Beyond speeches and platform votes, last week’s Republican Convention had an important purpose: to redirect the national conversation to problems voters face every day: fewer jobs, lower wages, rising energy costs, and the prospect that our children’s future is being sold away to pay for the present. The US National Debt clock was on prominent display, which has now approached a staggering $16 Trillion. According | Read More »
Impact of the Convention The Convention has created large numbers of positive impressions of Romney but this effect is being somewhat offset by highly negative information elsewhere Convention Watchers: 67% more favorable rating 33% less favorable Nightly news watchers: 28% more favorable rating 72% less favorable Favorite Speech A plurality of likely voters in key swing states who have been paying attention to the convention | Read More »
Earlier this week, the Obama campaign released its map of battleground states. According to the campaign Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Colorado are all toss-up territory. But the Obama campaign isn’t the only one with a hypothesis about the map. Over at the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog, Nate Silver has a simulation model that seems to suggest fewer states are in the “nearly | Read More »
To: WPA Research Clients and Friends From: Chris Wilson, Chris Perkins, Bryon Allen Subject: Positioning on Gay Marriage Date: May 14, 2012 Recently a Republican pollster released an analysis suggesting that Republicans should not only stop using gay marriage as a campaign issue, but went so far as to argue conservatives should change | Read More »
Asked at any point before May 1st of last year, the question above would have been ridiculous. Outside of liberal intellectuals and college students, whose idea of “restoring America’s reputation in the world” is something on the order of “surrender and tell the bad guys you want to be friends,” few would have credited the early part of the Obama Administration as a foreign policy | Read More »
It is now less than 11 months until American voters will pick our next (and hopefully new) President. While most of the stories you’ll read are, rightly, about the Republican nominating contests, the fundamentals of the general elections are taking shape around us every day and worth an examination. So let’s take a look at a few key measures—some of which apply to any incumbent, | Read More »
The early November statewide elections in Kentucky and West Virginia were something of a yawn compared to the excitement of 2009 where big Republican wins in Virginia and New Jersey presaged the 2010 wave that swept Republicans into a dominant position in the House and in states nationwide. In Kentucky, Republican nominee David Williams was never really a threat to Steve Beshear. In West Virginia | Read More »
John Sides had an interesting piece in the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog earlier this month. The full piece is well worth a read for anyone serious about understanding the latest political science research on campaign advertising. Here are links to part one and part two. Sides is a widely published political scientist and the co-founder of one of my daily must-read blogs, The Monkey | Read More »
Almost any embattled President facing re-election is sure to stir rumors of a primary challenge. Of the past five Presidents before Obama we have seen two face either serious or at least rumored serious primary challenges. Jimmy Carter in 1979 saw Democratic legend Ted Kennedy launch a primary challenge that at least one commentator thinks came within one major event—either the Iran hostage crisis or | Read More »
Recent post debate polling shows Texas Governor Rick Perry maintaining his lead in the race to capture the Republican nomination for president. Despite attacks by opponents and Washington insiders, Governor Perry has not seen a significant drop in his numbers. Perry continues to lead the field with 28% of the vote while his closest competitor, Mitt Romney, trails by seven points with 21%. Since experiencing | Read More »
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