State of the Nation

The data below is the latest available as of November 27th. Any statements in this issue of the Watch which are not sourced are mine. The Setting 21% of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction while...

2016 Election Score Card

President: Electoral Vote 2016 Trump 306 Clinton 232 2012 Obama 332 Romney 206 2008 Obama 365 McCain 173 After the 2012 election Chris Cillizza did an interesting piece on the Electoral College in The Washington Post. He noted that...

The Money

The following information is based on data collected by The Center for Responsive Politics from the Federal Election Commission reports. The data from the candidate committees is as released on October 28, 2016. The data for the political parties is...

Leading Up to the Election

During this campaign, Peter Hart conducted a series of focus groups for the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The following are excerpts from the reports and analysis of a number of these focus groups as prepared...

The Polling (and Other Measurements)

The general perception is that the majority of the polling profession blew the 2016 presidential campaign. The Real Clear Politics list of surveys taken over the period 11/2-11/7 showed Hillary Clinton with a lead of 3.3% over Donald Trump in...

The Exit Polls

There have been some changes in the composition of the electorate between 1996 and 2016. There have also been changes since the 2008 election. The number of whites has dropped from 83% to 70% The number of non-whites has grown...

What Happened

The following are extensive excerpts from an article written by Peter Hart, founder of Peter D Hart Research Associates and Dan McGinn, CEO of McGinn and Co for the WSJ. “Three forces collided to elect Donald Trump president of the...

Ruminations

As is so often the case, Dan Balz of the Washington Post hit the nail on the head with his November 20th column. The following are excerpts from that column. “Viewed through any conventional lens, President-elect Donald Trump’s candidacy was...

Final Thoughts

Reports are that Hillary Clinton believes that FBI Director James Comey’s two letters to Congress late in the campaign halted her momentum. Two weeks before the election the announcement was made that the premiums on the Affordable Care Act would...