It’s Still All About COVID

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been watching focus groups. Two of those groups included independent-leaning voters who don’t align themselves strongly with either party. One other group was comprised of so-called Democratic “surge” voters; people who vote infrequently or only in presidential elections. In other words, these are […] Read more »

The Share Of U.S. Adults Willing To Get Vaccinated Ticks Up

The share of adults saying “no” to getting the COVID-19 vaccine dropped 5 percentage points in a month, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted after the Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to Pfizer’s vaccine. The survey, which was in the field from Aug. 26 through Tuesday, […] Read more »

4 takeaways about Americans’ COVID views at summer’s end

It feels like we’ve been here before. New COVID-19 infections have hit another peak, health care systems are overwhelmed by severe cases, one more school year is starting without having the pandemic under control. But unlike previous surges, the nation has access to three effective vaccines and hundreds of millions […] Read more »

UT/Texas Politics Project poll finds Texans dour and deeply divided

The latest University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll finds Texans in a dour mood colored by a resurgent COVID-19 virus, an economy recovering yet roiled by its impact, and state politics driven by increasingly entrenched and in many instances extreme partisanship, which is being accentuated by the Republican monopoly on […] Read more »

92% of college freshmen are optimistic about their lives

The pandemic, a not-so-distant recession and a politically polarized America notwithstanding, first-year college students are overwhelmingly optimistic about their future, even if they’re less confident about the direction of the country and the world, a new poll found. A whopping 92 percent of the freshmen — attending either two-year or […] Read more »