… Asking people who they are going to vote for is one thing; understanding why is another. Polls and surveys give valuable hints, but they often fail to explain results on Election Day, let alone predict them. Now a group of researchers think that economic theory might point the way […] Read more »
Why Can’t the G.O.P. Stop Trump?
If Republican Party leaders dislike Donald J. Trump so much, why haven’t they done more to stop him? They should be able to. In “The Party Decides,” a book I wrote in 2008 with Marty Cohen, David Karol and John Zaller, we argued that the leaders of party coalitions have […] Read more »
In Iowa, Voting Science at Work
Of the two winners of the Iowa caucuses, who’s the better behavioral scientist, Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton? To judge from their campaigns’ respective “get out the vote” efforts, both politicians seem to have studied up on recent research in the field. CONT. Todd Rogers & Adan Acevedo (Harvard Kennedy […] Read more »
Everybody Loves a Winner. So What Happens if Trump Loses?
… Research shows that expectations of success are strongly associated with which candidates people support in primaries, especially among less informed voters. In this way, Mr. Trump’s initial success may have helped attract more support, creating a positive feedback dynamic that helped fuel his monthslong ascent in the polls. At […] Read more »
Debunking Donald Trump won’t work if you repeat what he got wrong
The same infographic kept appearing in my Twitter feed again and again around Thanksgiving. The graphic, originally shared by Donald Trump, showed a series of statistics about race and gun deaths in 2015, alongside an image of a dark-skinned man with a handgun. Every single one of the statistics in […] Read more »
Trump Supporters Appear To Be Misinformed, Not Uninformed
… One way to understand Trump’s longevity is to look more closely at his supporters. Trump’s backers tend to be whiter, slightly older and less educated than the average Republican voter. But perhaps more importantly, his supporters have shown signs of being misinformed. Political science research has shown that the […] Read more »