Americans are not unanimously war-weary on Afghanistan

In debates on the future of the war in Afghanistan, policymakers and analysts have come to invoke it as a given that Americans want the troops to come home quickly. But does this conventional wisdom hold true? Not necessarily, based on our analysis of a number of polls on Americans’ […] Read more »

Revisiting the ‘gold standard’ of polling: new methods outperformed traditional ones in 2020

Even before 2020 polling errors became evident, analysts wondered if we could trust the polls. After the election, concerns spiked — overall errors were even larger than in 2016. Frank Luntz went so far as to declare, “the polling profession is done.” We disagree. We think polling has a strong […] Read more »

Why the popular Covid relief bill may not pay off electorally for Democrats

A new CNN/SSRS poll finds that 61% of Americans favor President Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief package. Just 37% oppose. This fits with the average polling, which almost universally shows more than 60% of Americans approved of the package. … So what the heck is the GOP seeing to make them […] Read more »

How early pandemic praise for Cuomo, Newsom and Trump disappeared

Nearly a year ago, New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that all nonessential workers in the state would have to stay home. The announcement was one of many that marked the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. From there, Cuomo’s popularity rose, just like that of his fellow politicians California […] Read more »

Why the GOP’s cancel culture pitch is good politics

This week, as congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden passed and signed into a law a popular economic relief package, Republicans had a different priority in mind: the supposed “cancellation” of children’s author Dr. Seuss. … While Democrats may mock them, the fear of cancel culture and political correctness isn’t […] Read more »