Before we put all the blame on our elected officials, let’s always remember - we are very difficult to represent within the two-party framework.
It's the Data, Stupid
Gun Control By the Numbers
Americans are Ready to Get Serious on Campus Sexual Assault
The prosecution recommended a six-year sentence, but Brock Turner, the star swimmer at Stanford University got just six months. The recent national discourse around this case seems to show we have come a long way in terms of openly recognizing and addressing the problem of campus sexual assault. But it’s cases like Turner’s that remind us just how much more needs be done.
The Small Accomplishment of a Big Turnout
The Past Ten Presidential Elections In Today's Electorate
If the electorates in presidential cycles going back to the 1976 election (the year detailed exit polls are available) looked as the electorate did in 2012, what would the previous results look like? Our hypothesis is that if the Democrats would have won every election (or most), then the gains for Democrats (or the losses for the GOP) are purely demographic in nature, and if not, then there is an additional factor or factors pushing the current advantage.
Trendency vs. 538, Explained
The rise in popularity of public polling during the last few campaign cycles has driven a more data-centric approach of politics. Here, we analyze the methodological difference between our research platform, Trendency, and Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, with a focus on determining the outcomes of presidential primaries.
The Advocacy Gap: Research for Better Advocacy
In collaboration with Englin Consulting, we surveyed nearly 4,000 activists from eight different nonprofit organizations with active advocacy programs about how they participate in advocacy, what they think is most effective at moving the needle on policy they care about, and how they feel about their advocacy experiences.
Concurrently, we conducted off the record in-depth interviews with current and former senior Hill staff from both sides of the aisle and both houses of Congress. We asked about how various advocacy tactics were received, the best ways to get attention for an issue on the Hill, how their offices dealt with different types of constituent communications, and their best advice for people running advocacy programs.
What emerged was a fascinating picture of what we have dubbed the “Advocacy Gap,” a disconnect between how activists mobilize and how Hill staff say they should mobilize to move a policy issue.
Read the full report here.
Changing Demographics and Its Effects on the State and National Level
The newest iteration of our projections memo on how demographic trends in the US will affect the Presidential race includes a new section on the impact that these shifts will have on U.S. Senate races and includes breakouts of the projected outcomes in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Texas. These states will experience the greatest shifts, and gaining minority support within them will be essential for both parties in the elections to come. We also look at different potential strategies and demographic coalitions that Republicans and Democrats can use in these states to win the majority.
Read the full memo here.