Feeling unsafe in your own home? Look no further than those terrorists and criminals and illegal immigrants who have been given free reign and on whom Trump says we need to 'get tough.'
— Kristen Soltis Anderson
Donald Trump, having spent decades in the public eye as an entertainer, may not understand what the nuclear triad is, or what America's 'first use' nuclear policy is, or why starting a trade war would be a disaster. But he does understand storytelling, the power of a clear narrative, and the importance of stirring emotion.
When people note that more and more voters are cutting their landline phones and that more and more people are refusing to pick up phone calls from numbers they don't know, they are identifying problems that the polling industry has long struggled with and continue to try to adapt to.
Women face unique challenges in society, no doubt. But focusing narrowly on women as a special interest group isn't the winning play. The ability to pay your bills, send your kids to a good school, and keep your family safe are 'women's issues' after all.
Hillary Clinton famously embraced the Trump-originated label 'nasty woman' as yet another way to show just how bad Donald Trump was to women.
True small-c conservatives should fight at every turn to preserve basic standards of conduct and institutions that have served our nation well.
Trump was elected in part because enough Americans viewed him as a capable and strong leader, someone who is 'decisive' and 'competent.'
Winning feels great, and everybody loves a winner. But the very best figure out what's coming next and don't assume they've got the winning formula forever.
I remember fancying myself a junior 'McCainiac' in 2000, though politics were rarely discussed in our household.
Major realigning events can reshape coalitions and change how large groups of people view politics, policy, and the parties.
Fast-moving views are not likely to be strongly held views. Instead, they're much more likely to be about people mirroring back the signals they see coming from the leaders they support. People can resolve dissonance by shifting their own view on issues that aren't top of mind.
Breaking dramatically with Bush-era Republican orthodoxy, Trump ran on a message of 'America First' and of avoiding spending blood and treasure on adventures overseas.
When polled on Donald Trump's agenda, though pluralities of young people oppose his policies on immigration and healthcare, there is one issue where Trump's position wins outright majority support, even among young Democrats: trade.
President Trump rightly points out that law enforcement is mostly made up of good people putting themselves in harm's way to protect us. He lauds the men and women in blue and often talks about the need to make it easier for the cops to do their jobs.
Let's think about where things stood in December 2015. By that time, Republicans had already had such epic and long-standing struggles with young people that I'd written a whole book about it. Additionally, Republicans had already had a bruising start to their primary season.
Tax reform exists, sort of, as an outline - miles away from being actual passed legislation.
The things that frustrate one piece of Trump's coalition often endear him to or embolden another wing of the coalition.
For Trump, the story is everything. There is no real plan to defeat the villains that Trump tees up, of course.
In the 2012 election, the polls that had made Mitt Romney so confident that he was going to win were his own internal polls, based on models that failed to accurately estimate voter turnout. But the public polls, especially statewide polls, painted a fairly accurate picture of how the electoral college might go.
There's a lot of work to be done in the polling world, and a need to continue to rethink how we do what we do. We also need to be more open to the idea that any one input - in this case, polls - may not be the only way to hear what people are saying.
Women want fair taxes, a growing economy, affordable health care, secure borders, and the defeat of ISIS. They don't need the solutions to be wrapped in pink. They just want problems solved.
In 2012, when Mitt Romney named Russia as our greatest geopolitical foe, Democrats scoffed and accused Republicans of trying to ignite a new Cold War.
Thoughtful education programs and access to effective forms of contraception are key to preventing unplanned pregnancy.
President Trump, who made his name in the business world and built a brand as a successful CEO via a reality TV show that punished incompetence, was not just elected for a series of tough policy views.
My slice of the millennial generation, as we grew up, became - to the dismay of the GOP - a bloc of fairly consistently Democratic voters.
As a member of the oldest slice of the Millennial generation, my teenage years spanned the late 1990s through the start of the new millennium. I spent that time watching a lot of MTV's 'Total Request Live', 'Dawson's Creek', and wearing out a dual VHS tape of 'Titanic'.
When the oldest batch of millennials really first began voting around the mid-2000s, they leaned a little toward the Democrats, looking a lot like the Gen Xers also did at that time.
It's not hard to assume that voters do not have deeply considered views on each and every policy issue before them but instead, perhaps, have one or two strongly held views and then allow their favored political leaders to fill in the gaps on the rest of the issues.
Young voters may be growing up in an era of increased global connection, cooperation and commerce. But they're very open to politicians who tell them it is these very things that are keeping elites in power and keeping their generation down.
On paper, Emmanuel Macron should be a candidate tailor-made for young voters. He himself is young. He pushes for more entrepreneurship, modernization, and a loosening of regulations that prevent young workers from working as they please when they please.
There is nothing just or fair about what happened to Jordan Edwards. And his story is yet another in a long line of tragedies that now powerfully remind us of the long way we still have to go in creating a fair and just relationship between law enforcement, our criminal justice system, and the public our laws are supposed to protect.
In the relatively short time frame of December 2015 to March 2017, nearly half of all young Republicans left their party at some point, with roughly a quarter bidding the GOP adieu for good.
A compelling story requires conflict, friction, an obstacle to be overcome.
'Staunch conservatives' and 'free marketeers' are fairly typical Republicans, while the 'American preservationists' are far less reliably a part of a GOP coalition.
For thousands of years, humans have used the art of storytelling to motivate and persuade.
Being a skeptical and thoughtful consumer of polls is essential.
Polling is an art as well as a science, and the art of crafting good questions is still vital.
Conservative women often make the case that 'all issues are women's issues,' and are sometimes derided by those on the Left when they do so.
Not all change and disruption succeeds, to be sure.
'Trump is a mean man' is a message that Democrats used time and time and time again in the 2016 race. Airwaves were filled with reminders that Trump has insulted just about everyone.
With Trump assuming the role of America's CEO, it may be chaos rather than callousness that threatens to harm his standing with the American voters who are giving him a chance.
For some in my generation, Sept. 11th was a moment of political awakening. For others, the Iraq War or the financial crisis or the rise of Obama were the major events of their teenage years that began to lay the foundation for their views.
Maybe President Trump will turn out to be a fabulously successful president who will endear the millennial generation to the Right anew.
In the year 2000, the very youngest members of the Baby Boomer crew were in their mid-30s while the oldest Boomers were mid-50s. That year, the Boomers were a generation divided somewhat equally between the GOP and Democrats.
Political science has long tried to tackle a fundamental question of voter behavior: Do voters choose politicians because those politicians hold views that they like, or do voters choose policy positions because the politicians they like say those positions are correct?
I do not think it is a coincidence that young people gravitated toward populist voices in the French election and that the two issue positions where Donald Trump and young voters seem to agree most - global engagement and trade - are rooted in populism.
Donald Trump has had political success positioning himself as a 'law-and-order' candidate.
What is a fair way to structure our economy? To handle those who did not come to America legally? To distribute scarce public resources and benefits?
The idea that someone, somewhere will campaign in a positive, uplifting way on an agenda that can inspire Americans? I'm sadly done holding my breath.
Candidates, of course, often claim that they want to run 'a purely positive campaign,' but this rarely materializes.
