Name-calling in politics grabs headlines, but voters don’t like it – and it could backfire in the 2022 midterm elections

A voter and her child cast a ballot during the midterm primary elections in Virginia in June 2022. Alex Wong/Getty Images Beth L. Fossen, Indiana University Spending on political advertising is setting records in the midterm elections. But evidence shows that negative messages might discourage voters from casting ballots altogether. […] Read more »

US politicians tweet far more misinformation than those in the UK and Germany

Good ideas/Shutterstock Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol and Jana Lasser, Graz University of Technology Politicians from mainstream parties in the UK and Germany post far fewer links to untrustworthy websites on Twitter and this has remained constant since 2016, according to our new research. By contrast, US politicians posted a […] Read more »

Winning A Cost Of Living+ Election

Democracy Corps conducted a national web survey among 2,770 registered voters from Sept. 9-15, 2022. The data include a base sample of 1,270 registered voters, with large oversamples of 500 Black voters, 500 Hispanic voters, and 500 AAPI voters. The oversample data are statistically weighted to ensure the sample’s regional, […] Read more »

DeSantis’ migrant flights point toward an ominous future of red and blue conflict

The spreading push from Republican governors to relocate undocumented immigrants into blue enclaves marks a new escalation of the red state drive to seize control of national policy from below, not only on immigration but on a broad array of domestic policies. … Taken together, all of these pieces – […] Read more »

Midterms 2022: April seems like ancient history

Less than six months ago — April, to be specific — Democrats were wringing their hands about the party’s prospects in November and Republicans were counting their chickens before their midterm eggs had hatched. … Long-term historical trends, combined with Biden’s standing in national polls, the enthusiasm gap and the […] Read more »

Democratic midterm message outperforms GOP’s message, NBC News poll finds

Beyond congressional preference, President Biden’s job rating and how the two parties fare on key issues, the new NBC News poll also tested the main Democratic vs. Republican midterm messages. And the poll found more voters preferring the Democratic message over the GOP message — without using either Biden’s name, […] Read more »