President Donald Trump’s job approval rating averaged 38.4% during his first year in office — slightly more than 10 percentage points lower than any other elected president’s first-year average. Bill Clinton is the only other president who was below 50% in his first year. All others were 57% or higher, […] Read more »
Politics and Polls: Goldwater, Brexit, and The Party Decides
In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson crushed Barry Goldwater in the presidential election. Could we see another landslide like this in 2016? Or does today’s political environment make that impossible? Tune in to the first episode of “Politics and Polls” as Professors Julian E. Zelizer and Sam Wang debate this issue […] Read more »
Will Trump’s anti-Latino statements hurt the GOP?
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently worried publicly that Donald Trump’s attacks on Latinos could damage the Republican Party, saying that when the 1964 presidential nominee, Sen. Barry Goldwater, voted against the Civil Rights Act, it “did define our party, for at least African American voters, and it still does […] Read more »
A Party Divided Is a Party Defeated — Usually
The question is no longer whether the GOP will be torn apart by the 2016 nominating process but how badly hurt its presidential nominee will be and whether defeat in November will be inevitable. The answer depends on the nominee and on the ultimate extent of the divide. But there […] Read more »
Presidential job approval ratings from Ike to Obama
Perhaps no measure better captures the public’s sentiment toward the president than job approval. … We looked at Pew Research Center data going back to Bill Clinton, and Gallup data going back to Dwight Eisenhower. These ratings reflect, for example, how views of presidents have become more politically polarized, as […] Read more »
1968: Ball of Confusion
If you lived through 1968, you can’t forget it — even if you want to. It was the worst of times, a year from hell, marked by savage warfare in Vietnam, political assassinations, urban riots, and militancy of all sorts. People talked seriously about whether the United States would hold together. […] Read more »