President-elect Joe Biden has committed more explicitly than any nominee before him to dramatic steps against the climate crisis, but he faces the same geographic puzzle that has precluded congressional action on the challenge for years. Although Biden won the popular vote by a margin well over 5 million and […] Read more »
It’s important to ask why 2020 polls were off. It’s more important to ask what will happen next.
… Polling isn’t built to be an instrument that correctly identifies the winner in a race that comes down to one or two percentage points. It’s meant to roughly evaluate the views of a population with predictable margins of error. Those margins are reduced when polls are averaged, but we […] Read more »
A country in a whole lot of trouble
… The America of the ’40s and ’50s is disappearing, but those who want to hang on to that era — including older whites and their (mostly male) offspring — are not letting it go without a fight. Yes, there have been economic changes that have hurt working-class whites and […] Read more »
The Big Question: How Do You Make Polls More Accurate?
Frank Wilkinson: You’ve conducted the famed Iowa Poll, published by the Des Moines Register and rated A+ by FiveThirtyEight, since the 1990s. It’s an Iowa institution. … I actually received an email this week from someone whom I respect a great deal that included the phrase, “polling is broken.” Is […] Read more »
How House Republicans won over Biden voters
Since Election Day, there’s been heated debate over whether the results underscored our country’s rampant tribalism, or efforts to win over persuadable voters in the middle actually worked. The short answer is both. President-elect Joe Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton by a small but critical margin in key battleground states, improving […] Read more »
How The 2020 Election Has Changed Trust In U.S. Democracy
NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Brendan Nyhan, professor of government at Dartmouth College, about the erosion of democratic norms as some dispute the 2020 election results. NPR News The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack Read more »