How ‘Stop the Steal’ Captured the American Right

· Leave a Comment

… Trump had jolted American politics, probably irrevocably, by urging his supporters to see themselves as an American people distinct from the American population — a people whose particular loyalties, identities and values designated them as the nation’s true inheritors, regardless of what the ballots might have said. If this vision was enabled by his ego, which took him to places no other American president had dared to go, it was also constrained by it, limited by Trump’s inability to imagine much of anything outside himself. This was the paradox of the final, desperate act of his presidency: The hole he punched in American democracy, out of sheer self-interest, had allowed his followers to glimpse a vision of the country restored to its divinely ordained promise that lay beyond that democracy — but also beyond him. CONTINUED

Charles Homans, New York Times Magazine

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

Most Americans agree we will never fully be rid of COVID-19

· Leave a Comment

According to the latest wave of the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index, about a third of Americans report knowing someone who has been reinfected with COVID-19 in the last few weeks. Among Americans who have had or suspect they have had COVID-19 at any point since the pandemic began, more than a quarter say they have had it two or more times. Despite the rise in new cases following the emergence of the Omicron BA.5 variant, familiarity of the variant remains fairly low – and reported mask use is at its lowest point of the pandemic. CONTINUED

Ipsos

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 polls you should ignore

· Leave a Comment

Some pollsters barely wait until the ink on the ballots is dry in one election before they begin horse-race polling for the next election. Most wait a little longer, but here we are, in mid-2022, starting to see more and more 2024 primary polls.

To be clear, I am referring to polls that pit candidates against one another for either a primary or general election. I am not talking about polls on whether a person should run. Whether Democrats think President Biden should run, or whether Republicans think former President Trump should run, are interesting and valuable questions that we could reasonably expect voters to have an opinion on at this point. CONTINUED

Natalie Jackson, National Journal

Recent polls: Election 2024

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 Supreme Court is Now Operating Outside of American Public Opinion

· Leave a Comment

For more than a decade, decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court were largely in step with American public opinion on major policy issues, even as the Court’s makeup grew more conservative. Abruptly, that is no longer the case.

The Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson has garnered all the recent attention by reversing a 50-year precedent and eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion — despite the fact that a majority of Americans support abortion rights. But in fact, it is part of a larger, measurable shift in the past two years, in which the Court has consistently taken positions on major issues that are more conservative than the views of the citizens whose interests it notionally safeguards.

This analysis is not just anecdotal. In a series of surveys we have conducted of the American public over the past several years, we show that these latest rulings put the Court squarely at odds with public opinion. CONTINUED

Stephen Jessee (U. of Texas at Austin), Neil Malhotra (Stanford) & Maya Sen (Harvard), Politico Magazine

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

Red wave not likely to wash up on WA shores

· Leave a Comment

A red wave that some had forecast for Washington’s midterm elections might turn out looking more like a ripple, according to a new Crosscut/Elway poll. Even as favorability numbers sag for President Joe Biden and Gov. Jay Inslee and residents express a generally sour outlook, the poll showed Washington voters still rallying around Democrats for the coming elections.

The statewide poll of registered voters has Democrats holding a 19-point lead – 51 to 32 – in the generic ballot for Congress. A similar question for the Legislature showed 54% of those polled planned to vote for Democrats while 34% favored Republicans. CONTINUED

Joseph O’Sullivan, Crosscut

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

CNN Poll: Most voters say neither Republican nor Democratic congressional candidates have the right priorities

· Leave a Comment

Neither Republican nor Democratic candidates for Congress are seen by most voters as having the right priorities, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. The survey finds voters closely divided in their preference for this year’s midterm elections and on the potential consequences of a Republican victory. …

Economic issues are currently voters’ central concern. Nearly 7 in 10 voters (69%) currently call the economy extremely important to their congressional vote, and 67% say the same of inflation. …

Voters are evenly split on which party’s candidate they’d currently prefer in their congressional district, with 46% picking the Democrats and 46% the Republicans. That’s a modest recovery for Democrats from CNN’s May polling fielded in the days immediately following the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe, but generally on a par with generic ballot numbers from earlier in the year. CONTINUED

Ariel Edwards-Levy, 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