Polls and Public Opinion

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares146 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Won by Turning Out Voters and Building a Diverse Coalition, Report Finds

      by

      A new Pew Research Center study found that 85 percent of President Trump’s 2020 supporters came out to vote for him again, a better rate than Democrats pulled off.One of the most robust studies of the 2024 election shows that President Trump’s return to the White House was powered more heavily by his ability to turn out past supporters than by winning over Democratic voters, even as he built one of the most diverse coalitions in Republican Party history.The new report, released on Thursday from Pew Research Center, offers some of the most detailed analysis yet of what actually happened last fall, in particular how infrequent voters broke for Mr. Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris.In the end, the math was simple and significant: A larger share of voters who supported Mr. Trump in the 2020 election — 85 percent — showed up to vote for him again in 2024. Ms. Harris earned the support of just 79 percent of former President Joseph R. Biden’s 2020 voters.The analysis showed that 5 percent of Mr. Biden’s voters flipped to Mr. Trump, while only 3 percent of Mr. Trump’s 2020 voters flipped to Ms. Harris.But the bigger factor was turnout: 15 percent of Mr. Biden’s voters did not vote at all in 2024, Pew found.Tony Fabrizio, who was the lead pollster for the Trump campaign, said the new report validated the campaign’s strategic successes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares124 Views

      in Elections

      Polls Underestimated Mamdani. Here’s Why It’s So Hard to Poll Primaries.

      by

      Accurately gauging support in primaries can be notoriously difficult. Pollsters face multiple challenges.Polls largely underestimated Zohran Mamdani’s support in the Democratic primary for the New York City mayor, illustrating once again just how difficult it can be to accurately poll primary elections.When polling general elections, pollsters are helped by the fact that increasing polarization has led Americans to sort neatly into their political camps, with more than 90 percent of partisans supporting their party’s candidate. But in primary elections, partisanship no longer factors into voters’ decisions in the same way. Voters’ preferences are more fluid in partisan primaries and more difficult to track over time.Primaries also tend to be much more volatile than general elections, making the timeliness of a poll more relevant. In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, nearly every Republican contender in the field took a turn as the front-runner in the polls before Donald J. Trump ultimately pulled ahead. And in the 2020 Democratic primary, Elizabeth Warren, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and Bernie Sanders ping-ponged in the polls.The New York City mayoral primary presents an additional challenge because of its use of ranked-choice voting. Pollsters took different approaches to try to mirror the process, but it is challenging to accurately simulate what voters actually experience at the ballot box.While most polls did not show Mr. Mamdani leading in the first round of balloting, they did appear to show him gaining support in the final weeks of the campaign.Polls in March and April of this year showed former Governor Andrew Cuomo ahead by 20 to 30 percentage points. Surveys conducted in May and June showed Mr. Mamdani cutting that lead down, often to single digits. And an Emerson College poll taken within a week of the election found Mr. Mamdani neck and neck in the first round and winning in the final round of voting. More

    • 88 Shares127 Views

      in Elections

      Democrats Are Getting Richer. It’s Not Helping.

      by

      There have been endless laments for the white working-class voters the Democratic Party lost over the past few decades, particularly during the 10 years of the Trump era. But detailed 2024 election analyses also make it clear that upper-income white voters have become a much more powerful force in the party than they ever were before. These upscale white voters are driving the transformation of the Democratic Party away from its role as the representative of working-class America and closer to its nascent incarnation as the party of the well-to-do.A detailed analysis of data compiled by the Cooperative Election Study shows that in 2024, 46.8 percent of white Kamala Harris voters had annual household incomes over $80,000, while 53.2 percent earned less than that. In fact, according to data analysis by Caroline Soler, a research analyst for the Cooperative Election Study, the single largest bloc of white Democratic voters in 2024 — 27.5 percent — had incomes of $120,000 or more.Along similar lines, Tom Wood, a political scientist at Ohio State University, provided The Times with figures from the American National Election Studies for 2020, the most recent year for which data is available. The numbers show that white voters in the 68th to 100th income percentiles — the top third — cast 49.05 percent of their ballots for Joe Biden and 50.95 for Donald Trump. White voters in the top 5 percent of the income distribution voted 52.9 percent for Biden and 47.1 percent for Trump.These figures stand in sharp contrast to election results as recent as those of 2008. Among white voters in the top third of the income distribution that year, John McCain, the Republican nominee, beat Barack Obama 67.1 percent to 32.9 percent.Frances Lee, a political scientist at Princeton, responded by email to my inquiries about this phenomenon: “An objective look at both party’s coalitions in the mass electorate would have to acknowledge that neither Republicans nor Democrats are the ‘party of the working class.’”Instead, Lee argued:Both parties are vulnerable to charges of elitism. Republicans really do push for tax cuts that benefit the wealthy. Democrats, meanwhile, take stances on social issues that appeal to socioeconomic elites.The underlying truth, Lee continued, “is that the major parties in the U.S. today are not primarily organized around a social-class cleavage.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares103 Views

      in Elections

      Cuomo and Mamdani Push to Raise Turnout in ‘Jump Ball’ Mayor’s Race

      by

      A new poll shows the New York City mayor’s race tightening in its final days. Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani are scrambling for every last vote.In the final hours before Primary Day, the Democratic race for mayor of New York City appeared to be razor-tight, leaving the two leading candidates — Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani — in scramble mode to boost turnout on Tuesday.A new poll released on Monday by Emerson College suggested the race was too close to call, with Mr. Cuomo drawing the most first-place votes but falling short of the 50 percent threshold required to be declared the winner under the city’s relatively new ranked-choice voting system.The poll shows Mr. Mamdani pulling ahead in the eighth round, topping Mr. Cuomo by 3.6 percentage points — matching the poll’s margin of error. It is the first major survey that shows Mr. Mamdani winning, seemingly reflecting his momentum, especially among younger voters.“It is essential that we turn out in record numbers in order to turn the page on Andrew Cuomo, his billionaire donors, and the politics of big money and small ideas,” Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman and democratic socialist, said on Monday.Mr. Cuomo, the former governor who resigned in 2021 following a series of sexual harassment allegations that he denies, has led in polls for months, including one also released on Monday by Fix the City, a super PAC tied to Mr. Cuomo’s interests. His campaign called the Emerson poll an “outlier.”“We will continue to fight for every vote like he will fight for every New Yorker as mayor,” Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares79 Views

      in Elections

      A Bustling New York Mayoral Race Reaches a Pivotal Moment

      by

      The New York Times’s City Hall bureau chief preps us for the Democratic primary.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary is a pivotal marker in the race to lead New York City.One candidate who is polling well, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, 67, would be the oldest elected mayor in the city’s modern history. Another front-runner, Zohran Mamdani, 33, a state lawmaker, would be the youngest in a century. Mr. Cuomo has a long track record laid with a style of governance that rubs many the wrong way. Mr. Mamdani was unknown to most people before his media-savvy campaign.There are other prominent candidates who are trailing in the polls but who may still affect the outcome as voters use a ranked-choice ballot system for the second time.In an interview with Times Insider, Emma G. Fitzsimmons, the city hall bureau chief for the Metro desk at The New York Times, explained the contours of the race. This conversation has been edited.One of your colleagues described the final weeks of the race as “chaotic.” How so?First, the race is close. Different polls say different things, but Andrew Cuomo, the former governor, has been leading for months. Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist lawmaker from Queens, has been rising in the polls. The current mayor, Eric Adams, decided not to run in the Democratic primary and is running as an independent in the November general election.The race has gotten pretty nasty in the final weeks. Cuomo is attacking Mamdani; a super PAC that is supporting Cuomo is running millions of dollars’ worth of advertisements calling Mamdani radical, and some people believe those advertisements are Islamophobic because Mamdani is Muslim. Mamdani is hitting Cuomo pretty hard, saying he’s the candidate of the billionaire class and that he’s a disgraced former politician who doesn’t deserve a second chance.A year ago, for different reasons, it seemed unlikely that Mamdani and Cuomo would be in the positions they are in today. How did they get here?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares170 Views

      in Elections

      Roll Back Legal Same-Sex Marriage? Republicans Are Getting It Wrong.

      by

      Almost 10 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex marriage would be legal across the country. Today, sensing a political shift toward socially conservative policy, Republican policymakers in states from Michigan to Tennessee have begun proposing bills that would roll back same-sex marriage.These lawmakers may discover to their dismay that they have the politics of the issue quite wrong. Though the cultural winds have shifted on many issues, Republican voters are not clamoring for an unraveling of same-sex marriage rights. Republican voters have objected to socially progressive policies that they believe incur a cost to themselves or others, but the experience over the past decade with legal same-sex marriage has persuaded many in the party that it is nothing to be feared.Polls of American voters generally show support for same-sex marriage rising over the past three decades, both before and after the Obergefell decision. A whopping 68 percent of Americans said they supported legal recognition of same-sex marriages, according to a Gallup poll from last month. Younger voters, a demographic courted by Donald Trump in his recent presidential campaign, are typically the most supportive of gay rights; indeed, some of those who voted for the first time in 2024 may have scarce memory of a time when same-sex marriage was not the law of the land.Among Republicans, the story is admittedly more complicated. There has been a backsliding of support for same-sex marriage among Republicans in recent years, but surveys differ on whether this is a blip or a full-fledged reversal. While Gallup shows a 14-point decline in support among Republicans for same-sex marriage since 2022, my surveys have shown Republican support for legal same-sex marriage bouncing back above its pre-2022 levels, from 40 percent in 2022 to 43 percent in 2023 to 48 percent in 2024. (Notably, even in Gallup’s grimmer data, Republican support for gay marriage remains significantly higher today than it was on the day the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Obergefell.)There are two main lines of argument that seem to resonate most strongly with Republicans on preserving same-sex marriage: Live and let live, and leave well enough alone.Republicans remain very open to the idea that the government should not be in the business of meddling with or punishing people because they are gay or lesbian. In polling I conducted with a coalition of Republican pollsters on behalf of Centerline Liberties and Project Right Side, published Friday morning, roughly 78 percent of Republicans surveyed said that “what two consenting adults do in their personal lives is none of my business — and it shouldn’t be the government’s either.” Government is already “too big and intrusive” was a convincing argument in support of legal same-sex marriage, according to the survey. (My polling firm Echelon Insights was compensated for our work on the poll.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 175 Shares100 Views

      in Elections

      As Trump Debates Iran Action, the Meaning of ‘America First’ Is on the Line

      by

      As President Trump ponders involving the United States in Israel’s attacks on Iran, the G.O.P. faces a thorny question: What does “America first” really mean?A decade ago, President Trump electrified conservatives with his promises to get the United States out of foreign entanglements and to always put — say it with me — “America first.”As he weighs involving American planes and weaponry in Israel’s attacks on Iran, a brawl has broken out in the Republican Party over what “America first” really means.I wrote today about how a swath of Trump’s base is in an uproar over the president’s increasing openness to deploying U.S. warplanes — and perhaps even 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs — against Iran in an effort to help Israel finish off its nuclear program.“Everyone is finding out who are real America First/MAGA and who were fake and just said it bc it was popular,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia posted on X over the weekend. She added, “Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA.”The anger extends well beyond Greene’s social-media account, to cable television and the podcast feeds of the likes of Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Candace Owens. They are passionately arguing that intervening in Iran would contravene Trump’s long-held promise to steer the nation out of, not into, foreign entanglements, and threaten to fracture his whole coalition.It’s a remarkable fight, and one that raises a bigger question about who is really the keeper of Trump’s political flame. Is it the non-interventionists who have been there from the start, or the Republican hawks — the Senator Lindsey Grahams of the world — who are now sticking by the president?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares118 Views

      in Elections

      5 Takeaways From the Debate for N.Y.C. Mayor

      by

      The two front-runners in the New York City mayor’s race, Andrew M. Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, traded barbs over their records, immigration and a host of other issues.In the final Democratic debate in the primary for mayor of New York City, seven candidates sparred over immigration, affordability and President Trump’s policies. But more often, the debate on Thursday devolved into sharp personal attacks.The most pointed exchanges involved former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the two front-runners in polls.Mr. Cuomo pummeled Mr. Mamdani, arguing that his inexperience was dangerous. Mr. Mamdani criticized the former governor as out-of-touch and beholden to the same special interests that support Mr. Trump.Other candidates often entered the fray. Brad Lander, the city comptroller, drew attention to Mr. Cuomo’s handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic and the sexual harassment allegations that led to his resignation as governor in 2021.The debate was the candidates’ best and possibly last chance to grab attention ahead of the start of early voting on Saturday. The primary will be held June 24.Here are five takeaways from the debate.Ganging up on CuomoMr. Cuomo is still clearly viewed as the front-runner based on the attacks he faced from his rivals. Several of the candidates mentioned the sexual harassment allegations, which he denied.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More