TED Talk: Building a science of democracy repair
As we all wait for tonight’s 9:00pm (Eastern) debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the Presidential race is apparently right on a knife edge. So are control of the Senate and the House. All three are within 1.5 percentage points of a perfect toss-up, which is within polling error. It is possible that Democrats end up in charge of all three. It is also possible for Republicans being in charge of all three.
No pressure.
Whatever happens this November at the federal level, democracy is in a rickety state. The demographics and the politics of the United States have changed faster than institutions have been able to keep up. It is time for serious repairs.
Whether Harris or Trump wins, in 2025 there will be paths to conduct those repairs. By channeling our inner federalist, we can work at multiple levels – national, state, and local – to represent people better. But what ideas should we pursue?
Today, TED and the Rockefeller Foundation are releasing my talk on how to build a science of democracy repair. It’s available at go.ted.com/samwang. Watch it before the debate, instead of all the commentary. In it, I talk about how data and computational simulation can identify effective and practical ways to make government more responsive to all voters – not just Democrats and Republicans, but all of us. Whether it’s anti-gerrymandering legislation, ranked-choice voting, open primaries, or third-party candidacies, we need ways to understand when these changes will work, when they won’t work, and even when they might backfire.
If you’re inspired by the call to action, you can put data analytics to work right now! Maximize your individual power to make change in democracy. The newly-revamped Vote Maximizer shows you where you have the power, not just by who you elect this year, but by long-term changes to the rules of democracy you can support in a state near you. Try Vote Maximizer today.
Maybe time to change the label on the Presidential meta-margin chart from “Biden/Harris” to “Harris/Walz”?
The original meaning was to indicate “Biden or Harris as presidential candidate,” since part of the graph indicates Biden. But considering where we’re at now, it is clearer to say just “Harris.” Thank you.
I’ve been thinking about voter power. It leaves something important out, at least for people like me whose activism is confined to my checkbook. How much money (or maybe money per voter) is already in the race? The marginal utility of a campaign dollar is certainly declining, at least past a certain low level. A poorly-funded race has a lot more checkbook power than a well-funded race, holding polls and relative funding equal of course.
Consider, for example, the Montana race, which has a lot of money chasing after very few voters. It may have a lot of voter power, but has very little checkbook power. That’s why I’m more likely to contribute to Nebraska than Montana.
This is a good point. As benchmarks, I saw recently that Osborn has raised only $2.9M (though this is still more than Fischer has raised), and that media buys in Nebraska are considerably cheaper than in other states at present. That includes Montana, presumably because all the less expensive ad time has already been bought. I am pondering how to factor this in, since canvassing scales differently. Generally, though, it is true that all indicators currently point toward Nebraska being the best value for money in terms of U.S. Senate control.
I had completely missed that nuance of why “Biden/Harris” in the first place. I sort of had a hallucination that I had seen a “Trump/Vance” on the other side, which of course was never there.
Thank you for the great public service you have performed. Your significant contributions make a difference. MB
My biggest worry is it being close enough to be in the steal zone. At this point they’ve got Louis DeJoy in the USPS to slow down ballot mailing, ‘True The Vote’ with over 44,000 volunteers this year to challenge voter registrations, hundreds of new laws including making it far easier to challenge registrations such that voters are removed from the rolls unless they show up in person (not so good for absentee voters) not to mention the election deniers in positions where they can do real harm, rak ballot lawsuits delaying sending out of ballots and on and on. How are we going to get through this mess in one piece?