For Democrats, special elections may be preview of 2018 campaigns

Democrats are heading into the homestretch of three special elections over the next month amid a national frenzy over the investigation into the possible connections of President Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian interference in the election. Yet in all three races, Democrats have made a tactical decision not to turn […] Read more »

21st-century propaganda: A guide to interpreting and confronting the dark arts of persuasion

… The belief, or rather hope, that humankind is ultimately rational has gripped Western politics at least since Descartes, and inspired such 19th-century optimists as Thomas Jefferson and John Stuart Mill. “Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe,” Jefferson famously wrote. But in […] Read more »

5 Numbers That Say a Lot About the Election

Turnout in the 2016 presidential election, initially characterized as low, actually exceeded that of the 2012 race in which President Barack Obama won re-election. … And unsurprisingly, states that made it easier to register and vote usually experienced significantly higher turnout than states that did not. Those findings, and a […] Read more »

Bold Promises Fade to Doubts for a Trump-Linked Data Firm

Standing before political and business leaders in New York last fall, Alexander Nix promised a revolution. … Mr. Nix’s little-known firm, Cambridge Analytica, claimed to have developed something unique: “psychographic” profiles that could predict the personality and hidden political leanings of every American adult. “Of the two candidates left in the […] Read more »