The midterms show Trump does not defy political gravity

… It turns out that Trump does not walk on political water. He does not defy political gravity. This is very bad news for him heading into the 2020 campaign. Trump was elected President with the worst favorable rating ever. This led many to speculate that traditional measures of gauging […] Read more »

People Are Changing Their Views On Race And Gender Issues To Match Their Party

… A huge body of research has shown that voters were more divided by race and gender views in the 2016 election than they were in previous elections. But it turns out that rather than voters supporting the party that best represents their views about race and gender, the effect […] Read more »

How the polls could have caught ‘surprise’ victories like Trump’s

Many pollsters have been asked to explain why they didn’t better predict the 2016 election. 3dfoto/shutterstock.com Fred Wright, North Carolina State University The election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency surprised almost everyone, including apparently Trump himself. On the morning after the 2016 election, my teenage son made snarky […] Read more »

Far From Settled: Varied and Changing Attitudes on Immigration in America

On no issue have the political dynamics changed more in the last few years than on the issue of immigration. A country seemingly on the cusp of immigration reform early in President Barack Obama’s second term in the next presidential contest elected Donald Trump, whose anti-immigration positions were central to […] Read more »

Trump Campaign Aide Requested Online Manipulation Plans From Israeli Intelligence Firm

A top Trump campaign official requested proposals in 2016 from an Israeli company to create fake online identities, to use social media manipulation and to gather intelligence to help defeat Republican primary race opponents and Hillary Clinton, according to interviews and copies of the proposals. The Trump campaign’s interest in […] Read more »

Five myths about the 2016 election

The 2016 election is nearly two years behind us, but debates continue to rage over what lifted Donald Trump to a victory that surprised so many political observers. All elections generate narratives that try to explain the outcome, but often those do not square with polling and other political science […] Read more »