The most important and unstated ‘lesson’ of 2014

In the weeks since the elections, Democratic post-mortems have essentially focused on four main reasons for the Republican victory: the low turnout of Democratic base voters, the conservative nature of the states that were in play, the too-slowly recovering economy and/or stagnant incomes and the weak Democratic platform and messaging. […] Read more »

California the Exception in a Nation Increasingly Voting Republican

Mark DiCamillo, director of The Field Poll The 2014 midterm election saw a continuation of the electoral resurgence of the Republican Party across most of the country during the six-year period since Barack Obama was elected president. Not only did Republicans regain control of the Senate, picking up eight seats, […] Read more »

Straight-Ticket Voting Rises As Parties Polarize

The center continues to collapse in Congress. The 2014 election accelerated a trend of straight-ticket voting, the phenomenon of people voting for the same party for Congress as they did for president. With the ideological distance between Democrats and Republicans growing bigger than ever, the result is a Congress sharply […] Read more »

Why the ‘war on women’ failed in 2014

… Though it is difficult to establish a connection between campaign rhetoric and voter behavior, the 2014 version of the “war on women” may not have benefited Democrats for this key reason: Democratic campaigns mistakenly conflated abortion and government-mandated insurance coverage for birth control, even though voters view these two […] Read more »