… The lesson of the last decade in politics is not to over-interpret the results of any single election. The dominant trends in American politics were mostly reinforced yesterday: the country is increasingly polarized; the low-turnout midterm electorate benefits Republicans; the Senate will remain closely contested for the foreseeable future; […] Read more »
Voters Know Themselves Better Than the Pollsters Do
Yesterday’s elections provide further ammunition for the idea that we should pay less attention to polls of voters’ intentions, and more to polls asking them who they think will win. … Our analysis suggests that surveys of voters’ expectations were, once again, more accurate than the standard survey of voters’ […] Read more »
States Benefiting Most From Obama’s Health Law Elected Republicans
In places where the uninsured rate plummeted this year, Republicans still scored big electoral victories. Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia — states that saw substantial drops in the proportion of their residents without insurance — all elected Republican Senate candidates who oppose the Affordable Care Act. Control of the West […] Read more »
How the Faithful Voted
In the 2014 midterm elections, the Republican Party enlarged its majority in the U.S. House of Representatives with continued strong support from white evangelicals and people who attend religious services regularly. In addition, the GOP appears to have made inroads among some religious constituencies that traditionally have not been as […] Read more »
The exit polls are coming! Here’s how to read them.
It’s just about time for the speculation, “expert” opinion and analysis about what might happen in the 2014 election to come to an end. After 5 p.m. Eastern time preliminary exit poll results will start to trickle out and we’ll hear directly from actual voters about their choices and, as […] Read more »
Why Did I Vote That Way? Don’t Ask Me
When the returns from tonight’s election start to become clear, the debate is likely to turn, as it so often does, to why the American people voted the way they did. That turns out to be a very difficult question to answer, however. … As my Upshot colleague Nate Cohn […] Read more »