House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is hoping all’s well that ends well when it comes to becoming speaker of the chamber. The current minority leader and former majority leader may have thought he’d have the speakership locked up by now, but, ahead of the new Congress that begins on Tuesday, […] Read more »
The ‘Red Wave’ Washout: How Skewed Polls Fed a False Election Narrative
… Traditional nonpartisan pollsters, after years of trial and error and tweaking of their methodologies, produced polls that largely reflected reality. But they also conducted fewer polls than in the past. That paucity allowed their accurate findings to be overwhelmed by an onrush of partisan polls in key states that […] Read more »
2022’s Most Unexpected Winners and Losers
Generally, we don’t like to endorse zero-sum views of the world, but it was hard to miss the seesaw effect at play across the political landscape of 2022. So we offer for your amusement (or annoyance, depending on your political priors) 11 sets of paired winners and losers — the […] Read more »
A year of focus groups tells me this: Americans are traumatized
“Trainwreck,” “a mess,” “divided” — when I kick off every focus group to use a word to describe how the country is going, the words are always negative. “Tell me why no positive words?” I ask, even though after 25 years of moderating focus groups — and dozens of nights […] Read more »
Highs and Lows of 2022
It seems like we’ve been saying this every year since 2020, but this year felt different. From a public opinion standpoint, it’s been one with several important historical highs and lows, as well as other concerning findings on how Americans foresee their future and assess their present condition. So here […] Read more »
Same-Sex Marriage Here to Stay
Just as President Biden signed a law federally recognizing same-sex marriages, the Census released new numbers showing the most LGBTQ+ couples ever. Is this the end of a long struggle for equality or a midpoint? Then, we get in the holiday season to discuss our annual year-end poll which includes […] Read more »