Mitt Romney says he is a numbers guy, but in the end he got the numbers wrong. His campaign was adamant that public polls in the swing states were mistaken. They claimed the pollsters were over-estimating the number of Democrats who would turn out on Election Day. … When anyone […] Read more »
Social science takes spotlight bow in election
Polls, and pollsters, took a star turn on this year’s election night, calling the presidential election days ahead of the outcome. … Polling expert Jon Krosnick of Stanford University called it, “a victory for survey research. The surveys accurately anticipated the election outcomes, just as they routinely have in recent […] Read more »
What went wrong? Lots.
… Pollster Neil Newhouse, whose internal polls were premised on an electorate that was D +2 or 3 rather than D +6 (leaving the candidate and the rest of the campaign stunned when Romney-Ryan lost) acknowledged that the Obama team did its job targeting 18- to 29-year-olds, whose percentage of […] Read more »
2012: The Year Changing Demographics Caught Up With Republicans
The 2012 election marks the year when the inexorable march of demographic change caught up with the Republican Party. While multiple factors led to President Obama’s reelection, none was as important as rapidly increasing demographic change in the American electorate. Mitt Romney won white voters by a landslide, 59 to […] Read more »
Christian Right Failed to Sway Voters on Issues
Christian conservatives, for more than two decades a pivotal force in American politics, are grappling with Election Day results that repudiated their influence and suggested that the cultural tide — especially on gay issues — has shifted against them. … The election results are just one indication of larger trends […] Read more »
President Obama and the white vote? No problem.
In the run-up to Tuesday’s election, there was much talk that President Obama could be headed to a historically poor showing among white voters, a result that could jeopardize his ability to win the overall popular vote. And, while Obama did lose white voters by 20 points to former Massachusetts […] Read more »