Assume, for the moment, that next year’s midterm elections go exactly like this year’s special and general elections. What would happen? The Democrats would post sweeping gains. They would win the House national popular vote, probably by a wide margin. But the battle for House control would be close. The […] Read more »
Politics & Polls podcast: The Day the Donkey Roared
Democrats triumphed in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races Nov. 7, which some say is a strong rebuke to Republican President Donald Trump. Are the democratic victories a predictor of what’s to come in the midterm results next year? Joining this episode are Larry Sabato and Geoffrey Skelley of […] Read more »
Ralph Northam’s win tells Democrats they shouldn’t fear the gun lobby
After Ralph Northam’s lopsided victory in Virginia, it’s time to rethink a long-held political axiom: Democrats lose when they campaign on stronger gun laws. Conventional wisdom on gun policy holds that despite widespread public support for common-sense gun safety measure, the only people who actually vote on the issue are […] Read more »
GOP tax plans could fuel the suburban revolt against Trump
After a suburban firestorm in last week’s elections, House Speaker Paul Ryan is now asking his Republican members from suburbia to put out the fire with gasoline In the House of Representatives, Republicans representing white-collar districts were understandably unnerved by a roaring backlash against President Donald Trump in last week’s […] Read more »
How Democrats Can Extend the Winning Streak Into 2018
After a year of self-flagellation and angst, Democrats finally got some good news last week. But they shouldn’t get carried away: They also got some bad news. First the bad news: Rural America still really dislikes Democrats. But that wasn’t a surprise. The good news came in increasingly affluent and […] Read more »
Trump won, and Northam crushed Gillespie. Why believe polls ever again?
Back in 1962, Elmo Roper, a pioneer in public opinion polling, identified a problem in his field. “A preference for certainty over doubt, for the plausible over the proved, for drama over accuracy, for hunch and intuition over the hard-to-assemble facts, is a common human tendency,” he wrote. Fifty-five years […] Read more »