Donald Trump’s surge in the polls has followed the classic pattern of a media-driven surge. Now it will follow the classic pattern of a party-backed collapse. Mr. Trump’s candidacy probably reached an inflection point on Saturday after he essentially criticized John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War. Republican […] Read more »
Taking Stock: The Political Environment in the Summer Before an Open-Seat Election
In July 2007, as candidates on both sides of the political aisle jockeyed for position in the forthcoming open-seat presidential election, the Republican Party was facing an election environment headlined by a president from their party with a 29% job approval rating. Today, 16 months before the 2016 open-seat presidential […] Read more »
Ted Cruz Says Obama Won Because Evangelicals Stayed Home. Is That True?
Texas Senator Ted Cruz gave his audience at Liberty University on Monday one concrete-sounding reason why he could win the presidency. Too many evangelical Christians, he said, were “staying home” and handing presidential elections to Democrats. … This isn’t just one senator’s theory. The fear that evangelical voters are staying […] Read more »
A reminder on Iraq: Nearly six in 10 said war wasn’t worth it
Last week, al Qaeda fighters took over Fallujah, which in 2004 was the bloodiest battle for the U.S. military. That development allowed critics to charge that those American deaths are now in vain after the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. … But here’s a reality check: The American public already gave […] Read more »
When campaigning backfires: Did a pro-Obama canvass produce McCain supporters?
In the aftermath of the 2012 election, one rare point of bipartisan agreement has been about campaign tactics: Obama had a significant edge in the ground game, many agree. One piece of evidence for that claim was the Obama campaign’s almost three-to-one advantage in its number of field offices. Still, […] Read more »
Is it really the GOP’s anti-immigration stances that turn off Latinos?
Pundits left and right have embraced the notion that the Republican Party has a strong political interest in passing comprehensive immigration reform. As the argument goes, the GOP lost a good shot at the presidency in 2012 because of a pro-Obama shift among Latino voters, which itself was a reaction […] Read more »