Confidence has waned in the United States since President Obama’s historic election four years ago, but most Americans are still optimistic about the next four years as the president heads into his second term, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. … Majorities of Americans still say they think Obama will […] Read more »
Pre-Election Polls Got it Wrong in Florida
Identified as a “Latino Influence” state due to having a large and growing Latino electorate with an otherwise competitive electorate, Florida’s prized electoral voters hinged largely on how Latinos would vote in 2012. In the weeks immediately before the 2012 election, there was a great deal of speculation about whether […] Read more »
Why The Signal won the election forecasting game
There are two questions to ask when evaluating a political prediction, whether it’s from Nate Silver, a pollster, an academic or your favorite Yahoo News predictions blog: A) How useful was the prediction the day before the election? B) How useful was the prediction the day after the election? [cont.] […] Read more »
The Role of the Rising American Electorate in the 2012 Election
Barack Obama won because he recognized a New America. The President managed only 39 percent of the white vote, the lowest white percentage recorded for a winning national candidate, and suffered a 12-point swing against him among independent voters, but won both the popular vote and an Electoral College landslide […] Read more »
Misreading Election 2012
Postelection talk of “lessons learned” is often exaggerated and misleading, and so it is in 2012. A week after President Obama won re-election, two themes are dominant. First, that Mr. Obama kept his job because key elements of his base—notably young people, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans—turned out for him. Second, […] Read more »
Americans Urge Congress, the President to Avoid Fiscal Cliff
More than eight in 10 Americans say it is extremely or very important for Congress and President Obama to agree on a plan so that the automatic budget cuts and tax increases of the “fiscal cliff” do not occur on Jan. 1. [cont.] Frank Newport, Gallup Read more »