Several recent studies by political scientists show racial and ethnocentric attitudes were not only strongly related to 2008 voting behavior, but that these attitudes had a much larger influence on that year’s presidential race than they had on the all-white presidential contests of the past (see: 1, 2, 3, 4, ...
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Have the attacks on Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital had any effect on voters? Have they even gotten through to voters? In a new poll of likely South Carolina Republican primary voters released on January 20th by YouGov, nearly half (48%) of the respondents said they weren’t sure whether ...
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Now that Rick Perry has dropped out of the presidential race and the feel in South Carolina is that Gingrich may be surging (again), where are Perry supporters likely to go? How much of a role will Perry’s endorsement of Newt Gingirch play? Nate Silver, at 538.com has one take ...
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Matt Bai's piece on Sunday nicely illustrated how divided Tea Party activists are about the Republican presidential contenders. Are the findings from his interviews with activists mirrored in polling data? Yes. And this tells us something about whether and how the Tea Party will matter in 2012. In a January ...
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According to several recent studies, good-looking candidates win more often and with higher margins (1,2,3). Like his father, Mitt Romney just looks like a president. How much is that helping him? Answering that question is hard. To investigate it, I ran a simple experiment on a representative national sample. I ...
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Much has been written lately about the caustic nature of the Republican candidates for the presidential nomination. Whether we take Frank Rich’s account of the “Molotov Party” or the Economist’s more subtle nudge asking “Is the Middle Missing?” the consensus seems to be that the Republican party – at least ...
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Next month, Congress will once again face the question of how to extend a temporary payroll tax cut that has been in effect for the past year. Republicans tried their best to duck that debate—and with good reason. As long as the issue is framed in terms of how to ...
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The debate among the Republican candidates over Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital has raised again questions about whether Romney’s tenure in the “1%” will damage his campaign. The Obama team certainly welcomes this debate. After all, they have been attacking Romney along precisely these lines. The day after Mr. Romney ...
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At a Santorum event in Altoona, Iowa, Sides was approached by a man selling a book he had written: It is a retelling of The Cat in the Hat, starring Barack Obama as “The New Democrat.” The illustrations resemble the Seussian originals, although the verses differ slightly. To wit: ...
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What will happen to all those Santorum, Paul, and Gingrich supporters when the Republican party nominates Mitt Romney this summer? In Spring of 2008, droves of Hillary Clinton supporters declared that they would not, indeed could not, vote for Barack Obama in the general election. Instead, they would cast their ...
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