Tag: Featured

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Roll Call: “Yes, I still believe in bipartisanship. No, I don’t believe in unicorns”

The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about why bipartisan cooperation is still possible, even in today’s political environment.

The fact that Collins and Coons were able to recruit a majority of senators to stand fast for the filibuster shows that bipartisan cooperation is possible, even if it is on life support these days. And for those who complained to me that anyone who believes that Republicans and Democrats can work together to get things done must also believe in unicorns, we saw evidence last year that cooperation can still produce crucial legislation when the need is great.

Read the full piece here.

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Roll Call: “A needed lesson in bipartisanship: The Civil Rights Act of 1964”

In today’s Roll Call, the Winston Group’s David Winston writes about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its lessons in bipartisanship that are still applicable today.

Beyond the rightness of the legislation, it was bipartisan unity that delivered the Civil Rights Act of 1964. No rules were changed to get it done. This transformational legislation wasn’t jammed through on a partisan vote. Quite the contrary.

Read the full piece here.

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Roll Call: “As Democrats plot to overturn Iowa result, it’s déjà vu all over again”

The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about Democrats’ ongoing attempt to oust Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa’s 2nd District, whose election was certified and who has been seated in Congress, and the similarities it bears to the situation in Indiana’s 8th Congressional District in the 1984 election cycle.

So what should Iowa voters expect when Nancy Pelosi’s nine-seat majority after the 2020 election meant that the Democratic majority on any vote could be upended by 5 switches? We know the answer. Reach back into the old playbook for Indiana’s 8th, and dust off the “rule” that says when Democrats are in the majority, even by a razor-thin margin, the House is empowered to supersede the will of the people when it is politically necessary. Translation: when Speaker Pelosi’s power is threatened.

Read the full piece here. 

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Roll Call: “Biden’s progressive agenda doubles down on past policy failures”

The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the $1.9 trillion COVID relief law, and how Democrats may have taken the wrong lesson from President Obama’s first two years in office:

Despite winning Congress and the White House by razor-thin margins, Democrats have decided to double down on Obama’s strategic mistake that cost his party the House in 2010. 

Their takeaway from Obama’s first two years isn’t that they lost the House because he put his progressive health care policy ahead of what people wanted: jobs. Instead, they appear to be laboring under the assumption that they may not get another chance to transform what is a center-right country into a progressive paradise. So let’s go big and, if we have to, use reconciliation or a change in the Senate rules to get it done.

Read the full piece here.

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Seven Key Stats From the 2020 Election

By David Winston and Myra Miller

The horrific events in the Capitol have made this one of the darkest weeks in recent history. There is no justification whatsoever for what occurred on Wednesday. While Republicans should always support election integrity in the voting process, many people have had difficulty in understanding how President Trump could have lost at the presidential level while Congressional Republicans won seats at a widespread scale, contributing to the theory that the election was stolen or rigged. 

Click here for seven statistics from the 2020 election that should help explain this gap between the Congressional and presidential vote.

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“Focus on OUR Concerns”: An analysis of the 2018 Midterm Election

The 2018 midterm elections, for Republicans, is a story of missed opportunity. Holding the House was a tall order with history against the GOP as the party in power and the large number of Republican retirements But a path to preserving their House majority, even if a difficult one, did exist if the election became all about the economy. It didn’t.

This post-election analysis, based on exit poll data from the National Election Pool, done by Edison Research, and the Winston Group’s Winning the Issues post-election survey, done Election Night, assesses the 2018 campaign that began and ended with the fight for the election narrative.

There is no question that money was a significant disadvantage for Republicans in this election, but this report outlines the opportunities that existed which could have led to a much better result for them, especially in terms of what the electorate heard from both Republicans and Democrats. This report also shows that the election outcome was not the result of an ideological or party identification realignment, but instead a shift in vote preferences. This means that Republicans still have an opportunity to rebuild their majority coalition for 2020.  

Read the full analysis here.

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Placing Priority: How Issues Mattered More than Demographics in the 2016 Election

The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group has released two new reports exploring the views and values motivating the American electorate. As part of the Voter Study Group, the WG’s David Winston used a unique longitudinal dataset of 5,000 voters to explore which issues mattered most in 2016. Read the full report here or take a look at the highlights:

Viewing the electorate through the lens of issue priorities rather than through demographic variables yields valuable insights. Our analysis suggests that the mix of issue priorities revealed more about voter decision-making than demography.

Using voters’ views on the importance of 23 different issues, a cluster analysis produced five distinct groups — the “Democrat/Independent Liberal Elites” (15 percent of the electorate), the “Democratic-Leaning Working Class” (the largest cluster, at 25 percent), the “Moderate Younger Middle-Income” voters (17 percent), the “Conservative Older” voters (21 percent), and the “Conservative Younger” voters (12 percent), with an additional 10 percent unidentified by these clusters because they did not respond to all 23 issue priority questions.

These clusters demonstrated distinct presidential election voting patterns, party preference, and ideological patterns that can provide insight into voters’ decision-making. The conservative, Republican-Leaning clusters appear more cohesive than the two Democratic-Leaning clusters. The “Democrat/Independent Liberal Elites” cluster prioritized issues popular in the media coverage of the election, but not issues that were “very important” to the other Democratic cluster and the country as a whole, such as the economy and jobs. These differences will be consequential for Democrats in the future.

The key issues driving the election, based on what voters found most important, were the economy, health care, jobs, and Social Security. Issues such as climate change, gender, and racial injustice that made up a significant level of the media coverage of the 2016 election were not among the most important issues for most voters. The Rust Belt was key to the election outcome, and the economy was the top issue among Trump voters in that region, and the fifth most important issue among Clinton voters.

Of the four top issues, Trump had the advantage among voters who highly prioritized jobs and the economy while Clinton had an advantage among those who prioritized health care. Neither candidate had an advantage on Social Security. Clinton won a majority of those voters who prioritized 12 of the 23 issues included in the survey, and often by large margins. But Trump won a majority of those who prioritized two of the top three issues, including the most important, the economy.

Voters were not satisfied with the status quo when it came to the economy, and deep economic frustration and desire for change underlied their issue prioritization and political decision-making.