Is Mitt Romney playing the race card on welfare reform? It was a softball question for three Democratic pollsters sitting on a National Journal panel hours before the Democratic National Convention opened Tuesday. “Yes,” replied Celinda Lake. “Yes,” said Margie Omero. “Yes,” echoed John Anzalone. But for Joel Benenson, President […] Read more »
Obama in a Word: From ‘Inexperienced’ and ‘Change’ to ‘Good’ and ‘Trying’
Four years ago, voters’ descriptions of Barack Obama focused on his newness on the political scene. … Today, the public’s one-word descriptions for Obama reflect the mixed views of his presidency. The top positive words are good and trying, while the most frequently used negative descriptions are failure and incompetent. […] Read more »
Obama Campaign Shared ’08 Polling With Silver
Obama’s polling analysts, [Sasha] Issenberg writes, wanted to test their internal polls against [Nate] Silver’s model. And so — in an unusual step for the closely-held campaign, and for the analyst, who was then running his own website, FiveThirtyEight.com — the Obama campaign offered Silver access to thousands of its […] Read more »
The Simple Case for Why Obama Is the Favorite
… [O]ur forecast has moved toward Barack Obama over the past several days. It now gives him about a three-in-four chance of winning the Electoral College on Nov. 6. I’ll explain a little bit more about how the model comes to that conclusion in a moment, but the intuition behind […] Read more »
Did Mitt Romney get a bounce in the polls out of the RNC?
The Republican National Convention has come and gone. Besides wondering whether Invisible Obama could be a metal, plastic or wooden chair, it has left us with the bigger question of whether or not Mitt Romney has received a bounce thanks to the convention. [cont.] Harry Enten, The Guardian Read more »
Democratic Headliners in Good Favor With Most Americans
Three of the four principal Democrats the party is showcasing this week in prime-time Democratic convention speeches in Charlotte, N.C., are generally in good favor with the majority of Americans. According to a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted prior to both parties’ conventions, former President Bill Clinton, first lady Michelle Obama, […] Read more »