John Sides

There will be much speculation on what this means for the outcome of the 2012 presidential election.  What will make such speculation even minimally informed and worth paying attention to?  Here’s a guide. The president’s announcement could affect voters in one or more of three ways: 1) Changing how they feel about gay marriage itself—perhaps […]

I tackle that question in a new post at 538.  The analysis involves constructing a model of presidential approval from 1948-2008 and forecasting values for Obama.  On average he is about 9 points more popular than the model would predict.  Out-of-sample predictions for Obama and past presidents are here (click to enlarge): Among these presidents, […]

Apropos of Romney’s “even Jimmy Carter” remark, from a January 2011 CNN poll: From what you have heard, read or  remember about some of our past presidents, please tell me if you  approve or disapprove of the way each of the following handled their  job as president: Jimmy Carter?” Carter’s approval rating wasn’t all that […]

Guy Lodge and Sarah Birch: Increasing electoral turnout is not just a nice idea, it is something we must actively strive for if elections are to serve the needs of all citizens….So how can we increase rates of electoral participation, particularly among ‘hard-to-reach’ groups such as the young and the poor? …by far the most […]

A la the Murray Hill campaign in 2010, another business is running for office: Farmscape.  Their site is here.  “Bio” is above.  Here is video from when they registered the company to vote. [Cross-posted at The Monkey Cage]

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 blame for the weak economy. […]

Steve Pearlstein: There is a vigorous academic debate over whether negative advertising depresses or increases voter turnout. I suspect it does both, depressing turnout among moderates and independents while stimulating it at the ideological extremes. In that process, what has changed is the composition of the turnout rather than its overall level. From the Lau, […]

Molly Ball asks whether Obama is “in trouble with young voters.”  She draws on a March poll of young people that finds a 7-point difference between Obama and a generic Republican, a much smaller margin than between Obama and McCain in 2008.   After acknowledging the shortcomings of the poll (e.g., no Obama-Romney match-up), she writes: […]

Following on this post, here is a tidbit from a new poll: Romney’s seen a massive improvement in his personal favorability numbers over the last 2 months as GOP voters have unified around him. He’s gone from a -28 spread (29/57) up to a -12 one (39/51). Most of the improvement has come with Republicans, […]

Republicans are largely of the view that presidents can do a lot about gas prices, while Democrats are convinced market prices are beyond the power of presidents to control. Or so it is in 2012. In May 2006, when the CBS News Poll asked this exact question as gas prices spiked during the Bush administration, […]