… In our article in Political Behavior, we reexamine the evidence for motivated learning. In a series of experiments, we presented people with tabular data from a putative study on a social policy, either gun control or raising the minimum wage. Following Kahan et al., we manipulated the congeniality of […] Read more »
Trump said the L.A.Times poll ‘did a great job. Shocking…’ Here’s what you need to know
Throughout the fall campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump and his allies loved the USC/L.A. Times “Daybreak” poll — the only major survey that consistently showed him winning. “A couple polls got it right. I must say Los Angeles Times did a great job, shocking because, you know, they did a great […] Read more »
Why Polls Differ On Trump’s Popularity
Here’s what we can say for sure: It’s unprecedented for a president to face so much opposition from the electorate so soon. Recent polls show that anywhere between 43 and 56 percent of Americans disapprove of President Trump’s job performance. Even if you take the low end of that range, […] Read more »
A basic question when reading a poll: Does it include or exclude nonvoters?
The early days of a new presidential administration produce not just a blizzard of news but a blizzard of numbers. Pollsters of all stripes race to get and report Americans’ first impressions of their new president. But, frustratingly, those reports don’t always match up as precisely as the Type A […] Read more »
Why the polling about Trump’s immigration crackdown is all over the place
On January 31, Reuters released a survey that said 49 percent of Americans approved of President Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees. Just the day before, Rasmussen, another pollster, found 57 percent of voters supported it. Then on Sunday, CBS News published a poll showing that just 45 percent […] Read more »
Are Trump’s low approval ratings ‘fake news’? I looked at the evidence.
To tell it from opinion surveys, President Trump is failing to make a good impression on the American people in his first month in office. … But can we take polls at face value in the Trump era? … Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, […] Read more »