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Center for Politics Reveals Trailer for New John F. Kennedy Documentary

A trailer for the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ forthcoming documentary, This Is The House That Jack Built, is now available. The documentary is the latest collaboration between the Center for Politics and Community Idea Stations, which regularly partner to produce documentary films for public television on American politics and history. This Is The House That Jack Built touches on familiar themes of JFK’s life and his ascent to the presidency, his mistakes, and his triumphs. But the film also explores new and little-known stories, some that surfaced after the Center for Politics’ Kennedy Half Century project in 2013, which included Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato’s New York Times-bestselling book, an Emmy Award-winning documentary, and an Emmy Award-nominated Massive Open Online Course. These new stories include a CIA staffer and her discovery of a file on Lee Harvey Oswald that soon thereafter went missing; the sonic analysis of the infamous dictabelt recording from the day of Kennedy’s assassination; and the Warren Commission’s pressure on 19-year-old Buell Wesley Frazier, who drove Oswald to work on Nov. 22, 1963. This program also explores why JFK is still relevant and why he so interests the public even 100 years after

UVA Center for Politics

The New Dominion: Virginia’s Ever-Changing Electoral Map

In 2008 Barack Obama carried Virginia’s 13 electoral votes, becoming the first Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to win the Old Dominion. Obama’s victory broke a run of 10 consecutive Republican victories in the commonwealth, and 13 of 14 going back to 1952. The 2008 presidential election started a new Democratic streak, which has now seen the party carry Virginia three consecutive times, with Hillary Clinton winning it by 5.3 percentage points in 2016. Obviously, this party flip shows a shift in Virginia’s partisan leaning. But if we dig deeper, the nature of this realignment becomes more complicated. Some parts of the state have drifted inexorably toward the Democrats while others have moved unceasingly in the GOP’s direction. These changes aren’t best shown simply by looking at which party carried which region, city, or county in a given election. Rather, the shifts are better illustrated by comparing voting in localities to the national conditions, i.e. the national popular vote. Table 1: Virginia’s relative partisan lean compared to national popular vote margin, 1968 to 2016 Source: Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections To start, just consider Table 1, which displays the national popular vote margin and statewide

Geoffrey Skelley

Working-Class Republicanism

Editor’s Note: The Crystal Ball is taking a break for the July 4 holiday next week. So we will not publish on Thursday, June 29. We’ll be back on Thursday, July 6. Have a safe and pleasant holiday. — The Editors A new book tells the story of a president who made his name as an entertainer and a Democrat before moving to the Republican Party and then launching a bid for the presidency. This candidate won his party’s presidential nomination despite objections from some party stalwarts that he was unelectable in the fall. He then captured the presidency in part because he was able to perform better than Republicans typically do in some traditionally white, working-class areas in key states. This description applies to the current president, Donald Trump, but the book itself is actually about Ronald Reagan. The Working Class Republican, an intriguing new book by Henry Olsen, argues that Reagan was less conservative than is commonly acknowledged, and a close examination of his campaign message and time in office provides a model for Republicans going forward. In fact, Olsen argues, Trump mimicked Reagan in some ways. But now Trump is in danger of squandering his Reaganesque coalition,

Kyle Kondik

Just How Many Obama 2012-Trump 2016 Voters Were There?

In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, many observers understandably focused on the numerous places that swung from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. Because many of these areas congregated in swing states within the Rust Belt and Midwest, they played a pivotal role in Trump’s victory, as shown by the movement toward the GOP in Map 1 below. But how many total voters really switched from Obama to Trump in 2016? Different data sources tell a different story, but the answer is certainly in the millions. Map 1: Change in Republican margin by county or county-equivalent, 2016 versus 2012 Note: Alaska’s results are displayed by state senate districts. Click to enlarge. Sources: Election data from Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections and Daily Kos Elections for Alaska’s state senate districts; map shape files from the U.S. Census Bureau. We looked at three sources to try to gauge the raw number of voters who backed Obama in 2012 but then voted for Trump in 2016. Unfortunately, the 2016 exit poll did not ask respondents about their 2012 vote, having last done so in 2008. While exit polls are imperfect, it at least would have served as another data

Geoffrey Skelley

Center for Politics poll finds public ranks Kennedy highest among recent presidents

As the nation marks the 100th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s birth on Memorial Day, a University of Virginia Center for Politics-Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that Americans rate JFK more highly than other recent presidents. The online poll of American adults found that of the presidents who served from 1950-2000 (Dwight Eisenhower through Bill Clinton), Kennedy received higher average ratings than any other president, and more than half of respondents (53%) named him as one of the one or two best presidents in that timeframe. Additionally, 87% of respondents expressed at least mildly favorable views of Kennedy. Table 1: “Would you say you are generally favorable or unfavorable towards President John F. Kennedy?” The rating of Kennedy as one of the best recent presidents improved from 2012, when the Center for Politics partnered with Hart Research Associates on a different online poll that used identical question wording as part of the Center’s Kennedy Half Century project. The percentage of respondents naming JFK as one of the best presidents in the second half of the 20th century increased from 41% to 53% (Table 3). The numbers for most of the other presidents stayed stable, with the exception of Bill Clinton, whose

UVA Center for Politics

TAKING TRUMP’S TEMPERATURE AMONGST HIS SUPPORTERS (AND OPPONENTS), PART 2

Last week, we released the results of a national poll of voters who said they supported President Donald Trump in the 2016 election, as well as focus groups of mostly Trump voters (but also some voters who either supported Hillary Clinton or voted third party last year). We found that nearly all the Trump voters we surveyed at least somewhat approved of the president. After focusing on the poll last week, some readers asked us for more information about the focus groups. So this week we’re releasing transcripts of the eight focus groups we conducted from April 4-18. We worked with Public Opinion Strategies, a well-respected Republican polling firm, to conduct both the poll and focus groups. These focus groups were held in five different locations: Pittsburgh, Columbus, Oak Creek (Greater Milwaukee), Canton (Greater Detroit), and Houston. We chose these locations because they were in states that voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and then shifted to Trump in 2016 or, in the case of Houston, was in a state that shifted markedly toward Clinton in 2016 but Trump still carried comfortably. The focus groups generally were composed of 10 people, with a roughly even mix of men and women,

Kyle Kondik

Center for Politics Poll Takes Temperature of Trump Voters at 100-Day Mark

Voters who supported President Donald Trump in last year’s election have few regrets as Trump enters his 100th day in office this weekend, although his support is not uniformly firm. A new University of Virginia Center for Politics poll of Trump voters shows his approval rating at 93% with these voters, though just 42% “strongly approve” while 51% “somewhat approve.” The poll, conducted for the Center by Public Opinion Strategies, surveyed 1,000 Trump voters online from April 17-19 and has a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points. Public Opinion Strategies also conducted eight focus groups in five locations from April 4-18 with both Trump voters as well as Republicans and independents who voted for Hillary Clinton or for a third-party candidate. Some highlights from the poll and focus groups include: — Respondents generally believed the country was headed in the right direction (70%) as opposed to being on the wrong track (22%), and two-thirds believed the economy has been improving since Trump took office. Yet the focus group respondents frequently expressed concern about how things in the country are going, using words like “terrible,” “upheaval,” “polarization,” “chaotic,” and “volatile” to describe the state of the country. — The breakdown

UVA Center for Politics

EXCERPT FROM OUR NEW BOOK, TRUMPED: POLLING IN THE 2016 ELECTION AND WHAT IT MEANS GOING FORWARD

  Dear Readers: Our new book on 2016’s remarkable election, Trumped, is now available. Trumped features some of the nation’s sharpest political reporters and analysts breaking down an election that truly broke all the rules. The following is taken from Chapter 10 of the book, authored by Ariel Edwards-Levy and Natalie Jackson of Huffington Post, and Janie Velencia, formerly of Huffington Post. The authors write about political polling in the 2016 cycle and the challenges facing the industry. In this excerpt, they argue that the issue and approval polls that we see on an almost daily basis are still good barometers of public opinion. Crystal Ball subscribers can get a special discount on Trumped: The 2016 Election That Broke All the Rules from publisher Rowman and Littlefield. Use code 4S17SBTOCB at checkout to get the paperback at 30% off the retail price at Rowman’s website. — The Editors   The debate over what factors caused pollsters to err in 2016 is likely to continue for some time, as is the argument as to what extent the miss represents either a critical failure for the industry or simply a demonstration of overcertainty by pundits and forecasters. But regardless of the magnitude

UVA Center for Politics

Another Look Back at 2016

On election night in November, exit polls provided the first insight into how different demographic groups voted. But months later, other richer data sets are being released, and they provide researchers with new information about the election and the voters that participated in it. One such tool is the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which is a large-sample national survey. The preliminary 2016 post-election version of the CCES study came out in early March, and it provides a treasure trove of information. One way of looking at the data is to compare the findings of the CCES to the national exit poll to see how they differ and what they say about the makeup of the 2016 electorate. This is not to say one is more right than the other; if anything, the truth may lie somewhere in between. There are also differences between the two data sets that make comparing them an imperfect exercise. Besides methodological differences in how the surveys were conducted, variations in how questions were asked and possible answers also complicate things. For instance, the 2016 CCES included more racial categories for respondents to choose from, such as “Middle Eastern,” that the exit poll did not use.

Geoffrey Skelley

The End of the Beginning

Tomorrow marks the start of the brave new world of President Donald J. Trump. But today marks the end of the Obama-to-Trump transition. They, and we, survived the interregnum, more or less — and it was not guaranteed and is worth celebrating. Truly, has there ever been as dramatic a contrast between outgoing and incoming chief executives as Barack Obama and Donald Trump? Actually, yes: the refined John Quincy Adams and the rough-hewn populist Andrew Jackson despised each other. Jackson believed he had been cheated out of the White House by a corrupt bargain during 1824’s House of Representatives “run-off” that installed Adams as president. Jackson spent four years making sure that wrong was righted on Inauguration Day 1829. Other jarring transfers of power surely include the ones between the timid, indecisive James Buchanan, doing nothing while seven states left the Union, and Abraham Lincoln, who saved the Union in a bloody civil war (1861); the scholarly, erudite Woodrow Wilson and the tawdry, careless Warren G. Harding (1921); Herbert Hoover, a great humanitarian but hapless president, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gave people hope and sustenance through the depths of the Great Depression (1933); and Jimmy Carter, tortured by a

Larry J. Sabato

An Inexperienced Congress and Cabinet

Dear Readers: Several times a year, Bruce Mehlman releases a fascinating PowerPoint presentation filled with interesting nuggets about American politics and government. Mehlman, a Republican lobbyist with the bipartisan firm Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, is a University of Virginia Law School graduate and friend of the Crystal Ball. Because we get so much out of his presentation, which often cites Crystal Ball data, we thought we would link to it here so that readers could take a look. There are two slides from his most recent presentation we wanted to highlight: The first shows that despite very high reelection rates for members of Congress, there is still a considerable amount of turnover in the U.S. House. The second shows the relative inexperience of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet choices, which is perhaps fitting for a candidate whose lack of government experience ultimately proved beneficial to his campaign. To see Bruce’s presentation, click here. — The Editors

UVA Center for Politics

2017: AT THE DAWN OF THE AGE OF TRUMP

It’s already clear that the very strange political year of 2016 is bleeding over into the New Year. How could it be otherwise? President-elect Donald Trump, loved and hated by about equal numbers of Americans, continues to ignore or break with convention in a wide variety of areas. Just as the normal rules didn’t apply to him in the campaign, they may not apply to him in office either. Let’s review what we’ve got as we head toward Inauguration Day: Trump won the election with narrow but convincing margins in six states won by Barack Obama twice (Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, along with bigger victories in Iowa and Ohio). This kind of swing-state sweep cannot be called a fluke or an aberration, especially given Hillary Clinton’s towering financial and organizational advantages. At the same time, Trump lost the popular vote by close to 2.9 million, the largest number ever by a candidate who captured the all-important Electoral College. Losing nationally by 2.1 percentage points will hinder Trump in various ways during his term; at the least, it provides a stinging rebuke for Trump’s opponents whenever he takes unpopular actions. (While the popular vote is not how the United States

Larry J. Sabato