Conventional wisdom holds that Trump won the 2016 election by appealing to voters left behind in Obama’s economy and may win re-election based on a stronger economy in 2020. But new research casts doubt on both stories. Sean Freeder finds that the effect of economic performance on the president’s re-election […] Read more »
Who supports animal rights? Here’s what we found.
… To explain the individual variation in respect for animal rights, we drew on survey data collected by the General Social Survey (GSS) in 1993, 1994 and 2008 from roughly 1,500 Americans. The GSS asked questions both about support for animal rights and human rights, as well as a host […] Read more »
Surprise! Most Republicans and Democrats identify more with their own party than against the other party.
… Many observers now regularly argue that, as Thomas Edsall of the New York Times puts it, what motivates partisan voters is loathing rather than loyalty. For decades, many have treated elections as a choice between the lesser of two evils. And, to be sure, a great deal of outstanding […] Read more »
The 2020 Congressional Elections: A Very Early Forecast
… In order to assess the outlook for the 2020 House and Senate elections, I used a forecasting model that provides fairly accurate predictions of seat swing based on four factors: the number of seats currently held by the president’s party, the president’s net approval rating in late August or […] Read more »
The Democratic Party Is Actually Three Parties
Democratic Party voters are split. Its most progressive wing, which is supportive of contentious policies on immigration, health care and other issues, is, in the context of the party’s electorate, disproportionately white. So is the party’s middle group of “somewhat liberal” voters. Its more moderate wing, which is pressing bread-and-butter […] Read more »
White Anxiety, and a President Ready to Address It
Two forces convulsing American politics found each other at President Trump’s rally in North Carolina this week: a sense of anxiety among white voters about their standing in a country that is growing more diverse, and a politician intent on stoking those worries. … More than anything else, the rising […] Read more »