From the Right
/Politics
Trump Gains Among Nonwhite People: Historical Precedent and Possible Harbinger
Did anyone expect, when they heard the candidate's announcement at the base of the Trump Tower escalator in June 2015, that nine years later, he would be elected to a second term with sharp increases in Republican percentages from nonwhite people -- Latinos especially, but also Black and Asian people?
Opponents and commentators blandly call ...Read more
The Democratic Gerontocracy Forgets the Lessons of Its Youth and Maturity
Here's another way to look at why Republicans swept the 2024 elections: It's the fault, only partly, of course, of the gerontocracy of the Democratic Party. Going back through history, it's hard to find a time when a party's leadership was so far along in years. The founder presidents retired in their mid-sixties. Andrew Jackson retired at 69, ...Read more
What You Didn't Hear About on Election Night: The Other 43 States
Here are some observations on what you didn't hear on election night. Most networks' focus was, quite properly, on whether former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris would carry enough of the 93 electoral votes of the seven target states -- Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- to ...Read more
Who Will Make the Last Mistake in This Flawed Campaign?
"The only garbage I see out there is his supporters," said President Joe Biden on Tuesday evening, referencing a comedian's comment at former President Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally, as Vice President Kamala Harris delivered on the Ellipse, visible from the White House windows, what her campaign has described as her "closing ...Read more
The Democratic Party Had a Bad October!
Was it just a coincidence that Vice President Kamala Harris showed up, 15 minutes late, to be interviewed by Fox News' Bret Baier a day before Nate Silver's poll aggregation website showed her chances of winning the election slipping below 50%? Probably not.
What may link Harris' slide in the polls and her tardy appearance for an interview in ...Read more
Are Minorities Voting Increasingly Like Normies?
Not everything significant politically is happening just in the target states.
"Never seen anything like this in thirty years," said California Republican consultant Mike Madrid in an X post, referencing the sharp increase in Republican registration among California's minority voters, including the state's numerous Latinos, growing numbers of ...Read more
What the Census Can Tell Us About Swing States
Jonathan Draeger, reporter for RealClearPolitics, wrote Tuesday that "the 2024 presidential contest couldn't be tighter." Unless, of course, it turns out not to be nearly as close as this season's run of polls suggests it is.
One indication that it might not be was a New York Times-Siena poll released this week showing Donald Trump leading ...Read more
When Will Democrats Admit That the First Amendment Blocks Suppressing Politically Inconvenient Speech?
Vice presidential debates don't matter, we have been assured over and over. No one votes for vice president or a presidential nominee for her or his choice of running mate. You can go back and look at snap polls taken after past vice presidential debates and find basically zero correlation with the final election results.
All that said, the ...Read more
The Harris Campaign Might Need to Change Its Strategy
In my time as a political consultant, I observed that carrying out a campaign strategy was surprisingly simple. You settled on a basic strategy, emphasizing the candidate's strong points on issues and character, framing the election in terms favorable to most voters. Then you just carried it out.
Almost always, events would intrude -- ...Read more
Voters Don't Want Harris' or Trump's Campaign Policies
Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday's front page, has any proposals to cut the rapidly increasing national debt. Instead, both are proposing to hand out goodies to strategically positioned voters.
Harris, with an eye on polls showing young voters not as pro-...Read more
Kamala Harris Won the Debate, But Maybe Not the Election
When I was in the polling business many years ago, our reports always started with the mood of the electorate, whether things were moving in the right direction or seriously off on the wrong track, then moved to two sections on character and issues.
Usually those sections were pretty balanced. We advised candidates on which character traits and...Read more
What If Trump Runs Ahead of His Poll Numbers -- Again?
As I try to understand public opinion in yet another presidential election year with former President Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, I see an anomaly.
On one hand, the polls look very much like the 2020 and 2016 election results. Trump trails Vice President Kamala Harris by 1.9 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of ...Read more
Lots of Tumult and Little Bounce This Election Year
What if they held a tumultuous election, with an early one-sided debate, a candidate substitution and third-party withdrawal, and no voters changed their minds? Well, that's not exactly what has happened in America's 60th presidential election year, but it's not so far off, either.
The public has had a chance to watch the 43rd Republican ...Read more