Farewell Ross Perot; Senate races on the fringe of the competitive map; the curious case of Justin Amash

There is a great quote from George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee and South Dakota senator: “You know, sometimes, when they say you’re ahead of your time, it’s just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.” Given how American politics has developed over […] Read more »

What We’ve Gleaned About The Democratic Primary From 6 Months Of Polls

Earlier this year, we published a three-part series on how well primary polls conducted in the calendar year before a presidential election predict the outcome. Our analysis, which covered more than 40 years of primaries, found that early polls are somewhat predictive of who eventually wins the nomination, especially when […] Read more »

What we can learn from the 2004 presidential race

Beware of reading too much into presidential polls. Take, for example, the 2004 race. An August 2003 CNN/USA Today/Gallup national survey found Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic nominee for vice president, leading the party’s presidential field with 23 percent. He was trailed by former House Majority (and Minority) […] Read more »