The 2017 elections were quite a revelation. Pretty much everywhere where the Republicans could have lost, they lost. … One must be cautious in reading too much into any one election, especially a non-federal one where electoral contests were irregularly scattered around the country. But there are some important takeaways […] Read more »
Trump won, and Northam crushed Gillespie. Why believe polls ever again?
Back in 1962, Elmo Roper, a pioneer in public opinion polling, identified a problem in his field. “A preference for certainty over doubt, for the plausible over the proved, for drama over accuracy, for hunch and intuition over the hard-to-assemble facts, is a common human tendency,” he wrote. Fifty-five years […] Read more »
Beyond Virginia: How America’s Big Counties Are Reshaping Politics
Whether they want it or not, the last year has given Americans a master class in political polarization. But the terminology commonly used to describe the peeling apart of the country’s Republican and Democratic factions — “red states and blue states,” “coastal elitists vs. flyover country” and the like — […] Read more »
Inside the Data: What the Virginia Election Results Mean for ‘18
The Democratic Party’s big wins in Virginia this week, from the governor’s race on down, have sparked intense if somewhat predictable reactions from the nation’s two major political parties. Democrats are hailing Governor-elect Ralph Northam’s win as evidence of an electorate that has turned decidedly against President Donald Trump, buoying […] Read more »
Trump dominates the GOP base. Party leaders live with the consequences.
The Republican Party has been plunged into ever more turmoil, thanks to the outcome of the off-year election in Virginia, the results of contests elsewhere around the country and an allegation of sexual misconduct against Roy Moore, the party’s candidate for Senate in Alabama. … Republicans have been dealing with […] Read more »