Trump Approval Highest on Terrorism, Economy

On 10 hot-button issues, President Donald Trump gets the highest approval ratings for his handling of terrorism (46%) and the economy (45%). His lowest ratings are for healthcare policy (28%) and relations with Russia (30%). Trump’s frosty relations with the news media meet with approval from 34% of U.S. adults. […] Read more »

What makes populist leaders tick? Here are 3 things we’ve learned.

… For decades, most political theories tended to assume that people were rational, which suggested that it didn’t much matter exactly who held power. Of course, psychologists have known for a long time that this assumption wasn’t always true, but it was difficult to study top decision-makers to draw general […] Read more »

Gauging Public Opinion in the Age of Trump

… In The American Commonwealth James Bryce wrote that the “appetite for ‘highly spiced’ or ‘sensational’ news, is enormous,” and journalists sometimes work in “unceasing haste.” The media, he wrote, were an “index and mirror” of public opinion. But given citizens’ current distrust in the media, and the self-selection we […] Read more »

NATO’s Image Improves on Both Sides of Atlantic

In both North America and Europe, views of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have generally improved over the past year. Today, roughly six-in-ten Americans hold a favorable opinion of the security alliance, up from just over half in 2016, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Majority support […] Read more »