President Biden will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday to a deeply pessimistic nation, one that largely sees the economy worsening under his watch, disapproves of his leadership on key issues and currently prefers that Republicans control Congress after the November elections, according to a Washington Post-ABC […] Read more »
Joe Biden Can’t Even Wag the Dog
Our most recent national poll of 1,000 likely voters was completed on the cusp of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just as President Biden was trying to publicly face down Vladimir Putin and rally the world to oppose the invasion. Normally, at times of crisis the American public rallies to support […] Read more »
Are the 2022 midterms a done deal?
Mid-term season is upon us. All signs point to it going well for the GOP; in fact, our preliminary forecast gives Democrats just a one in ten chance of retaining control of both the Senate and the House. The big question is less “Will the Republicans win,” but, “How much […] Read more »
Foreign Policy Unlikely To Save Democrats in the Fall
… While we don’t know the trajectory that the Russia/Ukraine crisis will take, and there are many factors that can impact on midterm elections, we do know that in the absence of a large number of U.S. military deaths, Americans rarely vote on foreign-policy issues, particularly in midterms. The state […] Read more »
Redistricting and Competition in Congressional Elections
Key Points• Based on presidential voting patterns, a much larger proportion of U.S. House districts strongly favor one party and a much smaller proportion are closely divided than 50 years ago.• However, gerrymandering is not the major reason for this trend. Partisan polarization has increased dramatically in U.S. states and […] Read more »
Moderates or extremists?
… Replicating similar results in other research, Stanford’s Andrew Hall found, “When an extremist … wins a ‘coin-flip’ election over a more moderate candidate, the party’s general-election vote share decreases on average by approximately 9–13 percentage points.” While some argue the benefits of moderation have declined in recent years, I […] Read more »