Tag:Donald Trump

• Ticket-splitting still shapes elections

  Whatever you think of it, political polarization hasn’t yet hunted split-ticket voters to extinction. They still matter — and candidates know it.

  by John Hood
• Summer polls are flawed predictors

  Swings of six percentage points or so between August and Election Day are entirely in keeping with the actual behavior of North Carolina’s electorate.

  by John Hood
• Pols can’t be daydream believers

  What if North Carolina doesn’t end up getting as much federal relief as expected for state and local government? What if it has lots of strings attached?…

  by John Hood
• County races turn on governance

  To compete effectively for statewide office or control of the General Assembly over time, Republicans will have regain their footing in major metropolitan areas.

  by John Hood
• Reform in haste, repent in leisure

  “Explanations exist, they have existed for all time,” the social critic H.L. Mencken once wrote. “There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”…

  by John Hood
• Where the parties haven’t changed

  The two major political parties’ traditional “brand attributes,” as a marketer might call them, appear to be deeply embedded in public perceptions.

  by John Hood
• Rosy scenarios aren’t conservative

  North Carolina didn’t ramp up spending after the Great Recession as fast as other states did. But when the next recession comes, North Carolina won’t crash as hard, either.

  by John Hood
• Sanders would hurt state Democrats

  For a party that promises to make the character and judgment of the current occupant of the White House the central theme of the 2020 election cycle, nominating Bernie Sanders would be a self-inflicted wound.

  by John Hood
• Partisan battle extends beyond suburbs

  Neither Democrats no Republicans are content simply to clasp national coattails. And both are courting voters who live in urban townhouses, rural ranch houses, and everything in between.

  by John Hood
• Our state could tip national balance

  Democrats and Republicans will contest many states and districts in 2020, to be sure, but North Carolina may prove to be a tipping point in more ways than one.

  by John Hood