Numlock News: August 12, 2025 • (A)Ideas, Texas, Liver
By Eli McKown-Dawson
Walt is out on vacation, and filling in today is Eli McKown-Dawson, who is a writer at
.If there’s one thing you don’t hear enough about today, it’s politics. Luckily for the good readers of Numlock News, my main beats are elections and public opinion polling. Welcome to Numlock: Politics & Polls Edition.
Alien Abduction
Have you ever gotten a political fundraising text that sounded something like this: “We’re close to tears. If Ossoff wins Georgia, Dems FLIP the Senate. But NO ONE is donating.” If so, it might have come from Mothership Strategies. Mothership is a Democratic fundraising agency at the center of a network of interconnected political action committees (PACs) that have together raised $678 million from individual donors since 2018. Their approach to fundraising is simple: a deluge of emotionally charged messages to maximize short-term donations. But just 1.6% of the money they raised (about $11 million) went to political candidates and committees. The rest went to consultants and operational costs.
Adam Bonica, On Data and Democracy
Old Voters and Young Presidents
Last month, the United Kingdom (where I’m currently living) announced plans to lower the voting age to 16 for national elections. Will American 16-year-olds get the vote anytime soon? Not a chance — and not just because it would take a constitutional amendment. According to the polling firm YouGov, 56% of Americans think the minimum voting age should be 18. Only 25% think it should be lower. However, Americans do want younger presidents. A whopping 75% of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for serving as president (currently, there’s only a minimum age requirement of 35). How old is too old for the Oval Office? According to YouGov, anything under 80 is fine with 54% of Americans.
Alexander Rossell Hayes, YouGov
(A)Ideas
It’s hard to read the news or use social media without coming across discussions of artificial intelligence. AI is also becoming a more ubiquitous part of Americans’ daily lives. According to an AP-NORC poll, 60% of Americans use AI to search for information at least occasionally. Unsurprisingly, there’s a big generational divide here. For example, brainstorming: 62% of Americans under 30 use AI to come up with ideas, compared to 40% of U.S. adults and only 23% of adults 60 and older. What’s the least common way to use AI? The answer is companionship — again, not particularly shocking. Only 16% of Americans (but 25% of those under 30) have ever used AI as a companion.
Matt O’Brien and Linley Sanders, The Associated Press
Everything’s Bigger in Texas
Texas Republicans unveiled plans to redraw their state’s congressional map last week. Maps are usually redrawn every 10 years after the decennial census. Here, their goal is straightforward: give Republicans five extra seats in the U.S. House after the 2026 midterm elections. Is that a foolproof plan? Absolutely not. Republicans first have to get the map passed, and even then, they could still lose two of those five seats in 2026. But one thing is certain: Texas will end up with some large districts. If the map passes, Texas’ 11th Congressional District will stretch from rural west Texas on the New Mexico border all the way to Austin, the state’s capital. That’s a distance of 311 miles.
Fritz Farrow and Oren Oppenheim, ABC News
Is the Bomb the Bomb
Wednesday marked the 80th anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb (codenamed Little Boy) on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II. The U.S. dropped a second bomb (codenamed Fat Man) on Nagasaki three days later. Death toll estimates range from 100,000 to 200,000 people. How do Americans today feel about the bombings? It’s complicated. According to the Pew Research Center, 35% think using atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified, 31% think it wasn’t and 33% are unsure. Overall, most Americans (69%) believe the development of nuclear weapons has made the world less safe.
Emma Kikuchi, Pew Research Center
Inflation and Inflation
The stock market has rallied since its post-Liberation Day lows in April. But investors are still worried about two kinds of inflation. First, the inflated price of stocks: a record 91% of fund managers surveyed by Bank of America see American stocks as too expensive. The second problem? Actual inflation. The poll showed that inflation expectations are higher than they have been in the past three months. On net, 18% of fund managers expect a higher reading of the global consumer price index. But in better news, 68% of fund managers think a soft landing (a slowdown in economic growth without a recession) is the most likely global economic outcome over the next year.
Sagarika Jaisinghani and Michael Msika, Bloomberg
Lily-Livered
Polls can do more than tell you which candidate is ahead or how (un)popular Congress is; they can also be fun. Ever wondered what the most disliked food in America is? Well, wonder no longer: it’s liver, hated by 40% of Americans. That’s a higher “hate” share than the 39 other foods tested by YouGov. Other widely hated foods include anchovies (36%), sardines (35%), tofu (29%) and squid (29%). The poll also revealed that men don’t like eating their vegetables; they were more likely to hate or dislike Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, spinach and broccoli compared to women. But this poll does contain some bad news for me personally: bananas are loved by 50% of Americans and hated by only 3%. I’m a proud member of that 3%.
Taylor Orth and Carl Bialik, YouGov
Eli may be found at .
Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news.
Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement.
Previous Sunday subscriber editions: Dark Roofs · Geothermal · Stitch · Year of the Ring · Person Do Thing · Fun Factor · Low Culture · Romeo vs. Juliet · Traffic Cam Photobooth · Money in Politics ·
Sax Solo · Terra Nova · Didion · Me, But Better · Flow · Four Nations · Tabletop · Fortnite · Sleep · Climate Insurance ·
Work/Life Balance · Self-Driving · Geoglyphs · Nvidia · McDonald’s · No Such Thing · Nationalized Sports ·
Sunday Edition Archives: 2024 · 2023 · 2022 · 2021 · 2020 · 2019 · 2018
Supply, demand, available circulating money. Understand that he’s passé for many, but Milton Friedman was kinda right. Equities, housing, energy…. All things not counted towards inflation, and things that have massively-outperformed since they changed calculations in the mid-90s. The massive insertion of available cash from the “Inflation Reduction Act” didn’t help.
On the foods, I like the ones oft-disliked, but do prefer heavily-processing on the liver. Common ones? Eggs and avocados.