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Act Three: Louisiana

Ben Calhoun talks to a man in ICE detention in Louisiana about how he and people around him are following the election. But right as the results are coming in, the man’s case takes a serious turn.

Act Four: Detroit

Emanuele Berry talks to Khalilah, who got involved as a poll watcher this year and ended up inside a national news story. (7 minutes)

Act Six: Massachusetts

During an election in which it feels like the very existence of our democracy hangs in the balance, producer Sean Cole and someone very close to him have been dealing with their own immediate existential questions.

Prologue

Host Ira Glass speaks to Kevin Sheekey, the man tasked with spending $100m of Mike Bloomberg’s billions on securing a Democrat win in the constant battleground state of Florida. He also speaks to producer Lina Misitzis about what’s going on down on the ground with Democrats in the state.

Act One: School of Hard Knocks

Broward County is  one of the bluest counties in Florida, and some of the Democrats who live and vote there are worried their party isn’t doing enough to keep it that way. Lina Misitzis spent some time talking to them about their fears.

Prologue

For the past couple-two-three weeks, producer Ben Calhoun has been calling around to small town municipal clerks in his home state of Wisconsin, asking them how mail-in balloting really works. It can be chaotic, they say, but not in the way the president would have you believe.

Prologue

Host Ira Glass discusses what it means to peacefully transfer power from one president to the next. He points out one of the weirdest things about it, that the new president has to go and sleep in the same bedroom as the previous president.

Act Two: Reality Show

FBI agents question NSA contractor Reality Winner, who was later charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in U.S. elections. Even the most casual small talk takes on an air of menace. (18 minutes)This is an excerpt from Is This A Room, a play based on the real FBI interrogation transcript.

Prologue

Ira and producer Robyn Semien go behind the scenes with some of the Obama staffers to hear what it felt like in the days leading up to the infamous Beer Summit of 2009.

Act Two: Lagerheads

A Democratic club at a bar in South Bend, Indiana, melts down over President Trump, and producer Ben Calhoun is there to see who’s still left in the club at the end of the night.

Prologue

Producer Zoe Chace drives around with Washington Post political reporter extraordinaire Dave Weigel. He delights in this special period in the race where it’s easy to trip over people running for president.

Act One: Wannabes One

Weigel and Zoe drop in on two candidates desperately trying to break out of the one percent.

Act Two: Wannabes Two

Host Ira Glass follows presidential hopeful Julián Castro as he prepares for the first debate of the Democratic primary. His goal is just to let people know he’s in the race! By, possibly, interrupting somebody onstage.

Act Three: Wannabes Three

Producer Emanuele Berry plays Ira Glass some weird inside his head tape of presidential hopeful Cory Booker trying to walk two blocks.

Act Four: Wannabes Four

Producer Ben Calhoun gets on the road with presidential hopeful Andrew Yang as he bestows free money on an Iowa family to make a point.

Act Five: Wannabes Five

Producer Zoe Chace and Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel spin through some greatest hits of their weekend in Iowa once more, and Weigel reflects on what’s about to come next in the presidential race.