Earlier I suggested that anyone writing about the electoral implications of Obama's support of gay marriage needed to think rigorously about some key questions. This is in lieu of flabby statements about how Obama's endorsement "could" lead "some voters" in "key battleground states" to "reconsider" their support for him. Etc. The upshot ...
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After the 2008 presidential election, we published an article with evidence that Barack Obama’s margin of victory was reduced by racially intolerant voters. In particular, we found that the negative effects of economic decline on support for the party in power (the Republicans) were blunted by racial attitudes, which saw ...
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John Sides recently highlighted polling conducted by Gallup and PPP, which shows a growing polarization of Romney evaluations by party identification since he became the presumptive Republican nominee for president. These results would seem to confirm a very long line of political science research suggesting that campaigns activate predispositions like ...
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In a recent New York Times article, Thomas Edsall documents the extent to which Democrats and Republicans differ not only in their political views, but also their day-to-day lifestyles—the cars they drive, the restaurants they frequent, and even the beers they drink. But do these differences reflect politically-motivated consumer decisions? ...
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The economy seems to be weakening, and Republicans are eager to blame Obama. This is by-the-books political messaging: the party opposing the incumbent president should talk about the economy when its weak. But the success of the attack, as Steve Kornacki notes, may depend on whether Obama really gets the ...
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Religion may divide the major political parties, but just how deep do these divisions go? In a recent YouGov survey, we seized the opportunity to find out how people spent Easter by asking respondents what they did to celebrate the holiday. How different are the religious lives of Democrats and ...
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Tragedies inevitably raise political questions. Politics, despite its tawdry reputation, is essentially a competition over matters of fundamental importance. So, when the story of the killing of Trayvon Martin made national news it is not surprising that political posturing soon followed. Ultimately, because politics are involved, any resolution to public-policy ...
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Recent policymaking history aside, common discussions of the parties suggest that there are differences in the perceived willingness of Democrats and Republicans to deal with the deficit. In light of these perceived differences, we sought to understand whether members of the public really do distinguish between the likely consequences of ...
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Jim Warren’s weekend piece in The Atlantic about an annual meeting of political scientists and the research they presented had a provocative headline (not exactly what you expect your Google Alert to turn up when it emails you about a hit to your name), but it also hinted at “word ...
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As mentioned in a previous Model Politics post, racial attitudes remain a much stronger predictor of attitudes towards Barack Obama than previous presidential candidates. Perhaps even more interesting, a series of findings by social scientists indicate that presidential vote choice isn’t the only thing that has become increasingly polarized by ...
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