President Donald Trump’s political strategy can be summed up in a simple phrase: It’s all about that base. He has shown little eagerness to reach out to the center, and he’s generally received strong support from Republicans. That’s why it’s perhaps surprising that Republican voters and lawmakers have been disagreeing […] Read more »
Believe the Polls This Time
… I am a pollster who works to get Democrats elected. Four years ago I, too, believed—based on public polling and information from the Clinton campaign itself—that our candidate was going to win. I still didn’t take victory for granted. I wanted to win down ballot so Democrats would make […] Read more »
2020’s biggest difference with 2016: Trump loses the honesty debate
President Donald Trump was able to win in 2016 because he was seen as the lesser of two evils. His victory came from the voters who didn’t like either candidate. A large part of that came from the belief that voters saw neither one as honest. Trump’s matchup with former […] Read more »
The Trump campaign has a new effort to rebut his lousy poll numbers. It’s not good.
In the vernacular of political communications, a memo is essentially an attempt to nerd up a news release. Sometimes campaigns create memos meant to be leaked, increasing the chances that a reporter will pick up the story. Often, though, campaign memos serve as short-form white papers, aimed at impressing reporters […] Read more »
Enthusiasm and Unity Update, Polling Methodology
This memorandum lays out two important sets of facts as we head toward the home stretch of the 2020 campaign for president. First, there is clear and irrefutable evidence that Joe Biden’s candidacy has a decided lack of enthusiastic support as compared to President Trump. Second, the public polling on […] Read more »
‘Trump’s getting into underdog territory’
538’s Nate Silver on whether he thinks President Trump should worry about recent polls. This Week, ABC News The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack Read more »