Partisan affiliation is one of the most stable features of the modern American electorate. While individuals’ feelings toward politicians or their attitudes about policy can change quickly, partisanship is a deep-seated identity resistant to change. Within the last five years, however, we have observed a significant amount of partisan switching […] Read more »
Could Roy Moore flip deep-red Alabama to blue?
As allegations of sexual misconduct against Roy Moore multiply and polls suggest he could lose the senate race he once led by double-digits, political analysts offer one cautionary refrain: Remember, it’s Alabama and he’s a Republican. But a look at Moore’s last general election in the state shows its voters […] Read more »
Just How Many Obama 2012-Trump 2016 Voters Were There?
In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, many observers understandably focused on the numerous places that swung from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. Because many of these areas congregated in swing states within the Rust Belt and Midwest, they played a pivotal role in Trump’s victory, as shown […] Read more »
The owl of Minerva, part 2
One of the striking things about the 2016 election was that the gap between more and less educated voters became much bigger. Compared to the 2012 election, less educated voters shifted towards the Republican, more educated voters towards the Democrats. The American National Election Study asked about vote in 2012, […] Read more »
Why did Trump win? More whites — and fewer blacks — actually voted.
Why did Trump win — and Clinton lose — the 2016 U.S. presidential election? That’s been debated widely, to understate the case. Nominees include each campaign’s ground game, messaging, FBI Director James B. Comey’s last-minute letter to Congress, and defections from the “Obama coalition.” Here, we offer new data to […] Read more »
How Trump Broke the Blue Wall
President-elect Donald Trump’s success at breaking the so-called “blue wall” – those Rust Belt states that had voted for a Democrat in every election since at least 1992 – was the key to his victory. To help understand how he did this, I compared exit poll data from the last […] Read more »