The Republicans’ Math Problem in Midterms and Potentially 2024

· Leave a Comment

Politics isn’t all that complicated. It’s really just math. But, as those of us who were never big fans of the subject in school can attest, sometimes math can be hard.

As I write this on Thursday, the most prominent political figure in America, Republican Kevin McCarthy, has a very big math problem. After multiple rounds of voting, the Republican leader from Bakersfield, California has been unable to find the 218 votes needed to be elected speaker. …

But, argues Mike Podhorzer, the former AFL-CIO political director and progressive political strategist, Republicans’ math problem runs deeper than McCarthy’s failures to find 218 votes. He argues that since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, “we’ve discovered that Trump turns out more people on our side than theirs” in the battleground states. Before 2016, Podhorzer told me, it was Democrats who had the math problem. Midterm elections had been dominated by a whiter, more conservative electorate. Trump’s win in 2016, however, added a new tranche of voters to the electorate. CONTINUED

Amy Walter, Cook Political Report with Amy Walter

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Biden’s Blue-Collar Bet

· Leave a Comment

When President Joe Biden visited Kentucky yesterday to tout a new bridge project, most media attention focused on his embrace of bipartisanship. And indeed Biden, against the backdrop of the GOP chaos in the House of Representatives, signaled how aggressively he would claim that reach-across-the-aisle mantle. He appeared onstage with not only Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, but also GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, a perennial bête noire for Democrats.

But Biden also touched on another theme that will likely become an even more central component of his economic and political strategy over the next two years: He repeatedly noted how many of the jobs created by his economic agenda are not expected to require a four-year college degree. Throughout his presidency, with little media attention, Biden has consistently stressed this point. …

Although Biden also supports an ambitious assortment of initiatives to expand access to higher education, he has placed relatively more emphasis than his predecessors did on improving conditions for workers in jobs that don’t require advanced credentials. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

The Political Profile of McCarthy’s Detractors

· Leave a Comment

Key Points
• This article is being published following the adjournment of the House on the afternoon of Wednesday, Jan. 4 after the body failed to elect a speaker on 6 roll call votes held Tuesday and Wednesday. The House was scheduled to return at 8 p.m. eastern on Wednesday.
• The 21 Republicans who did not vote for Kevin McCarthy on every roll call generally, but not exclusively, come from uncompetitive districts. They almost all appear to have at least some connection to the House Freedom Caucus, the group of hardline conservatives.
• Some recent choices by GOP electorates helped strengthen what would become this anti-McCarthy coalition.
• The longer this goes on, the more need there may be for a creative solution, like we saw in Pennsylvania’s state House speaker election on Tuesday. CONTINUED

Kyle Kondik, Sabato’s Crystal Ball

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

A Thermostatic Model of Congressional Elections

· Leave a Comment

Congressional elections often are considered a referendum on presidents. Popular presidential candidates produce coattails in presidential election years and can limit voters’ typical desires for partisan balancing in midterms. But the president’s party tends to lose congressional seats and vote share in midterms even with high popularity. We argue that congressional results partially reflect the degree to which presidents pursue (and accomplish) liberal or conservative policies. The president’s party tends to overshoot voters’ desires for liberal or conservative parties, especially in midterms. This moves voters in the opposite ideological direction and disproportionately stimulates opposition party engagement, leading to opposition gains. CONTINUED

Matt Grossmann (Michigan State) & Christopher Wlezien (UT Austin)

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Which Senate candidates were strongest and weakest in 2022?

· Leave a Comment

Measuring the strength and weakness of candidates is a time-honored tradition in political analysis. But too often it’s too subjective. An Inside Elections metric quantifies the electoral performance of candidates, making it easier to test conventional wisdom and prevailing political narratives.

Did underwhelming nominees in key states torpedo GOP efforts to retake the Senate? Were Democratic incumbents as good as advertised? Vote Above Replacement (VAR) can help answer those questions. CONTINUED

Nathan L. Gonzales, Roll Call

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Public Opinion Roots of Election Denialism

· Leave a Comment

Although the hardest dividing line between those who accept the election of Joe Biden as legitimate is partisan, there is still variation within the Republican Party between those who accept the 2020 election and those who do not. Among those who do not accept the outcome, they differ as to why. This paper examines the public opinion antecedents of election denialism, focusing especially on the roles of Christian nationalism, conspiracism, racial resentment, and ideology. CONTINUED

Charles Stewart III, MIT

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack