President Trump has spent much of the past two months downplaying the novel coronavirus threat. Those statements, others have noted, are dramatically different from his comments about the Ebola outbreak in 2014. Back then, Trump repeatedly played up fears of Ebola to attack President Barack Obama. His many tweets included […] Read more »
Trump Gets More Positive Ad Cover Than Obama Did at This Point in 2014 Cycle
I spent some time watching a bunch of campaign ads for candidates running for Congress, Senate and Governor. Most were from early primary states like Texas and Illinois. President Trump plays a starring role in many, if not most of them. Democratic candidates pledge “to stop Donald Trump” while Republicans […] Read more »
Why Republicans Don’t Fear a Shutdown, But Should
For many Republicans, it’s a fairly simple calculation: There was a supposedly catastrophic government shutdown in 2013 and the GOP gained 13 House seats a year later. So what’s the big deal if the government shuts down again? With another funding deadline on the horizon, selective memory loss could have […] 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 »
Ebola Fears Helped GOP in 2014 Election
Republicans fared spectacularly well in the 2014 mid-term elections, re-capturing the Senate while also making gains in state legislatures. While analysts generally attributed this success to the older, more conservative make-up of the electorate, it turns out the GOP had a secret weapon going for it: the Ebola virus. Newly […] Read more »
Learning from poll autopsies
As polls pour out of early primary states, it’s worth examining just how complex and fragile those instruments are. Recently we’ve been treated to three polling autopsies that illustrate potential pitfalls: two about Britain’s elections and one regarding our own 2014 midterms. CONT. Mark Mellman (Mellman Group), The Hill Read more »