If it's in the News, it's in our Polls. Public opinion polling since 2003.

Political Commentary

Most Recent Releases

June 4, 2024

Virginia Turns Toward Trump By Daniel McCarthy

Donald Trump became president by flipping states no Republican nominee had won in nearly 20 years.

May 31, 2024

Why Doesn't the Biden White House Ditch Its Unpopular Border Policy? By Michael Barone

For three and a half years, the Biden White House has seemed remarkably leakproof. Even amid popular backlash to administration policies -- the spending splurge in 2021 that was followed by sharp inflation in 2022 and 2023, the changes in enforcement of immigration laws that have produced numbers of incoming illegal immigrants unmatched even in border boom periods in the 1980s and '90s, and the endorsement of policies allowing biological men to compete in women's sports -- top officials have stuck to talking points and avoided finger-pointing.

May 30, 2024

Forget the National Polls – It’s the Battleground State Polls that Count! By Brian Joondeph

Election season is well underway. President Joe Biden is mumbling and stumbling his way toward his party’s nomination for a second term, the final nail in the coffin of American greatness and exceptionalism.

White letter R on blue background
May 30, 2024

Districts of Change, Part Three: When Each District Was Most Democratic (and Most Republican) By J. Miles Coleman

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

—Using data from Dave’s Redistricting App, we are looking at when each district has leaned most Democratic and most Republican, compared to the national popular vote, since 2008.

—By this metric, Biden’s 2020 performance represented the best Democratic showing since 2008 in a plurality of districts (145 of 435).

—Though his result was less impressive in raw terms, when adjusting for the national popular vote, John McCain was the best-performing recent Republican in 143 districts, the most on the GOP side.

—Some familiar trends, such as Mitt Romney’s strength in white collar areas and Hillary Clinton’s support from Hispanics, show up when comparing district voting across the years.

May 29, 2024

Minimum Wage Folly By John Stossel

California now leads the nation in imposing dumb wage laws.

May 28, 2024

The Free-Market Populism of Javier Milei By Daniel McCarthy

   Javier Milei is a rock star.

   The president of Argentina was, in fact, in a Rolling Stones cover band as a teen.

   But now he plays stadiums -- like Buenos Aires' 8,400-capacity Luna Park -- as a political phenomenon, a charismatic cross between Donald Trump and Milton Friedman.

May 28, 2024

5 Reasons to Make the Trump Tax Cut Permanent By Stephen Moore

   No issue defines the diametrically opposite economic philosophies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump than their position on the Trump tax cuts.

Trump wants to make those tax cuts permanent; Biden has repeatedly promised to tax America back to prosperity by repealing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But there are so many factual errors swirling around regarding the Trump tax cuts that it's a wonder that the "truth screeners" on the internet haven't flagged this all as "disinformation."

May 24, 2024

Biden Not Fooling Voters on Economy By Michael Barone

If you want to explain to a puzzled, left-leaning writer like The Atlantic's Annie Lowrey why most voters this year rate the economy during former President Donald Trump's term more favorably than the economy during President Joe Biden's, you might start with a pair of simple charts.

May 22, 2024

Scaremongers By John Stossel

Have you heard about the "bee-pocalypse?" My new video explains.

May 21, 2024

Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs By Daniel McCarthy

Donald Trump's first election redrew the map of American politics; suddenly Pennsylvania and Michigan were in the Republican column for the first time since the 1980s.
But they didn't stay there: The Rust Belt states that made Trump president in 2016 sent Joe Biden to the White House in 2020.

May 17, 2024

The World's -- and the Pacific Rim's -- Disastrous Population Implosion By Michael Barone

Will the world be better off with fewer people? For years that has been a hypothetical question posed to suggest an affirmative answer. Fewer people, it was claimed, would mean less depredation of natural resources, less urban overcrowding, more room for other species to stretch their (actual or metaphorical) legs. Mankind was a parasite, a blight, and overpopulation a disease. Fewer people would mean a better Earth.

White letter R on blue background
May 16, 2024

The State Supreme Court Skirmishes By Louis Jacobson

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— State supreme court elections are often ignored by the public and the media, but they can have a dramatic impact on public policy, especially in the post-Roe v. Wade era, when abortion policy is being sent back to the states.

— Numerically, 2024 is a very big year for such elections: They will be held in 33 states. And in several of those states, ideological control of the court could shift depending on the results.

— This year, Michigan, Ohio, Montana, North Carolina, Kentucky, Arizona, and Florida will be home to some of the most consequential supreme court elections.

May 15, 2024

Censorship: A Global Pandemic By John Stossel

   "Palestine will be free!" chant the protesters. "From the river to the sea.

May 14, 2024

Biden 2.0 -- Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid By Stephen Moore

   Could a second Biden term be more injurious to the economy than his first term? It seems unimaginable given the first three years gave us 20% inflation, a $2,000 loss in average real incomes for the middle class, 6 million added illegal immigrants, a war on American energy that has caused gas prices to rise by more than 40% to $3.64 a gallon, the collapse of our many major cities, another $6 trillion added to the national debt, the unaffordability of new homes, and the chaos on college campuses.

May 14, 2024

What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum By Daniel McCarthy

   Donald Trump knows how to run a talent show.

May 10, 2024

Moving Away From the Template of 'Oppressor vs. Oppressed' By Michael Barone

The violent campus takeover by protesters -- some of them students, many not -- has had the unintended effect of discrediting the premise underlying the protest. That premise is that the world is divided between oppressors and the oppressed, and that the oppressors are always evil and their victims already virtuous.

May 10, 2024

Polls Have Been Popping for Trump By Brian Joondeph

The 2024 presidential election is less than six months away. Corporate media outlets are calling it a “tight race.” It probably is, as have been most recent presidential elections, but what do the polls say?

White letter R on blue background
May 9, 2024

Districts of Change, Part Two: Looking Beyond the Straight-Party Districts By J. Miles Coleman

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— Most districts in the House, 379 of the 435, have exclusively backed nominees from only one of the major parties in presidential elections since 2008.

— This leaves 56 districts that have voted at least once for both parties.

— Districts that backed Barack Obama twice and then did the same for Donald Trump make up the most numerous non-straight party group, and most of those districts have Republicans in Congress.

— Democrats, however, hold four of the five “bellwether” districts that have backed the winners of the last four presidential elections.

May 8, 2024

'Drain the Swamp' By John Stossel

   Presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to "drain the swamp!"

May 8, 2024

That '70s Show -- Is Biden Taking America Back to the Age of Jimmy Carter? By Stephen Moore

   Everything that is happening in our fractured nation today seems so worrisomely reminiscent of America's last lost decade -- the 1970s.