… History is an imperfect guide to the future, but as the presidential campaign moves into its final eight weeks, Obama and Romney may be looking to the past for inspiration and encouragement as they try to open up what has been a closely fought contest. For Romney, that past […] Read more »
Obama, Clinton Scored Back to Back Home Runs With Their Speeches
… The polls in coming days will record the bounce for Obama. But the bounce that could count most in a base election has already happened. Democrats are galvanized by the best convention in modern history—by Bill Clinton’s fiery appeal and by Barack Obama’s finely tuned and targeted acceptance address […] Read more »
This Year, a Weak Economy Is a Relative Term
… Has the economy lost some of its ability to influence politics? Not at all, says Ray C. Fair, the Yale economics professor who uses economic data to predict presidential elections. As the final stretch of the campaign begins, Professor Fair’s equations suggest that the economy is a liability for […] Read more »
The RAND Continuous 2012 Presidential Election Poll
The RAND Continuous 2012 Presidential Election Poll implements an innovative way to forecast the results of the U.S. presidential election that will be held on November 4, 2012. Its two main innovations are that respondents are asked to express the percent chance of voting for each candidate and that the […] Read more »
Closing Night of Democratic National Convention Draws 35.7 million Viewers
An estimated 35.7 million people watched the third and final night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention on Thursday, September 6. [cont.] Nielsen Read more »
Where Population Growth Matters in November
There is a tendency in politics to think of communities as static entities – or at least very slow to change. For some Pittsburgh, Pa., is still a smokestack-laden union town and Orange County, Calif., is still rock-ribbed Republican. But four years can be a long time in some places, […] Read more »