Nate Silver's Blog, page 113

Politics Podcast: Good Use Of Polling Or Bad Use Of Polling — In “The West Wing”

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Our politics podcast is taking the holiday week off. But, instead of a new show, we’re bringing you audio from one of our favorite events of 2016. Over the summer, we did a live show in Los Angeles with our friends at “The West Wing Weekly” podcast looking at how polls were used in the fictional world of “The West Wing.” You needn’t have watched the TV show to enjoy this episode, but note that there are spoilers throughout. And if you’re not already listening, be sure to subscribe to “The West Wing Weekly.”

 

We’ll be back next Monday with our first show of 2017. In the meantime, happy new year and thanks for being a listener in 2016.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

The ‘Most Powerful Political Players Of 2017’ Draft Extravaganza!!

In this week’s politics chat, we go looking for the most powerful political players of 2017. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

 

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): It’s Draft Day!!!! We’ll have a pool of political figures, and the goal is to draft the team that will have the most influence on America’s political agenda in 2017. That includes legislation considered and passed in Washington and the states, as well as the country’s general political discourse. This is a little bit of a fuzzy concept, obviously, but this is likely our last politics chat of 2016, so I think we’re allowed to have a bit of fun.

First up: Our draft class, made up of people working in government or soon to be working in government, courtesy of the white board in Nate’s office:

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): We just spun a marker and Micah got the first pick.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Nate, I know you’re aren’t super comfortable with the idea for this chat, but in the spirit of the holiday season, we’re forcing you into a group activity you don’t like.

micah: One more technical note: Write-in picks are allowed.

natesilver: Also, only AMERICANS are eligible, so NO PUTIN.

clare.malone: Boooo.

natesilver:

Politics Podcast: Looking Back On 2016

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The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast takes a moment to look back on an unexpected year. The team also discusses a move by North Carolina’s legislature to limit the incoming Democratic governor’s authority, and they assess the future of Midwest electoral politics.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

Democrats Need To Win Elections, Not Flip Electors

On Monday, 538 presidential electors will gather to name Donald Trump as president-elect and Mike Pence as vice-president elect. Or at least, we think they will. On Nov. 8, Trump and Pence provisionally won 306 electoral votes and Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine won 232, based on the popular vote in each state. But those electoral votes are cast by people — the members of the Electoral College — and in many states the electors have the right to buck the voters’ choice.

In 1988, for example, Margaret Leach, an elector from West Virginia, deliberately switched the positions of Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen on her ballot in what she said was a protest against the Electoral College (Dukakis and Bentsen had won West Virginia, which is something that Democrats used to do once upon a time). Thus, the national electoral vote tally for the 1988 election was 426 electoral votes for George H.W. Bush, 111 for Dukakis, and one for Bentsen.

So-called “faithless electors” like Leach have been rare, and have never flipped the Electoral College outcome. There was one faithless elector each year in 1948, 1956, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1988, 2000 and 2004. The only mass defection of electors from the top of the ticket came in 1872, when 63 electors originally pledged to Horace Greeley chose not to back him. That’s because Greeley, who was jointly the nominee of the Democratic and Liberal Republican parties, had died after the election but before the Electoral College met.

This year, there’s been a movement afoot to encourage electors to vote for someone other than Trump in an effort to deny him the presidency. If at least 37 Trump-pledged electors were to do this, it would deny any candidate a majority and the election would be determined by the House of Representatives, which would choose from among the top three finishers. For example, if 30 Trump electors defected to Pence and another 10 defected to Ohio Governor John Kasich, the House would choose among Trump (266 electoral votes), Clinton (232) and Pence (30).

You can get into quite an abyss by reading the various cases that Democrats are making for electors behaving faithlessly, which turn on some combination of Clinton’s substantial win in the national popular vote, potential Russian interference into the election, and Trump’s conflicts-of-interest and possible violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause to claim that the election outcome was illegitimate.

At the risk of engaging in a hit-and-run argument, I wanted to go on record to say that I think this is a bad idea. My reasons are best encapsulated in this tweetstorm by the political scientist Matt Glassman, who notes that there is a strong precedent toward electors abiding by the vote in their states. Other than a few one-off cases like Leach, the historical norm has been that electors stick with the voters’ choice unless the candidate died, as in the case of Greeley or the losing vice presidential candidate James S. Sherman in 1912. Furthermore, as Glassman notes, it’s not at all clear what the upside for Democrats would be. This year, narrowly denying Trump a majority in the Electoral College would still probably result in Trump’s election via the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, producing the same president but with a Constitutional crisis along the way. And in the long run, encouraging electors to deviate from the outcomes in their states would result in the House more often deciding presidential elections, which is probably not in Democrats’ interests given how their voters are clustered — and gerrymandered — into urban congressional districts.

Besides, the Constitution provides for other remedies to deal with a president whom voters perceive to be illegitimate or unfit. He can be impeached. Lesser known: In the event of a physical or mental disability, he can be temporarily relieved of duty under the 25th Amendment. He can, of course, be voted out of office after four years.

And in the meantime, voters can check the president’s power by electing members of Congress to oppose him, or by pressuring the current Congress to do so. It’s somewhat vexing to me that Democrats have focused so much energy on long-shot hopes of overturning the 2016 results instead of looking forward to — you know — actually winning the next set of elections. Those two pursuits aren’t mutually exclusive, but the latter is far more likely to pay dividends than the former.

The 2018 midterms will come around quickly, and they’ll offer Democrats an opportunity to flip the House by winning a net of 24 seats, a not-insurmountable number even given that there are fewer competitive districts than there used to be. (The Senate might be harder to flip, because so many of the seats in play are already held by Democrats.) Most voters went to the polls last month expecting Clinton to win, which may have affected how they filled out the rest of their ballots — some voters may have backed Republicans for Congress and for state and local offices in an effort to put a check on Clinton in the White House. This situation is fairly unusual — normally voters do a pretty good job of predicting who the president will be — and it potentially creates opportunities for Democrats to win support from voters who will now be doubly eager to counterbalance Trump, even beyond the midterm backlash that a new president usually faces.

Meanwhile, Democrats have been decimated in elections for governor and state legislature since 2010 and need to rebuild their ranks in order to give the party a deeper roster of presidential and Senate candidates in future years and to position the party for redistricting, which will take place after the 2020 election cycle.

Even as soon as early next year, the mere threat of competitive elections in 2018 could be enough to deter Republicans in moderate states and districts from reflexively supporting Trump. Politics can change fast. Barack Obama came into office in 2009 with much wider Congressional majorities and a much clearer popular mandate than Trump. And yet, within a year of Obama’s inauguration, his approval rating was plummeting and a Republican was elected to replace Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts.

For Democrats to find success in 2018 will probably require them to compete in a lot of places. That’s because it’s not clear whether the shift in demographic voting patterns that took place between 2012 and 2016 will accelerate or reverse itself. In states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, there are a fair number of people who voted for Obama in 2012 but Trump in 2016, and they might be inclined to give Democrats another chance if they feel that Trump isn’t upholding his promises. It’s also possible, however, that Democrats will be competitive in wealthy suburban districts in Sun Belt states such as Texas, Georgia and Arizona that were once reliably red. Democrats were woefully unprepared for some of these opportunities last month. For instance, they didn’t even field a House candidate in Texas’s 32nd Congressional District in suburban Dallas, even though it Clinton carried the district in a major reversal from 2012.

And sometimes, midterm election cycles offer opportunities in states and districts that few people foresaw ahead of time. The last two times the House flipped, it was precipitated by the opposition party preparing early for the races and recruiting and financing competent candidates in a wide range of districts. Democrats did so in 2006 under Howard Dean’s “50-state strategy,” while in 2010 Republicans were able to compete all over the map in part because they moved faster than Democrats to set up super PACs that had been made legal under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

Some of the most important opportunities can escape the attention of the national media. Special elections, such as the one that will likely take place for Montana’s at-large House seat, offer chances to pick up seats and to test out new messages. Battles over voting rights take place in the shadows but can have implications that resonate for years.

Winning a House seat in Montana or expanded access to early voting in North Carolina might not be as sexy for Democrats as dreaming about an uprising in the Electoral College. But Trump won the election, and Democrats probably ought to be thinking about how to win some elections of their own.

Nate Silver Interviews Michael Lewis About His New Book, ‘The Undoing Project’

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This week on Sparks, FiveThirtyEight’s monthly science podcast that runs in the What’s The Point feed, our science roundtable discussed Michael Lewis’s new book “The Undoing Project,” about two Israeli psychologists who created the field of behavioral economics. After that discussion, FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver spoke with Lewis about the book, what it has to say about the 2016 U.S. election and Lewis’s writing process. You can listen to that interview above, watch a segment of the interview below, or read an abridged, lightly edited transcript below the video.

Nate: I think we’ve managed to talk to each other maybe once every couple of years, and I remember there were kind of seeds of this idea before, but what brought you to choose this topic and to write about Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky?

Michael: I wonder when I first mentioned it to you, because I first even heard of their existence after “Moneyball” was published.

Nate: Yeah.

Michael: So, in the year after “Moneyball” was published [2003], the behavioral economist Richard Thaler and the legal scholar Cass Sunstein published an article saying that in “Moneyball,” I kind of missed the story. They suggested that I should go read the collected works of Tversky and Kahneman to understand why baseball scouts misjudge baseball players. And I’d never heard of them, so I went and kind of started looking into it, and then found out that Kahneman was up the hill from me in Berkeley and went and visited him, and by about 2008, 2009, I kind of realized there was a story in the relationship. And it just took a long time to figure out exactly how to tell it.

Nate: Yeah.

Michael: And to gather the string for it. I mean, I had to spend a lot of time in Israel. I mean, the backdrop of this thing is Israel during the birth of the nation.

Nate: So, I’ve never been, but I like the kind of frontier —

Michael: You’ve never been?

Nate: Well, now I want to go after reading the book. So, I liked the frontier spirit where it’s just kind of a new country and it’s relatively hospitable to new ideas….

Michael: It’s like more Silicon Valley than Silicon Valley.

Nate: Yeah, yeah.

Michael: It really is. And also, it was a place where even the most ethereal, academic psychologists felt the need to pitch in and do practical things. So you have Danny Kahneman — who I think is probably by nature a French intellectual — but ends up redesigning the Israeli army’s personnel system. So, he builds the algorithm to determine who is going to be an officer and is training Israeli fighter pilots and tank commanders, so they’re mixing it up in the world in all kinds of ways that actually informs their work. Anyway, your question was, like, how did I decide to write about these guys, and there were a couple things going on. One, the ideas are fascinating. Most of the ideas, I bet, were already familiar to you. You probably were familiar with their papers.

Nate: Well, this is why it’s kind of strange to hear you say that you hadn’t heard — because it’s so implicit in so many things you’ve written about, right? Kind of errors in judgment and people from the outside detecting those errors in judgment, sometimes finding ways to profit off them in different ways.

Michael: Right. It’s a wonder that I hadn’t heard of them before. I suppose that’s right. There are huge gaps in my education and this was one of them. So, I came to it with a freshness, and that probably helped. If I thought, this is something I’ve kind of always known about, I probably would have been less enthusiastic about it. But what really charged me was the attempt, the possibility of writing this weird love story and taking these two guys’ ideas and the generation of the ideas and roughing it up against their consequences in the real world. So, it was partly a literary challenge. And I thought it was doable. My touchstone with books is always, are the characters good enough? And they were such good characters that I thought, this will work. I can make this work. And I did think at some point — and this is how I sold Danny Kahneman on the idea of letting me do this — that they’re so important, somebody one day is going to feel the need to do this book, and it might as well be me. Actually, my line to him was, “Someone’s going to do it, and it’s going to probably be done badly, and if anybody’s going to get a chance to do it badly, you should just let me do it badly. Because I know you now.” I mean, I got to know him over years.

Nate: Yep.

Michael: And Amos Tversky’s son was my student at Cal, and the Tversky family kind of opened up the archives and their lives to me in a really generous way, and it became pretty clear at some point — no one else was going to have the access. And what was going on while I was working on the book? The story was dying off before my eyes. I mean, every time I go to Israel, someone I interviewed the time before who was really, really important to talk to had died. So, it just kind of had to be done now or not at all.

Nate: And it has a very intimate feel to it, the book. I mean, it really kind of gets inside this relationship with stories that I don’t think had been told before, or at least not told outside of family and friend circles. How much time did you spend talking to Danny in particular? It was over several years?

Michael: Yes, the relationship was so opaque to people outside of the relationship. People — even people who you might think know more about these guys more than anybody — didn’t even know they broke up. They disguised the fact that they had a huge falling out from everybody. And I had their breakup letters. They were in Amos Tversky’s filing cabinet, so I could reconstruct the whole thing. And then Danny ended up helping, and I got help from Amos Tversky’s wife.

But in the beginning, the first thing he said to me — I walked through his door in 2007, and I said it’s an honor. He looked at me strangely: It’s an honor? He said, “Oh, you mean the Nobel Prize. Never mind that. It’s not that big a deal.” And he tried to put me at my ease right from the beginning, and then involved me in the writing of his book “Thinking Fast and Slow” [2011]. So, he would send me pieces of it, I would read it and tell him that it wasn’t as a bad as he thought it was — in fact, it was really, really interesting. And then, I did things with him. I went to his last lectures at Princeton when he was a professor, and I helped teach his precept after the class. I went with him to Israel and we went and visited the Israeli army base. But we just did lots of stuff together.

I got bits and pieces over hundreds of encounters with him, either email encounters or long hikes or lunches or dinners or whatever. And it was all kind of by indirection, and it wasn’t until the very end, in the last year of so where I was saying, this is a book. You need to explain to me what happened in the chicken coop when you’re hiding from the Nazis. You’ve got to remember.

“I don’t remember,” he would say.

“Well, did this happen?”

“Oh, no, that didn’t happen.”

So, piecing his story together was, it was a bit like taking a vase that had been shattered and the pieces were all over the room and you’ve got to gather up all the pieces and try to glue them back together. And some of the pieces were missing, but he did his best to help me find them and then he’d show me where they fit.

Nate: You could read this book as having — at least in the interpersonal story — a slightly tragic ending. I don’t want to spoil it for people exactly. But it is different than, I guess the stereotype of the “Moneyball” type of book. Because in those books, you have an outsider who applies new ideas, and there’s some measure of vindication at the end. The A’s win the pennant, for instance. Or in “The Big Short,” some people are very right and make a lot of money and aren’t quite sure how to feel about that. But here, the payoff kind of comes sort of implicitly after the story ends.

Michael: In the payoff, there are a couple of moments where we break away from the main characters to show the consequence of their ideas in the world. And that’s a kind of victory. That is a victory. That’s what’s astonishing, the way the ideas seeped into everyday life. But the tragedy of the ending of the relationship … I mean, it’s poignant. These two guys, who really had more to do together, break up like lovers break up. And I’ve had a friend of mine, who the book is dedicated to, Dacher Keltner, who is a psychologist at Berkeley — really interesting guy, he’s the guy who introduced me to Danny — he said, you know, he was shocked when he read the thing and heard the story. He said, “Nobody does this in academia. There are lots of partnerships, there are lots of collaborations. They don’t fall in love with each other. They don’t break up. They don’t have this kind of dramatic arc. This doesn’t happen. You know, it just doesn’t happen.”

So, it’s a peculiar story in that way in that the intellectual interaction generated this sort of very high-pitched emotion. That is what attracted me to it in the first place. I mean, I can remember moments when I thought, “Jesus, this is a story.” And one of them is when Danny’s, like, dewey-eyed talking to me one day. We were just talking about whatever we were talking about, and he starts talking about how he felt about Amos. He says, you know, you’re in love with women and so on and so forth, but with Amos, I was rapt. And he said, and he cared more about me than I cared about him. And it was just the most important relationship in either one of their lives, and their wives even knew it. And that — I just thought, you can work with that.

Nate: I want to shift a little bit. This book came out almost exactly a month after the 2016 election. I know David Leonhardt of The New York Times said the election was a victory for gut instinct over empericism, for cynicism over reason. First of all, do you believe that? Do you have any sense for what Kahneman and Tversky would have thought of Donald Trump?

Michael: So, I’m not sure my thoughts are that interesting on this subject, but I am interested in filtering this whole election through their lens, because their work and I think they themselves would have a lot to say about what just happened. In no particular order, I think that they would say, “Our work is all about human fallibility. We search for error because the error gives us a guide, a window into the mechanism. The errors the mind makes tell us about the way the mind is. And we have discovered and we’ve shown over and over that fallibility’s just part of human nature and it’s not something to be ashamed of — it’s something, in a way, to be embraced and understood, and maybe corrected for. To have someone running for president who essentially insists he’s infallible is such a sign of stupidity. I mean, that kind of attitude to your mind and your gut instinct is idiocy. It’s stupidity. It’s not intelligence. It’s not a strategy. I mean, it is a strategy by default, but it’s not good.” So, they would look at Trump and be appalled, but then a lot of people do that. They’d be appalled just intellectually, never mind [his] groping and whatever he’s done with his taxes and all the rest.

Nate: Sure.

Michael: So, then I think they would say, “People are drawn, people want to make the world a more certain place than it is. They’re very uncomfortable thinking probabilistically. And they’re very uncomfortable turning to someone for advice or leadership and having that person be at all diffident, at all unsure. They want that person to seem totally certain. So, they want, in a weird way, idiocy from the people who give them advice. Stupidity. They want their financial adviser to say, buy IBM, it’s going up.” Now, what Amos and Danny would say is that if anybody says that, you should run the other way. Right?

Nate: Yeah.

Michael: However, people don’t do that. And so I think in a weird way, the people who were following Trump were the people who would take bad financial advice or bad medical advice or want a general manager who was totally sure that the guy he drafted was going to be a superstar in the NBA. All that. Trump was in a weird way preying on this need for certainty and confidence.

Nate: And uncertainty is a tough sell.

Michael: Right? I mean, it is a tough sell. That’s why this book is available to be written. That’s why you have a place in the market. There’s a kind of arbitrage going on. You’re arbitraging human nature against reality, and so it’s — you’re right. It is a tough sell. The quote in the front of the book sets the tone for the book. It’s from Voltaire’s letter, when he says, doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. And I do think you’re right, uncertainty is a tough sell. You found it in your business to be so, but it is not an impossible sell, and the world’s moving in that direction. Haltingly, in fits and starts. Trump is a fit. Trump is a backwards step, but in the same way that baseball management has become less and less about the raw, intuitive judgment of so-called experts and more and more about data based decision making

Nate: But do you think there’s something about politics in particular? Because baseball … there has been kind of a revolution, and it turns out that it’s not a unilateral win by the geeks, but you know, in every front office — or 29 out of 30. Whereas in politics, you take an example like Brexit, where the polls showed a too-close-to-call race and the pundits said no, no, no, no, it’s going to be Remain, Remain, Remain. And then Leave wins, and then the pundits blame the polls.

Michael: Why isn’t politics more like baseball? Well, political management, campaign management has become a bit more like baseball. More data driven. And just because Hillary Clinton lost and was supposedly a more data-driven operation doesn’t mean that the process of managing the campaign was stupider. Maybe you just had a product that wasn’t as desirable. I mean, no brilliant geek in a baseball front office is going to be able to beat a really good opponent with a bunch of triple-A players. Numbers will help you understand your predicament, but you can’t completely change things. And having said that, I’ve read quotes from the Trump children and the Trump son-in-law saying, we just did Moneyball for politics. That we Moneyball-ed the Electoral College.

I don’t know what they mean by that, but they clearly were not hostile to the idea of being analytical about how they approached their campaign. So, I’m not sure there’s a message in that. It is true that, you know, people have trouble accepting that polls are only rough guides to what the population is going to do. And the analysis of the polls — as good as it is — if you only have a rough picture of the electorate, the analysis is not going to give you the perfect picture. And there’s going to be some unpredictability in it all.

Nate: And people are also kind of anchored to the most recent election, where in 2012, you had polls, and in 2008, for that matter, you had polls that were both very stable and very accurate. You don’t have to go back that far to years like 2000 where there’s a fairly big polling error, or 1980, or 2014, if you look at a midterm.

Michael: And also, if you took what just happened and switch a few thousand votes in a few states, the narrative would be completely different.

Nate: Of course.

Michael: What’s more interesting to me about the response to the election is what people want to say about it. How many people want to instantly analyze. What’s the substitute? I mean, I do feel like, it’s like the person who walks into the casino and is given a choice between giving their money to someone who says they feel lucky at the blackjack table and giving their money to someone who is a provenly good card counter. Now, sometimes the person who feels lucky will win. Actually, quite a bit. They’ll win, but they won’t win as much as the card counter. But it’s like taking the moment after the guy who feels lucky wins a hand and saying, look, all that card counting’s bullshit. It’s just dumb. But it rises from some deep place. People don’t like — especially people whose job it is to be the expert — being challenged.

Nate: Yeah, because this book is — among other things — and Kahneman and Tversky’s work is a critique of expertise, right?

Michael: It is indeed. It is indeed. And it has a lot to say about financial expertise and political expertise and medical expertise and sports management expertise, and it’s skeptical of expertise. It’s saying that — not in a hostile way, it’s not singling out the experts. It’s saying that experts, like everyone else, are wired for certain kinds of mistakes, and they will make them.

Nate: I want to take a few final minutes here and talk about your process as a writer. And this is a little bit selfish because I wrote a book myself a few years ago and found that there weren’t a lot of people to talk to about what it’s like to write a book. But one thing I was interested by is you don’t take — this is a little inside baseball, but seems appropriate given the topic — you don’t take advances for your book.

Michael: No.

Nate: Because you feel — is that, like, deliberately because you think it would skew your incentives?

Michael: Yes. I think people don’t pay enough attention to the incentives they bake into their lives, and they think they’re more immune to them than they are. And I think that, I don’t know, if they take a big advance, oh, it’s not going to matter. It’s just smart strategy. I think that people should own pieces of their companies. I don’t think anybody should be just an employee, unless you’re really not there, unless you don’t intend to be there for very long. But if you’re really going to do a good job, it helps to be an owner. And I want to own my book. I mean, I want to own the process. I want to know that I have risk. I want to know that if it stinks that I’m not going to make any money. And so I like having skin in the game. Actually, I don’t like it. It makes me uncomfortable. But I think that discomfort is of great value, and that it forces me — even if I’m not really thinking about it. As I’m writing a book, I’m not thinking I didn’t take an advance for it. I forget about it. But somewhere deep down, I’m incentivized to work a little harder. So that’s why I don’t take an advance. I want to be exposed to the fortunes of the book.

Nate: One of the parts that felt uncomfortable to me in reading the book was when Kahneman and Tversky were collaborating on writing papers and literally had to agree on every sentence. I mean, when you’re writing, is it a solitary endeavor? Are you in a coffee shop somewhere?

Michael: No, I shut the world out. Totally. And the way I shut the world out, I have an office. It’s its own building, and I have to eliminate even the need, even the possibility of distraction. So there are no phones or anything like that. And I create a playlist for each book. I pick like 15 pop songs, and I play them on a loop. And what happens is I cease to hear them or anything else, and it ends up being this like Pavlovian response to the songs. When I hear the songs, it’s writing time. And it is, it really is amazing how after a little while, if I’m wandering down the street and I hear one of the songs, I’m instantly looking for my laptop and thinking I should write. But that’s what — I shut the world out, and it is solitary. Not in an artistic way.

Nate: Do you tend to write until you get exhausted, or is it more regimented and say, I’m going to write from 9 to 5 today?

Michael: It’s not on a clock, usually. If I’m in a pinch and I’m afraid that I’ve actually kind of fallen behind a deadline — I need deadlines, so I always give myself deadlines. And oddly, even though the deadlines are always kind of artificial and self-imposed, they assume the draconian aspect of a real deadline. I believe my own lie. And the way I measure myself is just how many words I put on the page. So, I’ll say to myself, I’m not getting up until I’ve written a thousand words. Just not getting out of the seat. So, once I’ve told myself that, then what happens is once you create those pressures, you actually forget about everything and you just write. And, you know, more comes out. The goals that I set become minimums, and I’m off in my own space and free to work. I’m basically lazy. I mean, really. Basically, I would do nothing if I didn’t create these artificial structures to prod me.

Michael Lewis’s New Book Examines How We Think About Thinking

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On this episode of Sparks, FiveThirtyEight’s monthly science podcast that runs in the What’s The Point feed, the team got to nerd out about cognitive biases and prediction through the lens of Michael Lewis’s latest book, “The Undoing Project.” Lewis writes about Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who started exploring how our brains systematically make mistakes and wound up inventing the field of behavioral economics. In the process, they changed the way we think — or at least how we think about thinking.

FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver joined science writers Maggie Koerth-Baker and Anna Maria Barry-Jester and senior editor Blythe Terrell to talk about the “cauldron of cognitive bias,” the 2016 election, probabilities and the difficulties of comprehending uncertainty.

In the second part of the podcast, coming out Friday, Nate sits down for an interview with Michael Lewis. We’ll post a link to that conversation here when it’s live. Thanks for listening, and let us know what you think.

Will Trump Take A Honey Badger Approach To Congress?

In this week’s politics chat, we ponder what Donald Trump’s latest cabinet pick tells us about his approach to politics. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Trump officially made perhaps the most important pick in his cabinet on Tuesday, naming Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, as his nominee for Secretary of State. We’ve already written a bit about how much trouble Tillerson might face in the Senate and how Tillerson’s experience running Exxon might translate to the State Department. But today I want to talk about what the Tillerson selection tells us about how Trump might approach politics — in particular, how he’ll deal with Congress.

To set us up, though, Clare, give us the context of this pick. Like, Trump is sitting with his advisers trying to decide whether to name Tillerson — what are the pros and cons they’re weighing?

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer):

Pros: WASHINGTON OUTSIDER. Did you know that was a big part of Trump’s campaign? Trump has praised Tillerson’s business acumen. It’s no secret that our president-elect is in the thrall of those who are good at dealmaking, and Tillerson has run a huge, huge company. Steve Coll wrote an entire book, “Private Empire,” about how Exxon Mobil is basically its own country, so Tillerson has a lot of international experience.

Cons: RUSSIAN TIES. Did you know that Americans, particularly Americans in the United States Congress, are pretty pissed at Russia right now? Tillerson has done a lot of business in Russia, winning a friendship medal from the Putin-run government, and as Marco Rubio, former Nate Silver favorite, tweeted the other day:

Being a "friend of Vladimir" is not an attribute I am hoping for from a #SecretaryOfState – MR

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) December 11, 2016

In other words, this guy is gonna be difficult to confirm in the Senate, which means you’re burning some political capital right off the bat.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): That, I think, is the main con: This is potentially one hell of a challenging confirmation in the Senate. Start with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where (as with other committees) Republicans will have only a one-vote edge. Rubio’s a part of that committee, and he could scuttle the nomination on his own.

clare.malone: Feels so good to be relevant again.

natesilver: So are Sen. Rob Portman and Sen. Cory Gardner, who have been hawkish on Russia issues. And Rand Paul, who’s not a Russia hardliner but is sort of unpredictable.

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): Here’s the thing that is so weird to me: The Trump team put out a trial balloon on this nomination over the weekend. There was a lot of negative reaction. But Trump went ahead and nominated Tillerson anyway. Either Trump is asking for trouble or truly believes he can flip some votes. Perhaps he can. Still, it was rather odd.

micah: So that seems like one of the central takeaways with Tillerson: His nomination suggests that Trump might not GAF/won’t defer much to political winds or Congressional considerations.

clare.malone: You can’t tell from one move with Trump.

micah: Normally, if a trial balloon is bombarded with crap, it isn’t then cleaned off and re-released officially.

clare.malone: Ew.

micah: OK … how about: Normally, if a trial balloon is popped, it isn’t then patched up and re-released officially.

clare.malone: But yes, Trump must just like the cut of Tillerson’s jib an awful lot, to go against the blowback.

natesilver: Well, there are three or four interpretations. Interpretation No. 1: The honey badger don’t give a shit. Trump’s gonna Trump, even if it’s sort of a risky move where the downsides outweigh the upsides.

micah: But maybe this is partly why voters like Trump: He clearly thinks Tillerson will do a good job and doesn’t give a damn about what John McCain or Rubio thinks. Or any other D.C. naysayers.

natesilver: There’s also interpretation No. 2: Trump thinks it’s good power politics to make everyone subservient to his whims instead of compromising. They’ll confirm this guy, who got some freakin’ medal from freakin Putin — at the very moment that Putin’s suspected of meddling with/hacking the American election? Why, yes, they maybe/probably will! And that proves how far Trump can go and how much power he has.

clare.malone: I wonder how much he listened to his team when they inevitably raised the confirmation challenges that would come with Tillerson. I’d love to know if Romney was in the final two. No matter what Roger Stone says, I don’t think Trump was interviewing him just for show.

harry: I’ll get into this in a forthcoming article, but Democrats and Republicans have tended to have pretty similar views on Russia. That is, Russia has mostly been a bipartisan issue. Here are some numbers from Gallup:

I think we’re already seeing that in the congressional opposition to Tillerson. I guess Trump thinks he can move heaven and Earth to get Tillerson through, and given that he has already done that to some degree during this entire campaign season, maybe he can.

natesilver: OK, interpretation No. 3: This is still part of some elaborate tactical ploy. If Tillerson gets confirmed, that’s not a bad outcome. But Trump will be relatively willing to cut bait from Tillerson if and when it starts to consume his political capital — certainly before it goes to a floor vote. He’ll position it in such a way that it looks like he’s compromising, and therefore he can definitely get his second choice (John Bolton?) confirmed, but that might actually be his first choice. I tend to think this is pretty unlikely now that he’s actually gone through and named Tillerson officially.

micah: No. 3 is implausible to me. A combination of Nos. 1 and 2 seems the simpler explanation.

natesilver: Yeah — because that’s what trial balloons are for, and this has gone past the trial balloon stage. Withdrawing Tillerson now would be at least a little bit embarrassing.

clare.malone: You don’t think that he fears a big PR blowback from having to withdraw a nominee, Nate? Or do you think it would feed his image with a certain part of the public that thinks the establishment hates him and is trying to mess with his agenda from the get-go?

harry: It could be that Trump thinks that this is the type of pick that will play well among his base. This is one of the first cabinet selections where I really see “draining the swamp” in action. Tillerson has not one iota of government experience. That is quite unusual for a secretary of state.

natesilver: Clare, I just want to point out that Trump does have this mode where he stakes out an extreme negotiating position and then takes a slightly-less-extreme position and everyone praises him for pivoting. So No. 3 is a tactic in his playbook. But, yeah, I agree that’s probably not the case this time around.

clare.malone: I wonder who the back-pocket pick is, if this is scenario No. 3!

natesilver: Well, Bolton is reportedly set to be Tillerson’s undersecretary. So he might seem like the most obvious alternative.

clare.malone: Retired Gen. David Petraeus would have been interesting.

harry: Why can’t it be as simple as Trump likes Tillerson, and he believes his base will too?

clare.malone: Yeah, Harry, that’s probably it! When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras.

micah: What do you make of the fact that Trump doesn’t seem at all concerned with the impression that he’s in some way beholden to Russia?

harry: Cause he likes Putin?

natesilver: I think Trump clearly regards the Russia stuff as a feature rather than a bug.

clare.malone: This is something that’s not going to go well for very long for Trump with the American people. (I think?) Americans are suspicious of Putin! And Russia!

natesilver: And they should be.

clare.malone: He’ll likely have a honeymoon period with his base, but if he starts to seem like a Russian patsy, people in the Republican leadership might actually speak up.

natesilver: If Democrats are smart, they’ll focus on the Russia angle of Tillerson’s nomination and not the oil-company-CEO angle or the climate-change angle. Because as Harry noted, the Russia concerns poll a lot better all along the ideological spectrum.

If Tillerson’s confirmation starts to become a standard partisan fight, then Rubio and McCain, et al., will be happy to hand a defeat to liberals who they say oppose free enterprise, etc. Drill, baby, drill.

clare.malone: Yeah, I think that sounds about right. The Other plays well in whipping up political support, as 2016 has shown.

harry: Even in July when Trump was asking Russia to hack Clinton’s emails, more Republicans than not thought Russia was NOT an ally.

natesilver: There’s also interpretation No. 4, which is that Trump is actually doing Putin’s bidding, and nominating Tillerson is sort of like in the 1919 World Series when Eddie Cicotte hit Morrie Rath in the back, signaling that the fix was in.

clare.malone: I learn something new every day around here.

natesilver: I guess that’s crazy, though, and we should ignore it.

micah: I disagree. It seems crazy/very unlikely, but I think it should be on the table. Or, at least in the back of our minds.

harry: Studs Terkel was great in “Eight Men Out,” but I guess that’s neither here nor there.

natesilver: It is worth noting that Russia apparently hacked a lot of Republican National Committee information and has not released it.

micah: OK, so now to the swamp part. There are two ways of looking at this:

The swamp is government, career politicians and maybe lobbyists. So appointing someone like Tillerson or Steven Mnuchin (former Goldman Sachs employee, hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier) to his cabinet is entirely in keeping with Trump’s #draintheswamp pledge.The swamp is powerful interests generally, which includes lobbyists, big business and career politicians.

Trump is clearly hewing somewhat to No. 1.

clare.malone: Right, but I think lots of Americans take the broader interpretation, No. 2. Remember how no one likes big banks? How the release of “The Big Short” in movie form reignited the banker hate of 2008? I do.

micah: But they elected Trump.

clare.malone: Yeah, because Trump doesn’t look like a slick banker — he’s packaged differently, more accessibly. That was his greatest talent. Let it never be underestimated.

harry: Isn’t Trump big business? So if he is draining the swamp, he can’t possibly adhere to No. 2.

natesilver: Is an Exxon Mobil guy really all that popular with the base? It’s not as though it’s a beloved company, and Tillerson was not a widely known guy. It would be different if, like, it were the CEO of Caterpillar Inc. or some other good old-fashioned American manufacturing company.

clare.malone: Yeah, Caterpillar or any company that made things in Pennsylvania, for example, instead of extracting them from the Papua New Guinea ground, you mean?

harry: Trump thinks business is business, and he can sell that. I don’t think most Americans think that much about which companies are admired or not. They know it’s a brand name, and Trump can slap his seal of approval on it. I’m not saying it’ll work, but …

micah: But I guess my point is that maybe Trump’s base doesn’t draw that much of a distinction — as long as his appointees are not of Washington, they’re good.

So the moral here is that Trump pursues an anti-Washington agenda that benefits business — basically, a normal GOP administration on steroids.

NORMALIZATION!!!

Here Are The Russia Hawks Who Could Kill Tillerson’s Nomination

Russia will soon become an axis of conflict between President-elect Donald Trump and the U.S. Senate. Trump may have a difficult time securing Senate confirmation for Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, his pick for secretary of state, because of Tillerson’s ties to Vladimir Putin and Exxon Mobil’s business interests in Russia. Furthermore, the Senate may soon launch an inquiry into possible Russian interference in the presidential election, something that Trump opposes.

Russia hasn’t been a focal point for policymaking in the Senate over the past several years outside of a few resolutions passed by unanimous consent. Therefore, there aren’t a lot of votes to indicate which senators might take the most hawkish positions toward Russia. However, we can look at two recent developments to get a sense for which senators might be most willing to hold the line against Trump.

First was a letter co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois that urged Trump to “continue America’s tradition of support for the people of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.” The letter, a pre-emptive rebuke toward potential Trump dovishness on Russia, was signed by 12 Republican senators and 15 Democrats, counting Portman and Durbin.

Then there’s the investigation into possible Russian meddling in the election, which today was (somewhat grudgingly) endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. I searched news accounts and each senator’s Twitter feed and came up with a list of 16 Republican senators or senators-elect who have expressed support for such an investigation, including 13 who have done so since the Nov. 8 election.

The list isn’t necessarily comprehensive, since many senators have not been weighing in on the idea of an investigation until the past few days. It’s hard to find senators who are openly opposed to such an investigation, in fact, although a few, such as Texas Sen. John Cornyn, have downplayed the potential importance of Russia’s influence on the campaign.

Still, the senators who both called for an investigation and signed the Ukraine letter make for a preliminary list of Russia hawks. Seven Republicans fit this bill:

SENATORSTATESIGNED UKRAINE LETTER?SUPPORTS INVESTIGATION INTO POTENTIAL RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE?SOURCEJohn McCainArizonaYesYeshttp://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/john-mccain-russian-hacking-232481Cory GardnerColoradoYesYeshttp://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-faces-early-test-republicans-russia-44135349Marco RubioFloridaYesYeshttp://www.nbcnews.com/feature/meet-the-press-24-7/meet-press-november-27-2016-n688791Pat RobertsKansasYesYeshttp://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article120396548.htmlRob PortmanOhioYesYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/effort-to-combat-foreign-propaganda-advances-in-congress/2016/11/30/9147e1ac-e221-47be-ab92-9f2f7e69d452_story.html?utm_term=.b4baa158df39Lindsey GrahamSouth CarolinaYesYeshttp://www.cnn.com/2016/12/10/politics/lindsey-graham-russia-democracy/Ron JohnsonWisconsinYesYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/11/key-gop-senators-join-call-for-bipartisan-russia-election-probe-even-as-their-leaders-remain-mum/?utm_term=.3a059ebf46e4Jerry MoranKansasNoYeshttp://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article120396548.htmlMitch McConnellKentuckyNoYeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/us/politics/mcconnell-supports-inquiry-of-russian-hacking-during-election.html?_r=0Rand PaulKentuckyNoYeshttp://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/democratic-gop-senators-russian-hacking-cannot-become-a-partisan-issue-232475Susan CollinsMaineNoYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/11/key-gop-senators-join-call-for-bipartisan-russia-election-probe-even-as-their-leaders-remain-mum/?utm_term=.ac3c56d66c1eJames LankfordOklahomaNoYeshttps://twitter.com/SenatorLankford/status/808109863595364352Bob CorkerTennesseeNoYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/08/republicans-ready-to-launch-wide-ranging-probe-of-russia-despite-trumps-stance/?utm_term=.0c0644c1d6ffChuck GrassleyIowaNoYes, before electionhttp://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-leahy-press-federal-investigators-breach-democratic-national-committeeDeb FischerNebraskaNoYes, before electionhttp://bigstory.ap.org/article/3630d0dc1d034cc2a33e287008edfb89/top-democrats-say-theyve-concluded-russia-behind-hacksBen SasseNebraskaNoYes, before electionhttp://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2016/10/sasse-statement-on-russia-hacksJohn BoozmanArkansasYesNo clear public positionJohnny IsaksonGeorgiaYesNo clear public positionJim RischIdahoYesNo clear public positionJim InhofeOklahomaYesNo clear public positionJohn BarrassoWyomingYesNo clear public positionWhich Republicans are Russia hawks?

Highlighted senators are members of the Foreign Relations Committee

There aren’t a lot of surprises on that list. It includes three of the most well-known Russia hawks in the Senate — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida — along with Cory Gardner of Colorado, one of the few Republicans to represent a state won by Hillary Clinton. There’s also Portman, Pat Roberts of Kansas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

Three of those Republicans — Rubio, Gardner and Johnson — are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will vote on State Department nominees before their names go to the entire Senate. Republicans will have just a one-seat advantage on the committee, so any GOP defections could potentially scuttle Tillerson’s confirmation.

VIDEO: Politics podcast talks Trump and Russia

Moreover, there’s a longer list of Republican senators, including several on the Foreign Relations Committee, who either signed the Ukraine letter or called for an investigation into Russian hacking but not both, suggesting that opposition to Trump on Russia could grow depending on how he manages the politics of the issue.

Could any Democrats side with Trump on Russia — or on Tillerson — in the event of Republican defections? That’s harder to say because Democrats haven’t necessarily felt the need to declare their support for the Russia investigation since the default is presumably that they’d be happy to go along with it (incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer supports the investigation). Still, here’s the list of Democratic responses we’ve identified so far:

SENATORSTATESIGNED UKRAINE LETTER?SUPPORTS INVESTIGATION INTO POTENTIAL RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE?SOURCEChris MurphyConnecticutYesYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/effort-to-combat-foreign-propaganda-advances-in-congress/2016/11/30/9147e1ac-e221-47be-ab92-9f2f7e69d452_story.html?utm_term=.41e613e8f2c3Ben CardinMarylandYesYeshttp://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/12/12/mcconnell-says-congress-probe-russian-election-hack/95331688/Gary PetersMichiganYesYeshttp://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/chuck-schumer-russia-senate-election-inquiry-232464Amy KlobucharMinnesotaYesYeshttps://twitter.com/amyklobuchar/status/808171774429003777Jeanne ShaheenNew HampshireYesYeshttp://www.nh1.com/news/sen-jeanne-shaheen-responds-to-reports-of-russian-interference-in-election/Bob MenendezNew JerseyYesYeshttp://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-lawmakers-congress-must-investigate-russia-s-role-election-n694996Sherrod BrownOhioYesYeshttp://www.daytondailynews.com/news/national-govt–politics/ohio-republicans-join-call-for-election-probe/qfqiQl1XolequUYS2Mn1aI/?ecmp=daytondaily_social_twitter_2014_politics_sfpJack ReedRhode IslandYesYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/11/key-gop-senators-join-call-for-bipartisan-russia-election-probe-even-as-their-leaders-remain-mum/?utm_term=.9c8126c4f24cChris CoonsDelawareYesYes, before electionhttp://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/democrats-ted-cruz-hearing-russia/2016/08/03/id/742004/Sheldon WhitehouseRhode IslandYesYes, before electionhttp://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/democrats-ted-cruz-hearing-russia/2016/08/03/id/742004/Dianne FeinsteinCaliforniaNoYeshttp://goldrushcam.com/sierrasuntimes/index.php/news/local-news/8423-senator-dianne-feinstein-issues-statement-on-white-house-review-of-russian-hacking-activitiesMazie HironoHawaiiNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionAngus KingMaineNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionDebbie StabenowMichiganNoYeshttp://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/chuck-schumer-russia-senate-election-inquiry-232464Claire McCaskillMissouriNoYeshttp://www.mediaite.com/tv/mccaskill-on-russian-hacking-this-is-a-form-of-warfare/Cory BookerNew JerseyNoYeshttp://www.heraldnet.com/news/schumer-urges-a-non-partisan-russian-hacking-investigation/Martin HeinrichNew MexicoNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionTom UdallNew MexicoNoYeshttps://twitter.com/SenatorTomUdall/status/807753206977662976Chuck SchumerNew YorkNoYeshttps://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/808342742669688832?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwRon WydenOregonNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionMark WarnerVirginiaNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionPatrick LeahyVermontNoYeshttp://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/12/12/mcconnell-says-congress-probe-russian-election-hack/95331688/Bernie SandersVermontNoYeshttp://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/309860-sanders-for-trump-to-summarily-dismiss-russian-interference-makes-no-sensePatty MurrayWashingtonNoYeshttp://www.murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/newsreleases?ID=236A5253-80B6-4279-B9F0-F4B65AD49018Chris Van HollenMarylandNoYes, before electionhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/chris-van-hollen-russian-dnc-000000889.htmlRichard BlumenthalConnecticutYesNo clear public positionDick DurbinIllinoisYesNo clear public positionKirsten GillibrandNew YorkYesNo clear public positionJeff MerkleyOregonYesNo clear public positionBob CaseyPennsylvaniaYesNo clear public positionWhich Democrats and independents are Russia hawks?

Highlighted senators are members of the Foreign Relations Committee

Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, probably the two most likely Democrats to support Trump, have neither signed the Ukraine letter nor taken a clear position on the investigation. Both come from states that rely heavily on energy production, which could make them more inclined to support Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil CEO.

Overall, however, Tillerson looks like a potentially challenging confirmation for Trump, especially if Trump is simultaneously burning political capital by opposing the Senate’s investigation into Russian election interference. Rubio, Graham and McCain have already expressed reservations on Tillerson, which would be enough to kill the nomination before the full Senate unless some Democrats voted for him.

One final consideration: Trump and his transition team have been coy about whether they actually plan to nominate Tillerson, so his name might just be a trial balloon or a decoy of sorts for Trump to stake out a negotiating position. For instance, if Trump were interested in choosing former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as secretary of state, who himself could face a difficult nomination, retreating from Tillerson after floating his name could make Bolton appear to be more of a compromise choice.

Here Are The Russia Hawks Who Could Kill A Tillerson Nomination

Russia will soon become an axis of conflict between President-elect Donald Trump and the U.S. Senate. Trump, who said late Monday that he will announce his choice for secretary of state on Tuesday morning, may have a difficult time securing Senate confirmation of his pick if he nominates ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson because of Tillerson’s ties to Vladimir Putin and ExxonMobil’s business interests in Russia. Furthermore, the Senate may soon launch an inquiry into possible Russian interference in the presidential election, something that Trump opposes.

Russia hasn’t been a focal point for policymaking in the Senate over the past several years outside of a few resolutions passed by unanimous consent. Therefore, there aren’t a lot of votes to indicate which senators might take the most hawkish positions toward Russia. However, we can look at two recent developments to get a sense for which senators might be most willing to hold the line against Trump.

First was a letter co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois that urged Trump to “continue America’s tradition of support for the people of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.” The letter, a pre-emptive rebuke toward potential Trump dovishness on Russia, was signed by 12 Republican senators and 15 Democrats, counting Portman and Durbin.

Then there’s the investigation into possible Russian meddling in the election, which today was (somewhat grudgingly) endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. I searched news accounts and each senator’s Twitter feed and came up with a list of 16 Republican senators or senators-elect who have expressed support for such an investigation, including 13 who have done so since the Nov. 8 election.

The list isn’t necessarily comprehensive, since many senators have not been weighing in on the idea of an investigation until the past few days. It’s hard to find senators who are openly opposed to such an investigation, in fact, although a few, such as Texas Sen. John Cornyn, have downplayed the potential importance of Russia’s influence on the campaign.

Still, the senators who both called for an investigation and signed the Ukraine letter make for a preliminary list of Russia hawks. Seven Republicans fit this bill:

SENATORSTATESIGNED UKRAINE LETTER?SUPPORTS INVESTIGATION INTO POTENTIAL RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE?SOURCEJohn McCainArizonaYesYeshttp://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/john-mccain-russian-hacking-232481Cory GardnerColoradoYesYeshttp://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-faces-early-test-republicans-russia-44135349Marco RubioFloridaYesYeshttp://www.nbcnews.com/feature/meet-the-press-24-7/meet-press-november-27-2016-n688791Pat RobertsKansasYesYeshttp://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article120396548.htmlRob PortmanOhioYesYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/effort-to-combat-foreign-propaganda-advances-in-congress/2016/11/30/9147e1ac-e221-47be-ab92-9f2f7e69d452_story.html?utm_term=.b4baa158df39Lindsey GrahamSouth CarolinaYesYeshttp://www.cnn.com/2016/12/10/politics/lindsey-graham-russia-democracy/Ron JohnsonWisconsinYesYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/11/key-gop-senators-join-call-for-bipartisan-russia-election-probe-even-as-their-leaders-remain-mum/?utm_term=.3a059ebf46e4Jerry MoranKansasNoYeshttp://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article120396548.htmlMitch McConnellKentuckyNoYeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/us/politics/mcconnell-supports-inquiry-of-russian-hacking-during-election.html?_r=0Rand PaulKentuckyNoYeshttp://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/democratic-gop-senators-russian-hacking-cannot-become-a-partisan-issue-232475Susan CollinsMaineNoYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/11/key-gop-senators-join-call-for-bipartisan-russia-election-probe-even-as-their-leaders-remain-mum/?utm_term=.ac3c56d66c1eJames LankfordOklahomaNoYeshttps://twitter.com/SenatorLankford/status/808109863595364352Bob CorkerTennesseeNoYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/08/republicans-ready-to-launch-wide-ranging-probe-of-russia-despite-trumps-stance/?utm_term=.0c0644c1d6ffChuck GrassleyIowaNoYes, before electionhttp://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-leahy-press-federal-investigators-breach-democratic-national-committeeDeb FischerNebraskaNoYes, before electionhttp://bigstory.ap.org/article/3630d0dc1d034cc2a33e287008edfb89/top-democrats-say-theyve-concluded-russia-behind-hacksBen SasseNebraskaNoYes, before electionhttp://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2016/10/sasse-statement-on-russia-hacksJohn BoozmanArkansasYesNo clear public positionJohnny IsaksonGeorgiaYesNo clear public positionJim RischIdahoYesNo clear public positionJim InhofeOklahomaYesNo clear public positionJohn BarrassoWyomingYesNo clear public positionWhich Republicans are Russia hawks?

Highlighted senators are members of the Foreign Relations Committee

There aren’t a lot of surprises on that list. It includes three of the most well-known Russia hawks in the Senate — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida — along with Cory Gardner of Colorado, one of the few Republicans to represent a state won by Hillary Clinton. There’s also Portman, Pat Roberts of Kansas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

Three of those Republicans — Rubio, Gardner and Johnson — are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will vote on State Department nominees before their names go to the entire Senate. Republicans will have just a one-seat advantage on the committee, so any GOP defections could potentially scuttle Tillerson’s confirmation.

Moreover, there’s a longer list of Republican senators, including several on the Foreign Relations Committee, who either signed the Ukraine letter or called for an investigation into Russian hacking but not both, suggesting that opposition to Trump on Russia could grow depending on how he manages the politics of the issue.

Could any Democrats side with Trump on Russia — or on Tillerson — in the event of Republican defections? That’s harder to say because Democrats haven’t necessarily felt the need to declare their support for the Russia investigation since the default is presumably that they’d be happy to go along with it (incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer supports the investigation). Still, here’s the list of Democratic responses we’ve identified so far:

SENATORSTATESIGNED UKRAINE LETTER?SUPPORTS INVESTIGATION INTO POTENTIAL RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE?SOURCEChris MurphyConnecticutYesYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/effort-to-combat-foreign-propaganda-advances-in-congress/2016/11/30/9147e1ac-e221-47be-ab92-9f2f7e69d452_story.html?utm_term=.41e613e8f2c3Ben CardinMarylandYesYeshttp://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/12/12/mcconnell-says-congress-probe-russian-election-hack/95331688/Gary PetersMichiganYesYeshttp://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/chuck-schumer-russia-senate-election-inquiry-232464Amy KlobucharMinnesotaYesYeshttps://twitter.com/amyklobuchar/status/808171774429003777Jeanne ShaheenNew HampshireYesYeshttp://www.nh1.com/news/sen-jeanne-shaheen-responds-to-reports-of-russian-interference-in-election/Bob MenendezNew JerseyYesYeshttp://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-lawmakers-congress-must-investigate-russia-s-role-election-n694996Sherrod BrownOhioYesYeshttp://www.daytondailynews.com/news/national-govt–politics/ohio-republicans-join-call-for-election-probe/qfqiQl1XolequUYS2Mn1aI/?ecmp=daytondaily_social_twitter_2014_politics_sfpJack ReedRhode IslandYesYeshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/11/key-gop-senators-join-call-for-bipartisan-russia-election-probe-even-as-their-leaders-remain-mum/?utm_term=.9c8126c4f24cChris CoonsDelawareYesYes, before electionhttp://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/democrats-ted-cruz-hearing-russia/2016/08/03/id/742004/Sheldon WhitehouseRhode IslandYesYes, before electionhttp://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/democrats-ted-cruz-hearing-russia/2016/08/03/id/742004/Dianne FeinsteinCaliforniaNoYeshttp://goldrushcam.com/sierrasuntimes/index.php/news/local-news/8423-senator-dianne-feinstein-issues-statement-on-white-house-review-of-russian-hacking-activitiesMazie HironoHawaiiNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionAngus KingMaineNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionDebbie StabenowMichiganNoYeshttp://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/chuck-schumer-russia-senate-election-inquiry-232464Claire McCaskillMissouriNoYeshttp://www.mediaite.com/tv/mccaskill-on-russian-hacking-this-is-a-form-of-warfare/Cory BookerNew JerseyNoYeshttp://www.heraldnet.com/news/schumer-urges-a-non-partisan-russian-hacking-investigation/Martin HeinrichNew MexicoNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionTom UdallNew MexicoNoYeshttps://twitter.com/SenatorTomUdall/status/807753206977662976Chuck SchumerNew YorkNoYeshttps://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/808342742669688832?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwRon WydenOregonNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionMark WarnerVirginiaNoYeshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-electionPatrick LeahyVermontNoYeshttp://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/12/12/mcconnell-says-congress-probe-russian-election-hack/95331688/Bernie SandersVermontNoYeshttp://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/309860-sanders-for-trump-to-summarily-dismiss-russian-interference-makes-no-sensePatty MurrayWashingtonNoYeshttp://www.murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/newsreleases?ID=236A5253-80B6-4279-B9F0-F4B65AD49018Chris Van HollenMarylandNoYes, before electionhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/chris-van-hollen-russian-dnc-000000889.htmlRichard BlumenthalConnecticutYesNo clear public positionDick DurbinIllinoisYesNo clear public positionKirsten GillibrandNew YorkYesNo clear public positionJeff MerkleyOregonYesNo clear public positionBob CaseyPennsylvaniaYesNo clear public positionWhich Democrats and independents are Russia hawks?

Highlighted senators are members of the Foreign Relations Committee

Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, probably the two most likely Democrats to support Trump, have neither signed the Ukraine letter nor have taken a clear position on the investigation. Both come from states that rely heavily on energy production, which could make them more inclined to support Tillerson, the ExxonMobil CEO.

Overall, however, Tillerson looks like a potentially challenging confirmation for Trump, especially if Trump is simultaneously burning political capital by opposing the Senate’s investigation into Russian election interference. Rubio, Graham and McCain have already expressed reservations on Tillerson, which would be enough to kill the nomination before the full Senate unless some Democrats voted for him.

One final consideration: Trump and his transition team have been coy about whether they actually plan to nominate Tillerson, so his name might just be a trial balloon or a decoy of sorts for Trump to stake out a negotiating position. For instance, if Trump were interested in choosing former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as secretary of state, who himself could face a difficult nomination, retreating from Tillerson after floating his name could make Bolton appear to be more of a compromise choice.

Politics Podcast: Russian Interference

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The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew discusses the implications of a CIA investigation that concluded that Russia interfered in the presidential election in order to help Donald Trump win. The team also talks about how senior Republican lawmakers, who have taken the reports seriously, will deal with the president-elect, who has dismissed them. Finally, the Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter weighs in on Trump’s pledge to “drain the swamp” — what it means and whether his cabinet picks so far align with the pledge.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.