In 2020, America’s three biggest problems — according to Americans — were the coronavirus pandemic, poor political leadership and race relations. Voters expressed their preferences on the first two by throwing President Trump out of the White House. The election provided little insight on racial issues, however: There is no […] Read more »
Despite the 2020 election results, you can still trust polling. Mostly.
… In 2020, polls appear to have overconfidently predicted that Joe Biden would handily defeat incumbent President Trump. While researchers are sorting out the final numbers, some observers are arguing that polling has outlived its usefulness. … But while election polling definitely has problems that need to be studied, some […] Read more »
Density as Destiny?
There were lots of mixed messages that came out of this election. Pres. Donald Trump’s divisive and polarizing style cost him the White House, but his unpopularity didn’t doom down-ballot Republicans. Trump’s attacks on Joe Biden as a secret supporter of socialism fell flat, but that didn’t insulate House Democratic […] Read more »
After Biden Win, Nation’s Republicans Fear the Economy Ahead
Optimism about the economy has taken a nosedive among Republicans. But the economy did not drive the change. The presidential election did. After President Trump’s loss to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., more than 40 percent of Republicans who were polled for The New York Times said they […] Read more »
Mired in Partisanship
… After four years of Donald Trump’s severe intellectual and emotional impairments on daily display; after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the beginning of a “racial reckoning;” after Trump fought to take health care away from millions; after majorities acknowledged Trump was a serial liar and […] Read more »
Left v. Center? Bottom-Up!
The media has been vaunting the divide between the Democrats’ left and center and how the cleavage threatens Democrats’ tenuous majority. Here, a thousand miles outside the Beltway, a lot of the conversation seems pretty obscure: Like who the “squad,” a crew of House members with a talent for press […] Read more »