As the 2020 campaign nears the final turn, journalists and analysts will be watching some places, like those that seem more likely to swing or hold important demographic groups, more closely than others for clues on how the vote may be unfolding. This week the Data Download takes a deep […] Read more »
The Relentless Shrinking of Trump’s Base
In 2016, Donald J. Trump confounded the polls in part by generating an unanticipated level of enthusiasm and turnout from a group that had grown increasingly apathetic about elections: white voters without college degrees. But in 2020, Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. face a drastically changed electorate. The […] Read more »
What Do Polls Say About the Issues on the Agenda for Tonight’s Debate?
… The Commission on Presidential Debates announced this week that it had changed the ground rules, saying it will mute each candidate’s microphone for parts of the debate. So maybe — just maybe — this debate will provide a more meaningful opportunity to hear where each candidate comes down on […] Read more »
This is Biden’s shortest path to the White House
Two weeks before Election Day, Joe Biden appears well-positioned to finish the job that Democrats above all hired him to do: Rebuild the party’s blue wall in the Rust Belt. Biden’s principal asset in the 2020 Democratic primaries was the widespread sense among party voters that he was best qualified […] Read more »
What the Rush to Confirm Amy Coney Barrett Is Really About
… Every young conservative judge that the GOP has stacked onto the federal courts amounts to a sandbag against that rising demographic wave. Trump’s nominations to the Supreme Court of Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Barrett—whom a slim majority of Republican senators appears determined to seat by Election Day—represent the […] Read more »
White Christians continue to favor Trump over Biden, but support has slipped
President Donald Trump continues to be White Christians’ preferred candidate for the November election, but support among voters in three major traditions – White Catholics, White Protestants who are not evangelical and even White evangelical Protestants – has slipped since August, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. CONT. […] Read more »