It’s hard to ignore the storm clouds gathering for Republicans looking toward the 2018 elections. Midterms are typically referenda on the incumbent president and the party in power, and Donald Trump’s job-approval ratings are lower than those for any newly elected president. Worse still, a badly divided Republican Party holds […] Read more »
Lessons From an Ineffective President
If you wanted to offer a graduate-school class in how not to be an effective president of the United States, Donald Trump could write the textbook and teach the course. The first lesson would be to cater myopically to your base, alienating those in your party who are not in […] Read more »
We Need to Move Beyond Election-Focused Polling
… In the wake of the 2016 election, which was not the massive failure in polling that many imagine but rather a misstep that exemplifies the current flaws of the system, many are asking “what is the future of polling?” Traditional polls cost a lot of money, take a lot […] Read more »
Trump will have a very hard time overcoming his approval ratings
Donald Trump’s weekly approval rating in Gallup polling last week sunk to his lowest average yet, with just 35% of adults giving him positive marks for his performance as President. He hasn’t averaged 40% approval over a full week in the Gallup daily surveys since May — and hasn’t even […] Read more »
Will the 2018 Midterms Follow Historic Patterns?
In political handicapping you often have to reconcile a conflict between macro and micro dynamics. The macro, or big-picture factors, focus on the sitting president, with his popularity highly relevant to the election outcome. The micro factors include seats and incumbents that are up for election, local political circumstances, and […] Read more »
Governors 2017-2018: The Democrats’ Complicated Path to Big Gains
A couple of weeks ago, Crystal Ball senior columnist Alan Abramowitz unveiled a model for predicting party change in next year’s gubernatorial elections. The results were rosy for Democrats: The model suggested Democrats should gain somewhere between six to nine governorships depending on the Democratic lead in House generic ballot […] Read more »