Cheating the Future
It isn’t just airports that are getting squeezed by the automatic, across-the-board federal spending cuts known as sequestration. This chart illustrates the consequences of these cuts across a variety of industries. Read more in our recent report.
Moderates Hold The Keys: Dems need 60% to win the White House
To win in the Electoral College, a Democratic Presidential candidate needs to dominate among moderate voters. A simple majority isn’t enough— Democrats generally need 60% to declare victory. The only Democrat to nab the White House without hitting that mark was Carter in 1976, but he pulled over 30% of conservatives, a level no Democratic candidate has even approached in the years since.
View more graphics like this in our Politics of the Center 2012 Graphic Series.
Between 2004 and 2011, the number of Americans who supported allowing gay couples to marry grew by 16 percentage points—from less than a third to nearly half of the country. Our latest study shows that this mammoth shift wasn’t simply due to younger, more accepting voters replacing older ones in the population.
In fact, three-fourths of the growth in support came from people actually reconsidering and changing their minds on the issue. As you can see in the graphics below, this big shift occurred across every single political, religious, and age group in the country. And it indicates that 2012 will likely be the first year marriage wins at the ballot box—a harbinger of a significant national trend and many more victories to come.
Using data from 98 national surveys conducted between 2004 and 2011 with more than 128,000 responses, we dug underneath the topline numbers to gain insights about how different groups are evolving on this issue. Specifically, we find that:
- Support for marriage has risen 16 points since 2004, with major shifts across every demographic group.
- 75% of the growth has come from people changing their minds.
- In at least 13 states, marriage support has surpassed the majority mark, including in two that will see votes this November.
READ: The Big Shift: Changing Views on Marriage for Gay Couples
Hispanic voters in Florida are registering at record numbers…as Independents.
- Since 2008, the number of Hispanic registered voters has increased by 195,365, or 14.4%.
- Nearly as many Hispanic voters have registered as Independents as have registered as Democrats or Republicans combined—96,296 for the former and 96,954 for the latter.
- There are now more Hispanics registered as Independents in Florida than as Republicans, which was not the case in 2008.
Read more in The I’s Have It: Pre-Convention Voter Registration Analysis
Party like it’s 2007! Americans’ optimism about their financial future has recovered from the low point four years ago. 63% now say they expect to be better off a year from now.
In a new poll released today, we found that while there were some Independents who had already formed strong views for or against the President or the two political parties, there was a significant group in the center who remained torn: Swing Independents.
Interestingly, they liked the President more than his likely Republican opponent, but, they also saw themselves as closer to Romney ideologically.
Read the full report here.
Many who advocate the use of populist fairness messages argue that they can use it to tap into a hidden anger bubbling under the surface with the American electorate. But our poll disputes that notion when it comes to Swing Independents.
Swing Independents are less preoccupied with day-to-day finances, believing they are doing better than the average American, and they are confident they can pay their bills. Yet nearly six-in-ten aren’t confident that the next generation will be able to find good jobs, and only 8% are strongly confident. Swing Independents are searching for leaders who will articulate a positive vision for the future—one where the American economy is back on top and the next generation can achieve the American Dream. While the airness framework does not feed this need, an economic opportunity message answers these deep concerns about the future.
Read the full report here.
In our new report, “Independents Day 2012,” we calculate that in eight important battleground states:
- Independent registration increased by 254,310, or a gain of 3.4%.
- Democratic registration decreased by 825,708, or a loss of 5.4%.
- Republican registration decreased by 378,835, or a loss of 3.1%.
Read more at http://thirdway.org/publications/470
The Labor Department reported on Friday that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent in November, the lowest level since March 2009.
The economy added 120,000 new jobs in November, just shy of the 125,000 most economists say the labor market needs to gain to keep the unemployment rate steady. Bringing the rate down a percentage point over a year would take closer to 200,000 new jobs each month.
via The National Journal
