Thomas Frank’s 2004 book What’s the Matter With Kansas? ignited something of a firestorm within political science. It was attempting to explain recent trends in American politics, but its analysis wasn’t reflected in much actual data. Yet that book explains the 2016 election far better than it did the election […] Read more »
Nearly One in Five Female Clinton Voters Say Husband or Partner Didn’t Vote
A survey released today casts new light on the challenges Hillary Clinton faced in motivating her supporters in the final weeks of the election. While roughly two-thirds (66 percent) of women who voted for Clinton report their husband or partner also voted for Clinton, nearly one in five (19 percent) […] Read more »
Pollsters Probably Didn’t Talk To Enough White Voters Without College Degrees
… With Clinton’s lead in the popular vote still expanding, the national polls are going to wind up having been pretty good (they showed her winning by 3 to 4 percentage points, and she’ll eventually win by about 2 points). The state polls? Not so hot. What matters, though, is […] Read more »
Who Can Tell the Future of the Democratic Party?
Here’s a question very few people expected to be asking this year: Does the Democratic Party have a future? The defeat of Hillary Clinton has revived with new intensity the conflict between proponents of identity politics — focusing electoral attention on African-Americans, Hispanics, women and the L.G.B.T. community — and […] Read more »
Which election forecast was the most accurate? Or rather: The least wrong?
Few political observers saw Trump winning the presidential election. Afterward, some election forecasters ate crow. One actually ate a bug. But despite the inevitable lamentations — and recriminations — about election forecasts, there has been little rigorous evaluation of their performance. So we did one. CONT. Pavel Atanasov & Regina […] Read more »
In 2016’s Game of Musical Chairs, the Music Stopped at the Wrong Time for Clinton
… A tight election outcome might be said to have “100 fathers,” all of which may or may not have been decisive. … After the election, there have been several explanations offered for Trump’s surprising victory. These include Trump’s digital campaign efforts, the Clinton campaign’s neglect of the Rust Belt […] Read more »