Americans divide along partisan lines over protecting special counsel

Seven in 10 Americans think President Trump should allow the Russia investigation to continue, and a slight majority think Congress should pass legislation to prevent Special Counsel Robert Mueller from being fired. Most Republicans think the president should allow the investigation to continue, but don’t support Congress passing legislation to […] Read more »

The polling miss that defines 2018 might not be the one from 2016. It may be the one from 2017.

… In 2016, one of the problems in state polls was that Trump voters turned out more heavily than many pollsters expected. In 2017, one of the problems with the polls in Virginia was that Democrats turned out more heavily than many pollsters expected. Those Democrats elected not only Northam […] Read more »

People Are Changing Their Views On Race And Gender Issues To Match Their Party

… A huge body of research has shown that voters were more divided by race and gender views in the 2016 election than they were in previous elections. But it turns out that rather than voters supporting the party that best represents their views about race and gender, the effect […] Read more »

How to win an election these days? Be the most popular unpopular option.

We like to think about electoral contests as noble engagements in which voters pick between qualified candidates. That’s the ideal, right? Two respected community leaders offering themselves for consideration, debating the issues and allowing an informed electorate to choose between them. Uh, why are you laughing? CONT. Philip Bump & […] Read more »

How the polls could have caught ‘surprise’ victories like Trump’s

Many pollsters have been asked to explain why they didn’t better predict the 2016 election. 3dfoto/shutterstock.com Fred Wright, North Carolina State University The election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency surprised almost everyone, including apparently Trump himself. On the morning after the 2016 election, my teenage son made snarky […] Read more »

Far From Settled: Varied and Changing Attitudes on Immigration in America

On no issue have the political dynamics changed more in the last few years than on the issue of immigration. A country seemingly on the cusp of immigration reform early in President Barack Obama’s second term in the next presidential contest elected Donald Trump, whose anti-immigration positions were central to […] Read more »