Matters of Policy & Politics

Pollsters’ Perspectives: Did 2024 Realign US Politics ... Beyond the Age of Trump? | Revitalizing American Institutions | Hoover Institution

While last year’s US presidential election didn’t lack for historical quirks – an incumbent president dropping out of the race soon before his party’s convention; for only the second time, a former president returned to office – opinions differ as to the campaign’s long-term effect on America’s political landscape. 

In a special edition of Matters of Policy & Politics hosted by Hoover distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, we hear from a bipartisan slate of leading pollsters on the state of America’s two political parties. They provide perspectives on the 2024 election, including assessments of what did and did not work in terms of messaging, how voting blocs shifted, whether Democrats can rebrand and rebound by 2028 or anti-woke Republicans once again will prevail, plus the chances of Trump-style politics outlasting its term-limited namesake. 

This episode is in partnership with the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI).

Trump Tariff Outcomes: Is the “Less-Worse” Case a Best-Case Scenario?

What’s the most likely outcome for President Trump’s tariff strategy – trading partners capitulating, America’s economy and exceptionalism crumbling, or something in the middle? 

Hoover fellows and economists Michael Bordo and Mickey Levy discuss a recent paper they’ve published on the history of tariff impositions and four possible outcomes (none of them are good). Their conclusion: the odds favor a “less-worse” case of 12%-14% tariffs and deals with Canada and Mexico, with a “small but cumulative impact” on longer-run potential growth (maybe a mild recession) while the U.S. retains its global dominant status.  

Recorded on June 6, 2025

California Update: (Misguided) Plans, Trains, and Automobiles

What do an electric-vehicle mandate, a structural budget deficit, and chronic homelessness and affordable housing woes have in common? The answer: they are policy headaches likely awaiting California’s next governor. 

Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind web channel, join Hoover senior product manager Jonathan Movroydis to discuss the latest in the Golden State including flaws in Governor Newsom’s plan requiring all new automobiles sold in California by 2035 to be zero-emission vehicles, another financial blow to California’s high-speed rail project, ongoing struggles with homeless and affordable agenda, plus a curious lack of celebrities auditioning for statewide offices. After that: 95^th-birthday tributes to Clint Eastwood (May 31) and Hoover’s own Thomas Sowell (June 30).

Recorded on June 5, 2025. 

California Update: The World’s 4th-Largest Economy – and the Home of “Shaq State”?

New data points to California as the world’s fourth-largest economy, supplanting Japan (with India likely soon surpassing the Golden State). What does that say about California as an economic powerhouse and a nation-state plagued by a dark economic underside (inflation, high cost of living, middle-class squeeze)?

Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind web channel, join Hoover’s assistant director of content development Jonathan Movroydis to discuss California’s new global standing, the impact of looming Trump tariffs, the reemergence of former vice president Kamala Harris as she ponders whether to run for governor in 2026, political intrigue past, present, and future in Los Angeles, the ongoing struggles of California’s high-speed rail project, plus basketball great Shaquille O’Neal becoming the general manager of Sacramento State’s men’s basketball team – and whether state government likewise could benefit from a star athlete’s intervention.

Recorded on May 1, 2025. 

Tariff-ic Or Tariff-ied? What Polling Says About Trump 2.0

Donald Trump’s first 100 days since returning to office have been prolific – the most executive orders issued in the early days of a presidency – and seemingly in a constant state of political turbulence. 

What do the polls indicate about Trump’s performance to date? David Brady and Douglas Rivers, Hoover Institution senior fellows, and Stanford University political scientists, discuss how various policy choices – tariffs, immigration enforcement, legal imbroglios – have affected Trump’s approval, plus where a struggling Democrat Party stands as both parties ponder a midterm election still 550 days ahead.  

Recorded on April 30, 2025.

Elective Surgery: Obamacare’s 15th Anniversary, Federal Healthcare Reform, and California’s Medi-Cal Woes

Once a policy lightning rod that ended political careers, the Affordable Care Act (aka, “Obamacare”) has proven to be remarkably resilient with last month marking the 15th anniversary of its being signed into law. Lanhee Chen, the Hoover Institution’s David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies and co-chair of Hoover’s Healthcare Policy Working Group, explains how the ACA managed to survive despite power shifts in Washington, what areas of healthcare Congress should address in 2025, and California’s inability to cover the cost of its Medi-Cal program (the state equivalent of Medicaid) due to rising demand among seniors and undocumented residents.  

Recorded on April 3, 2025.

RELATED SOURCES

• Fifteen Years Later: The ACA Has an HSA Problem by Lanhee J. Chen Tom Church Daniel L. Heil

California Update: Open Season on the Governor’s Open Mic

The good news for California governor Gavin Newsom is that his new podcast has the left and the right buzzing. The bad news is that neither side likes what is covered in his podcasts, as the governor makes nice with conservative and liberal provocateurs and thought leaders.

Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind web channel, discuss where Newsom’s latest foray into podcasting comes up short; how a shortfall in the state’s health budget may tie into his political re-branding (or is podcasting more about Newsom becoming a media kingpin?); plus differences in state and city approaches to California’s homelessness issues. After that, with the NCAA’s “March Madness” in high gear, the fellows discuss the altered state of Golden State collegiate athletics – Stanford, UCLA, and USC’s changing fortunes and conferences.

Recorded on March 27, 2025.

Michael Hartney on the Federal Role in Education, Outcomes v. Totems, and Union Clout

President Trump’s signing of an executive order calling for the downsizing of the US Department of Education (DOE) raises concerns related to the federal versus state balance in K-12 policy. Michael Hartney, the Hoover Institution’s Bruni Family fellow, discusses the book he is currently writing on the 2020 pandemic’s lasting impact on schools, and then he examines Trump’s executive order on downsizing the DOE. Hartney talks about the lessons learned five years after COVID-19 temporary halted in-classroom instruction, and then Hartney discusses the potency of cultural issues in the greater education debate, plus whether teachers’ unions have the same political clout they enjoyed pre-COVID.

Recorded on March 20, 2025.

Achieving Geopolitical Objectives: Andrew Grotto on American “Economic Statecraft”

Curtailing strife and safeguarding America’s global standing requires military strength, diplomatic reach, a gravitational pull to the concepts of liberty and opportunity, and a strategy for economic growth beyond America’s shores. Andrew Grotto, a Hoover visiting fellow and veteran of two past White House national security teams, discusses the white paper he co-authored with Hoover’s H.R. McMaster on the need for a more structured and coordinated approach to US foreign policy, as well as how “economic statecraft” applies to settling the current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and how to win America’s “great power competition” with China (which includes a global economic component missing from the last century’s Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union). 

Recorded on March 18, 2025. 

War and Peace . . . and a Changing Europe

Ukraine’s acceptance of a 30-day ceasefire, since rejected by Russia, shows the challenge in bringing an end to Eastern Europe’s three-year war of attrition. Meanwhile, Germany’s national election delivers a new chancellor (once a coalition government is brokered) who’s both a “transatlanticist” and a believer in a more independent Europe ramping up its self-defense. Russell Berman, a Hoover Institution senior fellow and Stanford University German studies professor, discusses the intricacies of a Ukraine-Russia peace deal  (is Turkey the key as a potential peacekeeper?); NATO’s future; whether Britain and France will share nuclear weapons with Germany; plus the odds of an “alpha male” (or is it an Italian female?) emerging among European’s officeholders.