The antisemitic and Islamophobic fringe is alarmingly emboldened—but it’s shrinking

· Leave a Comment

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 for giving an audience to such an individual and his refusal to condemn Fuentes’ views have increased legitimate fears that such views may be widespread and spreading further, at least among a large segment of Trump’s base. Why would Donald Trump choose not to criticize Fuentes and his views? Unless he thought he might be alienating his core supporters.

As abhorrent and dangerous as such views are, there is reason to believe that they are not spreading, even as their holders have grown louder, undeterred, and more dangerous. This expectation is backed by survey data that we have tracked over several years. Trump may have elevated the voice of a white supremacist and antisemite, as he has done in the past, but there is little evidence that people with antisemitic—and Islamophobic—views have grown in number, and we have some evidence the number is actually shrinking. Our University of Maryland Critical Issues poll provides some striking findings. CONTINUED

Shibley Telhami & Stella M. Rouse, Brookings Institution

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

Trump’s GOP foes are scared. But not as much as they should be.

· Leave a Comment

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 state — and the nomination — with just a plurality of the vote.

Trump’s foes are right to fear a repeat of 2016, but they’re thinking too small. There are so many other ways the primary could turn out badly for them.

Here are four completely speculative doomsday scenarios. None of them are likely. But they illustrate how the GOP’s problems go far beyond the potential for a divided field. CONTINUED

David Byler, Washington Post

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 year of focus groups tells me this: Americans are traumatized

· Leave a Comment

“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 of groups this year alone — I’m now accustomed to voters’ pessimism. Once a client suggested we start the group by asking what was going well in the country, and participants struggled to come up with something. “Television?” one tentatively offered.

Despite their dour outlook, I still love hearing voters’ insights, their contradictions and even their jokes. …

But the role of a moderator has changed as the political environment has worsened. It’s not just pessimism — I now mediate disputes and comfort the grieving. And when voters evaluate candidates, they search for some of what they might also find in a focus group: reassurance that someone will listen to them. In this election cycle, with so much at stake, the lessons from focus groups were clearer than ever. CONTINUED

Margie Omero (GBAO), The Hill

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

In search of the perfect president: What Americans say they want, from age to gender

· Leave a Comment

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 the characteristics they found appealing in a president and the ones they said didn’t matter. In all that may be guideposts and red flags for the real people who will run or are thinking about it.

David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center, said the job posting could go something like this: “Wanted – a 51-to-65-year-old governor with business experience and willing to compromise to get things done. Military experience a bonus.” CONTINUED

Susan Page, USA Today

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

Highs and Lows of 2022

· Leave a Comment

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 it is: our much-anticipated, most momentous shifts in public opinion in the U.S. this year: CONTINUED

Mohamed Younis, Gallup

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 most underdiscussed fact of the 2022 election: how historically close it was

· Leave a Comment

… It’s not unusual for any one of these (governorships, House seats or Senate seats) to be narrowly split. After all, we’ve just had two years in which each party has held 50 Senate seats. What is unusual is to have all three be so closely divided. By my count, this is apparently the first time since the popular election of senators (1914) when neither party will hold more than 52% of governorships, House seats or Senate seats.

When you examine the vote counts from the 2022 election, the closeness becomes even more apparent. Republicans won the House popular vote by less than 3 points and would likely have won by about 2 points had both parties run candidates in every district. That would have been the second-closest midterm margin in the House popular vote in the last 70 years. The popular vote margins in governor’s and Senate races this year were even closer. CONTINUED

Harry Enten, CNN

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