative state, saying he is its unitary executive. But this is not the first time presidents have invoked broad authority. John Dearborn finds that President Reagan sought to gain power over civil rights agencies, saying they had gone too far in promoting affirmative action, restricting their activity and disciplining their leadership. Multiple current Supreme Court justices were involved in the saga, which helped build the unitary executive theory. David Hausman researches attempts to control the immigration courts under the first Trump administration, finding that both adding judges and setting precedent with Attorney General opinions were influential. But it mostly worked by building the bureaucracy, rather than restraining it.

Donald Trump’s expansive executive action has been met with a flurry of court action, as Democratic officials and liberal interest groups challenge each action—with a lot of early success. Can liberals succeed in limiting Trump through the courts or are American courts an inevitably conservative institution? Paul Nolette finds that Democratic Attorneys General have banded together to fight Trump, building on successful action last time. They are able to select the venues and usually win standing, becoming key actors in limiting executive action. But Brian Highsmith finds that over the long run, judicial supremacy tends to advance conservative goals in the American system. Even if Democrats win in the courts now, that may allow the judiciary to develop a longer term constraint on government. 

Donald Trump has now unilaterally imposed huge global tariffs, upending the world economy. But we did get a preview of Trump’s trade approach in his first term, allowing researchers to analyze the political consequences. Thiemo Fetzer finds that China, the EU, Canada, and Mexico reacted to the first term tariffs strategically, trying to hurt Trump’s constituents. Omer Solodoch finds that the first term trade war announcement immediately hurt Trump politically, reducing approval and affecting voting intentions. They both say the new trade war is bigger, with political consequences likely to grow.

The 2nd Trump administration has begun tearing down the administrative state, firing thousands, cancelling contracts, and shuttering agencies. But they have also used the power of the state to ramp up summary deportations, crack down on universities, and threaten prosecutions of their political opponents. So is this the culmination of Republican efforts to scale back government or a sign that they just want to redirect its goals? Nicholas Jacobs and Sidney Milkis find that we have overestimated conservative efforts to reduce the size and scope of government and underestimated their usage of the enlarged state to pursue conservative goals.

We have the parties that we said we wanted: they compete over extensive policy programs, with voters making decisions among clear issue position alternatives. But how did they get here and have they now gone too far? Katherine Krimmel finds that the American parties became extensively programmatic as they lost vestiges of clientelism and became national parties after federal growth and civil rights. But Trump may be changing the nature of the party system. And running on the issues may not be all it’s cracked up to be.

Five years after the COVID lockdowns, the performance of government and policy experts is not looking great in retrospect. Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee find that policymakers dispensed with years of pre-pandemic planning that suggested the tools used to fight COVID would not work. Experts did not sufficiently consider the costs of their preferred approaches and spoke publicly of consensus while privately admitting limited evidence. Policymakers and experts deterred alternatives and suppressed dissent, leaving us with today's increased distrust of health and political authorities. The second Trump administration is now empowering the skeptics and taking advantage of Americans’ distrust of expertise. 

Courts are pausing dozens of Trump administration actions—from mass firings to agency shutdowns. But does the judiciary have a real enforcement mechanism? Will public faith in the courts mean Trump faces consequences in elections and public esteem or will that faith wilt as the judiciary is just seen as another partisan institution? Amanda Driscoll, Michael Nelson, and Jay Krehbiel find that Americans have faith in the rule of law and respond well to courts that invalidate executive action—and partisanship does not seem to interfere. It’s a potentially optimistic story about the role that courts and public opinion may play in limiting democratic backsliding. But they all see risks in practice, as dozens of judges use arcane rules to limit the president while Republicans attack judicial branch oversight.

While promising mass deportation and an immigration crackdown, Donald Trump gained Latino support in 2024, just as he had in 2020. Why do some Latinos support anti-immigration policies and candidates? Loren Collingwood finds that many Latinos separate themselves from recent immigrants as atypical of their group. But does that explain recent Democratic politician moves? He also finds that legislators respond to local interest groups, not only district opinion. And he has other research showing where sanctuary city policies matter and where they do not. Even with some support, he still expects a backlash to Trump policies.

American interest groups are increasingly lining up behind the Democratic or Republican Party and trying to build coalitions within those parties rather than across them. But historically, that has not been the most effective method to bring policy change. Jesse Crosson finds that interest groups are increasingly taking positions on issues outside their areas of expertise in an effort to unite their partisan coalitions. They are facing pressure to toe the party line, but it might prevent the broader coalitions they need to build to pass legislation.

How did Americans become politically divided on culture war topics like guns, abortion, women’s role, gay rights, and environmentalism? The common story is that it took polarizers from the top: politicians and activists associated with each party moved the public to their respective sides. But Neil O’Brian finds that the culture war followed America’s racial realignment  because racial attitudes were always tied to other cultural issue views in the American public, well before they were emphasized by the parties. Once the parties divided on race, they brought culturally liberal voters to the Democrats and culturally conservative voters to the Republicans. And that combination of issue attitudes and alignments largely mirrors patterns across the democratic world.

Trump has promised to remake the federal bureaucracy in his own image and go after his political opponents and the media in his 2nd administration. But there are signals that public protest and civil society mobilization are subdued. How much do we have to fear further democratic backsliding under Trump 2? Brendan Nyhan finds expert consensus on many reasons to be concerned but also evidence that experts were too pessimistic about the likelihood of bad actions the first time.

When Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, an outpouring of excitement among Indian Americans foretold potential gains for Democrats among Asian Americans, the fastest growing minority group. But Asian Americans neither turned out in record numbers nor moved toward Democrats. In fact, Indian Americans moved toward Trump. Janelle Wong has followed the trajectory and diversity of Asian-American voters. She does not see a realignment in the making but does see significant moves rightward and divergence across country of origin subgroups. This adds to the evidence of racial dealignment, but also the complexity of American racial categories.

President Trump has made his picks for his second term cabinet more quickly and the transition is more organized and ready for Executive Branch action. Will hopes and fears of an executive reinvention be born out or will the difficulties of the first term show their face again? David Lewis finds that Trump’s first term choices did not go over well with career civil servants but that there was not as much change as sometimes implied. Heath Brown went in-depth into the last transition from Trump to Biden and foresees problems ahead from chaotic transitions and the major ambitions of Trump’s second term appointees. They are both looking ahead to more radical shifts in Trump’s second term, with more appointees at odds with the agencies they are directing.

Analysts previewing a second Trump administration say he will now have unchecked power, with compliant administrators and courts. But there is a long history of presidents using executive actions to claim more power than they have—with the bureaucracy surprisingly resilient to oversight and reinvention. Kenneth Lowande finds that unilateral presidential action is often used for credit claiming rather than substantive policy change. The charade works in the short term, generating media coverage and group support, but it may undermine public faith in the long term due to unmet expectations. Trump's first term was full of executive actions with media frenzy that amounted to much less in practice.

In this live episode of The Science of Politics, panelists examined the class, race, and gender dynamics that shaped the 2024 election. The panel features Tom Edsall, Amanda Iovino, Patrick Ruffini, and Ruy Teixeira. Did the election cement a class realignment of American politics? Did Republicans peel off minority voters based on changing perceptions of the GOP as a working-class party? And how did these dynamics interact with the growing gender divide in voting?

Polls missed the 2016 election outcome and did even worse in 2020 on the margin, underestimating Donald Trump again. Should we believe the polls this time? What have pollsters changed? Have they overcorrected? In an era of one percent response rates for phone surveys and opt-in Internet panels, should we even talk about them in the same way? Michael Bailey finds that our theories about random sampling don’t really apply anymore. And weighting with larger samples does not solve our non-response biases. Brian Schaffner finds that weighting on several factors has increased, likely helping pollsters avoid undercounting Trump supporters. They both say survey research is important to get right but that the solutions are not obvious.

Pre-election polls show Black voters moving toward Donald Trump in 2024, even though he is now running against Kamala Harris. And Trump did gain a bit of margin among Black voters in 2020 compared to 2016, though he still loses nine out of ten. Should Democrats fear more attrition among Black voters this year or is it just a mirage from bad polling? Christopher Towler finds that Democrats made a lot of gains among Black voters this year by switching from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris. He says the gender divide may grow this year, but he thinks Black voters will come home to the Democrats. But Idan Franco finds that some Black voters support Trump because of their racial attitudes, not in spite of them. In other research, he finds similar trends among Hispanic voters, where immigration attitudes make some more likely to support Trump.