There are real fears that AI will make politics more deceptive than it already is. Westend61/Getty Images David E. Clementson, University of Georgia Political campaign ads and donor solicitations have long been deceptive. In 2004, for example, U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry, a Democrat, aired an ad stating that Republican […] Read more »
Scientists’ political donations reflect polarization in academia – with implications for the public’s trust in science
Under 10% of political donations from academic scholars go to Republican causes. Douglas Rissing/iStock via Getty Images Plus Alexander Kaurov, Harvard University People who lean left politically reported an increase in trust in scientists during the COVID-19 pandemic, while those who lean right politically reported much lower levels of trust […] Read more »
How the ‘No Labels’ Gambit Could Wreck the 2024 Election
Those politics watchers—including most journalists—who are envisioning the 2024 presidential election as a contest between a Democrat (presumably President Joe Biden) and a Republican (perhaps former President Donald Trump) are missing a big part of the story. Last week brought the warning flash of a significant storm brewing for the […] Read more »
The ‘Red Wave’ Washout: How Skewed Polls Fed a False Election Narrative
… Traditional nonpartisan pollsters, after years of trial and error and tweaking of their methodologies, produced polls that largely reflected reality. But they also conducted fewer polls than in the past. That paucity allowed their accurate findings to be overwhelmed by an onrush of partisan polls in key states that […] Read more »
No, the Big Lie Hasn’t Gone Away
Key Points• An analysis of 552 Republican candidates running for Senate, House of Representatives, governor, secretary of state, and attorney general in the 2022 elections shows that close to half (221 candidates) who made statements on a spectrum from those who accepted the 2020 election outcome with reservations to those […] Read more »
How the 2022 Midterms Became a Squeaker
… How the midterms turned out so improbably was, in many ways, a function of forces beyond Democrats’ control. A Supreme Court decision that stripped away a half-century of abortion rights galvanized their base. A polarizing, unpopular and ever-present former president, Donald J. Trump, provided the type of ready-made foil […] Read more »