Royal Blue Hawaii and Ruby Red Kansas are two of the most predictable states in presidential and Senate elections. Yet both states have incumbent governors from the dominant parties who are fighting for their political lives. What gives? The 2014 gubernatorial map features a number of fascinating races, some of […] Read more »
Crist And Scott Could Make History by Being so Unpopular in Florida
While the national political scene has decayed into polarized stagnation, Americans’ views of state governments have remained mostly positive. That’s probably part of the reason why governors seem to have an advantage when running for president. Yet in Florida, home to one of the nation’s marquee gubernatorial races, Democrat Charlie […] Read more »
Explaining Online Panels and the 2014 Midterms
A deluge of cheap partisan polls has swamped a shrinking number of high-quality, nonpartisan surveys, making it hard to know who is really ahead in many political campaigns. The solution? More nonpartisan surveys. On Sunday, the research firm YouGov, in partnership with The New York Times and CBS News, released […] Read more »
Rick Perry Revisited
A piece this Sunday on Texas Gov. Rick Perry in The Des Moines Register by the paper’s top political reporter, Jennifer Jacobs, caught my eye. Jacobs’s observations about seeing Perry on the stump in Iowa in recent days matched my impressions from a meeting with him last month. Jacobs observed […] Read more »
Governors’ Races Are Close, But There’s More Upside For Democrats
Early polls have historically done fairly well in predicting the the outcome of governors’ races. We can add bells and whistles to improve the forecast — and we will — but the polls are a good start and a good baseline. So, let’s check out what the early gubernatorial polls […] Read more »
Christie’s Challenge: A Third of Iowa Republicans Dislike Him
As New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie heads to Iowa Thursday, prompting another round of talk about his presidential ambitions, he faces a 2016 obstacle maybe as daunting as the “Bridge-gate” scandal rocking his administration: A sizable number of Republican voters there dislike him. A third of Republicans in Iowa (33 […] Read more »