From Bartender to Bush’s War Room & 50 Years in GOP Politics (Anne Dunsmore) - EP55

Anne Dunsmore has been in the room for nearly 50 years of American politics, and it all started because she lost a bet in a D.C. bar. She sits down with Chad Peace and Cara McCormick to tell her story: working the floor with James Baker and Margaret Tutwiler on George H.W. Bush's 1980 campaign, t…

Border Patrol STOPPED Her: Becoming a US Citizen LEGALLY is Harder Than Ever - EP54

IVP's own producer just became a U.S. citizen, and she's sitting down with Chad and Cara to talk about what it actually took, and what it felt like the moment she finally got to register to vote. Lina Alvarez walks Chad and Cara through her path from a marriage-based green card to studying all 128…

Why Rick Bennett Left the GOP to Run for Governor of Maine (NOT What You Think) - EP53

Rick Bennett climbed to the top of Maine's Republican Party - President of the Senate - and now he's running for governor without a party at all. His reasoning is blunt: the parties themselves are a major reason government stopped working. Chad and Cara sit down with the independent candidate for …

Elon Musk's $1.5 Million Attack on Ranked Choice Voting in Alaska - EP52

Elon Musk just quietly put $1.5 million behind a network aimed at killing Alaska's top-four open primary. The kicker: the same measure would repeal the transparency law that let anyone find out he paid for it. Then the crew digs into Musk's money in Alaska: who's really behind the repeal, why MAGA…

Missouri Voters Crushed a Partisan Power Grab - the State Blocked Them Anyway - EP51

Missouri voters showed up and shut down the legislature's attempt to gut citizen initiatives - and then, hours before polls closed, the Secretary of State went in front of a camera and declared their 300,000-signature people's veto unconstitutional anyway. Cara McCormick, Ethan Handelman, and Shaw…

27 Years in Uniform, Now Running Against BOTH Parties in Oregon (Jason Faler) - EP50

A 27-year Army officer with three deployments looked at Congress and decided the problem wasn't which party was winning - it was that both of them were. So Jason Faler is running in Oregon's 6th with no letter behind his name. Jason walks us through the road from four-generation Oregonian to comba…

The First REAL Working-Class Senator? Troy Jackson Explained - EP49

Everyone's calling Troy Jackson the establishment's safe replacement for Graham Platner. Here's the thing: Jackson has defied Democratic Party leadership more than Platner ever did - and he's got two decades of receipts.    Cara called the whole Maine shakeup before it happened - Platner out, Tro…

They're ERASING 71% of the Vote: How Maine Democrats Replace Graham Platner - EP48

Graham Platner won Maine's Democratic Senate primary with 71% of the vote and record turnout - and none of it matters anymore. Cara, Shawn, and Ethan break down how an obscure section of Maine election law lets 600 party delegates in Bangor erase the biggest primary win in state history. After a b…

Why Latino Voters Backed Trump - Then Mamdani (NOT What You Think) | Mike Madrid - EP47

The same young Latino voters who swung to Donald Trump in 2024 just handed New York to Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani - and no, they haven't changed their minds about anything. Strategist Mike Madrid explains why the fastest-growing bloc in American politics is walking out on both parties at o…

TRUTH: 40% of NYC Democrats Aren't Really Democrats | Jeremy Gruber - EP46

We sit down with Jeremy, Senior VP of Open Primaries, to dig into a new IVP/Open Primaries poll of registered NYC Democrats - and what it reveals is wild. Jeremy lays out "the big lie" about open vs. closed primaries, why ~40% of NYC Democrats (and two out of three Latino Democrats) don't identify …