Twenty percent of Americans name unemployment or jobs as the most important problem facing the country in May, up from 14% who mentioned these issues in April. Dysfunctional government (19%) and the economy in general (17%) also rank among the top problems. CONT. Rebecca Riffkin, Gallup Read more »
The Minimal Class Divide in American Politics
How deep is the class divide in American politics today? According to some scholars and pundits, it is very deep indeed. In a recent post on the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Larry Bartels of Vanderbilt University, the author of Unequal Democracy and a highly regarded public opinion scholar, presented […] Read more »
An election Democrats can win
Obamacare versus Ryanomics. That’s the battle line for 2014. It’s also a battle Democrats can win. Why? Because most Americans are pragmatists. Pragmatists believe that whatever works is right. Ideologues believe that if something is wrong, it can’t possibly work — even if it does work. That’s the Republican view […] Read more »
GOP May Reap Rewards of Obama’s Unpopularity in Midterms, Poll Finds
President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party are facing difficult political headwinds less than eight months before November’s midterm elections, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Obama’s job-approval rating has dropped to a low point of 41 percent, never a good position for the party controlling the […] Read more »
Americans Split on Obama as 69% Back Minimum Wage Hike
President Barack Obama is rebounding from record-low approval ratings as he remedies the botched rollout of his health-care website and moves past the budget standoffs of the last several years. Less than eight months before the November midterm elections, Americans are evenly split, with 48 percent approving of Obama’s job […] Read more »
Economy hijacking the agenda
… A range of issues, from education and healthcare to crime and the environment, once competed to be a top priority. But now jobs and the economy have become the black hole that draws all light to itself, leaving almost no luminescence for the other second- and third-tier concerns. The […] Read more »