This cycle, both Trump and Harris made appearances on several newer, unconventional media shows, reflecting a broader shift in political communication and raising questions about how democracy functions when potential voters receive information about the candidates from less traditional news sources.

The audience for the shows where Trump appeared, like the Nelk Brothers' Full Send Podcast, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, and The Joe Rogan Experience, skew male and right-leaning. For her part, the audiences for shows where Harris appeared are somewhat more mixed, though similarly targeted at demographics she may be stronger with. She spoke with Alex Cooper, host of Call Her Daddy, whose audience leans young and female, but also appeared on All the Smoke with hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, whose audience leans young, male and Black.

But both campaigns are appearing on podcasts for a similar reason — to motivate niche audiences that may be otherwise uninclined to tune into the presidential election, or even vote. In some sense this isn't a new strategy by campaigns. In past presidential elections, candidates visited daytime and late-night talk shows for the same reason, like Bill Clinton's appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show, or John McCain's appearance on The View — precursors to Harris' recent TV appearances, where she drank a beer with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show(), and [appeared with her likeness on SNL — as Trump did with Jimmy Fallon in 2015. It's the same reason that endorsements from non-political figures, from Oprah to Taylor Swift, also matter: They help reach people who aren't seeking out political information and news.

But as Americans' distrust of traditional mainstream media grows and their media habits shift, these unconventional platforms may be increasingly central to presidential campaigns' media strategies, and they may be decisive, electorally.

By appearing on platforms with highly specific demographics, campaigns may build direct rapport with targeted groups, but this also bypasses the broader public discourse traditionally facilitated by mainstream media. As media habits evolve, we're left to wonder: Will this shift enhance democratic participation or deepen polarization?

With all the attention on the presidential race, it's easy to lose track of key Senate and House races this cycle, not to mention important ballot measures. Don't worry — the 538 Politics podcast team is here to help with an election "road trip" (without even leaving the office!), and you're invited along for the ride.

Starting in New York, they previewed the state's competitive house races, before continuing south through Massachusetts, where psychedelics are on the ballot, and westward to Ohio, where the race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Bernie Moreno could decide control of the Senate. They zig-zag across the country, hitting races and referendums from Louisiana all the way to California, before finally taking the ferry to Alaska to preview the race in the state's lone congressional district. You can listen to that podcast here.

U.S. elections frequently rhyme with elections elsewhere. When Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives won the UK's 1979 parliamentary elections, it presaged Republican Ronald Reagan's sweeping victory in the U.S. a year later. In 1992, Bill Clinton steered Democrats to the center en route to a win that put an end to a period of relative Republican dominance — a win that was echoed in Canada's 1993 elections (a major political realignment that returned the Liberals to power) as well as the UK's 1997 elections (which saw Tony Blair and "New Labour" win a landslide).

So as we're looking for clues about how today's elections are likely to turn out, it is helpful to look at recent trends in other democracies. And the broad theme, as Kaleigh Rogers pointed out in July, is that voters are angry and often taking it out on incumbent governments. That's bad news for Democrats, who hold the presidency (and the Senate) right now.

On July 4th, U.K. voters sent the Conservatives packing by handing Labour a tremendous 411 out of 650 seats, a Blair-esque victory. In Canada, the governing center-left Liberals are widely expected to lose the next election. The centrist Renaissance party of Emmanuel Macron gave up the country's prime ministerial post after losing seats in that country's parliamentary elections last summer. In an era of inflation and immigration, incumbent parties are struggling at the ballot box.

To be fair, the Conservatives in the U.K. and the Liberals in Canada had each been governing for nearly a decade or more, giving voter fatigue far more time to develop than it has here. But more recently elected governments are struggling, too. Germany's 2021 elections returned a government headed by Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party, a party which is now commonly third in election polling. The long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party in Japan just suffered an unexpected electoral setback in late-October elections. Even the newly elected Labour government in the U.K. has had a rocky start — its lead over the Conservatives has dwindled rapidly, especially if you take into account that many right-leaning voters now back the right-wing populist party Reform UK. It's a hard time to be an incumbent.

There is, though, at least one counter-example. As voters in the Republic of Ireland get ready for an election that may be later this month, the parties in government — and especially the party that currently leads the government, Fine Gael — have been doing surprisingly well in polls. One reason for their success may give Democrats cause for cheer: Earlier this year, they replaced their former leader Leo Vradkar.

Heading inland, Las Vegas is also choosing a new mayor this year. Like San Francisco, the Las Vegas mayoral election is happening at the same time as a presidential race for the first time, following 2019 legislation that moved the elections from odd- to even-numbered years. Whoever wins, it will be the first time in 25 years that the office hasn't been held by a member of the Goodman family. Oscar and Carolyn Goodman, a husband-and-wife pair of Democrats-turned-independents, have traded the mayor's office since 1999.

The race is officially nonpartisan, though the candidates have opposing partisan backgrounds: Victoria Seaman, a city councilmember, previously served as a Republican in the state House, while former Democratic U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, is betting on the city's heavily-Democratic voters to carry her to victory. Berkley won more votes in the June primary, in which a third major candidate drew nearly 20% of the votes, but we haven't seen any public polling of the race since then. Berkley has positioned herself as a continuation of the Goodman regime, while Seaman has been more critical: Her campaign website cites a need to move on from the "failed policies of the past" without mentioning the Goodmans by name.

One of the biggest issues in the race has been how to deal with a lawsuit involving a defunct golf course in one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods. A developer bought the golf course in 2015 intending to turn it into a housing development, but was blocked from doing so by the city. The developer sued, and the case has since been embroiled in a years-long legal battle that could end up costing city taxpayers over half a billion dollars. Both candidates say they want to settle the lawsuit, but disagree on how to do so.