Having Way Too Much Fun with Rachel Bitecofer

Please note that there’s some pretty salty language in this episode.

This is a milestone episode for us. Sherry has admired Rachel Bitecofer’s work from behind her Twitter screen for years.  When she used that same screen to ask Rachel to join us on the podcast, we were both thrilled she said yes.  

We are even more thrilled with the conversation we got to have with Rachel. Like most of us, she’s had a bumpy road to get to where she is today: a well respected political scientist, polling expert, and commentator who has appeared in the NY Times Opinion pages, on The Daily Show, and in many other publications. But it took her a while to figure it out. After following the Grateful Dead around for a while, she did find out what her “thing” was, and enrolled in a junior college, and ultimately got her Ph.D. And how did she figure it out?  She paid attention to what was fun. Lucky for us, politics was fun for her, and the rest of us are better because of it. Please listen in to Rachel’s perfectly imperfect journey, not to mention her uproariously funny sense of humor.  

As long as I get to experience life, I’m pretty happy.  ~ Rachel Bitecofer

Bio

Rachel Bitecofer. Ph.D. is a political scientist and election forecaster turned political strategist. Her interviews and analysis have been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Politico, The New Republic, Real Time with Bill Maher, CNN, MSNBC and many other prominent news sources.

Rachel was recognized for her novel theory that predicted the size of the “Blue Wave” in the 2018 midterm elections much earlier than other forecasters. She then used her methodology to anticipate that Democrats would recapture the presidency in 2020, more than a year out from the election.

Known as The Election Whisperer, Rachel “The Doc” Bitecofer offers hold-no-punches political commentary and has become a sought-after political strategist. She earned a Ph.D. in political science and international affairs from the University of Georgia.

Rachel hosts the political podcast The Cycle, on Substack and works directly with Democratic candidates and organizations, including Matters of State Strategies, as a political strategist. Rachel’s book, “Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game," co-authored with Aaron Murphy, was recently acquired by Crown Publishing and will drop in 2023.

Previously, she served as a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, a centrist think-tank in Washington, D.C., a senior advisor to The Lincoln Project, and a Lecturer in Political Science at Christopher Newport University, where she conducted and analyzed polling for the Wason Center of Public Policy.

Rachel lives in Oregon and tweets prolifically to more than 140,000 followers from @rachelbitecofer.

Website: https://thecycle.substack.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer