It’s been 6 years since our mentor, colleague, and friend’s death. Warren Mitofsky was a clear thinker and major innovator of the public polling community. Beyond his methodological rigor, he communicated long-lasting, yet, simple messages to the profession. His thoughts remain vital through the 2012 election cycle. Despite this year’s […] Read more »
Improved feelings about direction of U.S. boosted voter confidence in Obama
Despite talk of Mitt Romney’s momentum in the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Barack Obama cruised to a wide Electoral Vote victory and his popular-vote margin wound up closely mirroring George W. Bush’s 2004 victory. In fact, voter confidence in the president consistently improved as Election Day neared and […] Read more »
Frank Newport: Gallup’s election polling was sound
Gallup’s publicly released election polling has been the object of review and scrutiny this year, as has always been the case since Gallup first published pre-election polls in the 1936 election. [cont.] Frank Newport, Gallup (Omaha World-Herald) Read more »
For Latino Groups, Grass-Roots Efforts Paid Off in Higher Number of Voters
On Election Day, President Obama got 71 percent of the Latino vote nationally because, in the end, Latinos preferred his message over Mitt Romney’s. But how Latinos got that message — the relentless call to register, to vote, to participate — was as important as the message itself: Hispanic television […] Read more »
The New Electoral Math, and What It Means for Polling
While the debate rages over whether the GOP should view this as a message problem, a messenger problem, or a math problem, I wanted to take this blog post to underscore the challenge facing us from a math perspective – i.e. why it is important that we work hard to […] Read more »
Young Voters Supported Obama Less, But May Have Mattered More
In winning reelection, Barack Obama won 60% of the vote among those younger than 30. That was down somewhat from 2008, when Obama won nearly two-thirds (66%) of the votes of young people. However, Obama’s youth support may have been an even more important factor in his victory this year […] Read more »