… In 46 states and the District of Columbia, President Obama did worse in 2012 than he did in 2008, winning by less or losing by more. The vote in most counties, too, shifted to the political right. But separating out the national political environment from more fundamental and potentially […] Read more »
In Wyoming, Conservatives Feeling Left Behind
By now, voters here are over the initial shock. The ranchers, businessmen and farmers across this deep-red state who knew, just knew that Americans would never re-elect a liberal tax-and-spender president have grudgingly accepted the reality that voters did just that. But since the election, a blanket of baffled worry […] Read more »
Gallup Blew Its Presidential Polls, but Why?
Last week’s presidential election has widely been seen as a victory for pollsters who, on balance, saw President Obama as the favorite before Election Day. But that wasn’t the case for the esteemed Gallup Organization. Its polling showed Republican Mitt Romney with a significant lead among likely voters 10 days […] Read more »
The GOP’s Marriage Problem
… Exit polls show that married voters chose Mitt Romney over Barack Obama by a significant margin of 56 percent to 42 percent. But Romney lost voters unmarried voters by an even wider margin (35 percent vs. 62 percent). This marriage gap is nothing new: married folks have trended Republican […] Read more »
Hurricane Sandy’s Predictably Small Effect On The Election
In case you hadn’t heard, there was a big storm right before the election. Despite no real evidence, pundits, and even some scholars, have tried to demonstrate an effect of Hurricane Sandy on the election outcome. Is it possible that it had an effect? The likelihood that the hurricane had […] Read more »
Votamatic: Evaluating the Forecasting Model
Since June, I’ve been updating the site with election forecasts and estimates of state-level voter preferences based on a statistical model that combines historical election data with the results of hundreds of state-level opinion polls. … With the election results (mostly) tallied, it’s possible to do a detailed retrospective evaluation […] Read more »