The Culture War and the Jobs Crisis

… Throughout much of the period of conservative domination of presidential elections from 1968 to 1988 — and in terms of Congressional power from 1994 to 2006 — the Republican Party had a major election-day edge: there was far more ideological cohesion and less divisive conflict on the right than […] Read more »

What do voters really think about the economy? Three lessons from exit polls

Deep within Tuesday’s election results is some surprising insight about the way Americans are thinking about the economic conditions affecting them. For all the sense of economic discontent brewing in the country, at the broadest level, their vote was for the status quo: President Obama will remain in the White […] Read more »

More Evidence that Obama’s Victory Reflects the Economic Fundamentals

If you think the “fundamentals” (and by the “fundamentals,” I mean the economy) were stacked in Mitt Romney’s favor in the 2012 presidential election, you’re not alone. You share the prevailing beliefs of many political observers. … Most versions of their explanations go something like this: the fundamentals were in […] Read more »