With two hotly contested seats on the ballot in Georgia this midterm election, four in 10 Georgians (40%) identify as independent, while the rest are closely split between Republicans (27%) and Democrats (28%). Moreover, nearly as many Georgia independents say they lean toward the Democratic Party (12%) as say they […] Read more »
Georgia Runoff Shows Just How Unusual Mississippi’s Was
The Senate runoff Tuesday in Georgia underscored just how unusual the one in Mississippi a month ago really was. Both Republican contests featured an “insider-outsider” dynamic, with veteran incumbent Thad Cochran challenged by tea party favorite Chris McDaniel in Mississippi, and 11-term Rep. Jack Kingston facing off against first-time candidate […] Read more »
Why Democrats Now Have a Shot in Georgia
In 2005 and 2006, two moderate Democratic candidates, Jim Webb and Tim Kaine, won in Virginia with large margins in the Washington suburbs. Their victories demonstrated that there was a new path to victory for Democrats, one that did not depend on winning Southern conservative Democrats, the way Mark Warner […] Read more »
Betting on a Brand When Politics Is the Family Business
Three business school professors recently set out to discover what accounts for regional differences in product choices by consumers. Although about 60 percent of it had to do with regional sales and marketing, a startling 40 percent stemmed from what they described in The American Economic Review as “persistent brand […] Read more »
When Polling Is More Like Guessing
Election analysts and forecasters depend on accurate polling. Unfortunately, there’s not much of it so far this cycle. Many of the surveys to date have been conducted by firms that use automated phone surveys and combine deficient sampling with baffling weighting practices. Nowhere is this more evident than in recent […] Read more »
Nationalization of Senate Elections Poses Challenge to Democrats in 2014
… Despite the difficult task that they face in defending so many Senate seats in Red states this year, Democrats have some hope of offsetting expected losses by taking back two seats currently held by Republicans — the Kentucky seat held by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Georgia […] Read more »