Lee Banville, The University of Montana Until just about 24 hours before the polls closed, the race for Montana’s sole congressional seat seemed to be focused on health care, Donald Trump and gun rights. Republican businessman Greg Gianforte appeared to be headed for a likely victory in the race against […] Read more »
Bright Line Watch Survey Report: How is U.S. democracy doing?
From May 11-20, 2017, Bright Line Watch conducted its second expert survey of political scientists assessing the state of democracy in the United States. BLW’s first survey (Wave 1) was conducted at the outset of the Trump administration in February 2017. This report presents results from the second survey (Wave […] Read more »
The owl of Minerva, part 2
One of the striking things about the 2016 election was that the gap between more and less educated voters became much bigger. Compared to the 2012 election, less educated voters shifted towards the Republican, more educated voters towards the Democrats. The American National Election Study asked about vote in 2012, […] Read more »
Will the GOP Fall Into the Enthusiasm Gap?
Another week of crazy at the White House begets another week of talk among the political chattering class about “when the GOP base will abandon” President Trump. Recent polling suggests that’s not happening. NBC, Gallup and Survey Monkey all show Trump with approval ratings among Republicans between 82 and 88 […] Read more »
Why populism is a threat to electoral integrity
Since the earthquake of Brexit in June last year, and Trump’s victory four months later, the news has been dominated by stories about populism, including whether European elections suggest that populist support is either rising or stalled. The media has also been fascinated simultaneously by problems of electoral integrity. This […] Read more »
Black voter turnout fell in 2016, even as a record number of Americans cast ballots
A record 137.5 million Americans voted in the 2016 presidential election, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Overall voter turnout – defined as the share of adult U.S. citizens who cast ballots – was 61.4% in 2016, a share similar to 2012 but below the 63.6% who […] Read more »