Generally, we don’t like to endorse zero-sum views of the world, but it was hard to miss the seesaw effect at play across the political landscape of 2022. So we offer for your amusement (or annoyance, depending on your political priors) 11 sets of paired winners and losers — the […] Read more »
The antisemitic and Islamophobic fringe is alarmingly emboldened—but it’s shrinking
Just before Thanksgiving, the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, had dinner at his home with the self-avowed white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes, who had declared, among other outrageous utterances, that the U.S. should “be run by Catholics, not Jews.” The lack of remorse from Mr. Trump […] Read more »
Trump’s GOP foes are scared. But not as much as they should be.
Donald Trump’s Republican opponents seem worried. Many believe GOP voters are ready to move on from the former president, but we all remember the 2016 primary. In that race, Trump had roughly 35 percent of Republican voters behind him, and multiple opponents split an anti-Trump majority. Trump won state after […] Read more »
A year of focus groups tells me this: Americans are traumatized
“Trainwreck,” “a mess,” “divided” — when I kick off every focus group to use a word to describe how the country is going, the words are always negative. “Tell me why no positive words?” I ask, even though after 25 years of moderating focus groups — and dozens of nights […] Read more »
In search of the perfect president: What Americans say they want, from age to gender
What if you could pick a president to order? Let’s stipulate at the start that you can’t, that the choice in the 2024 election will be among actual human beings, not some ideal drawn in the abstract. That said, Americans in the USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll did express preferences about […] Read more »
Highs and Lows of 2022
It seems like we’ve been saying this every year since 2020, but this year felt different. From a public opinion standpoint, it’s been one with several important historical highs and lows, as well as other concerning findings on how Americans foresee their future and assess their present condition. So here […] Read more »