Outside the Beltway

Some thoughts on polling and the news since 2016.

Plus misleading reporting.

The numbers aren’t real. Not yet, anyway.

Manipulating public opinion with dubious survey research.

What we believe and what we say we believe are often not the same.

Who should have the final say on the law of the land?

Why would a group that claims it has evidence of ballot harvesting refuse to turn it over?

We did much better in 2020 and worse since 2021 than we thought.

Why clearing criminal records makes economic sense

It depends on how you do the math.

Politicians controlling lines control voters (instead of voters controlling politicians).

We’re three short years from the next election.

Multiple indicators point to a decline in the representativeness of the American system.

The Pundit’s Fallacy meets opportunism.

Two prominent media pollsters are hedging their bets.

A new poll shows meaningful shifts in public attitudes.

Joementum.

The Tara Reade allegations haven’t hurt the presumptive nominee with the party.

The counting methodology is flawed and that’s assuming honest reporting.

The 45th President polls worse than other prominent Republicans.

For the third time since 2015, Donald Trump gets Politifact’s “Lie Of The Year.”

The Commission on Presidential Debates has released the schedule and criteria for the General Election debates. As usual, the criteria are heavily biased in favor of the major party candidates.

The August Jobs Report came in below expectations as other economic statistics point to a slowing economy.

A Federal Judge in Virginia has found the terrorist watch list unconstitutional.

He could lose the popular vote by an even larger margin in 2020—and still coast to re-election.

Just over nine years after retiring from the Supreme Court, former Associate Justice John Paul Stevens has passed away at the age of 99.

Not surprisingly, the President’s opening speech of the 2020 campaign was filed with lies.

May’s Jobs Report came back with disappointing jobs growth, suggesting that the economy may be slowing down.

Jobs Growth in April was much higher than expected, seemingly putting to rest for now fears that the economy might be slowing.

The President has hit a dubious milestone barely two years into his administration.

Scholars argue that the shifting media landscape is largely to blame for our political crisis.

As problematic as some of what we know about the internal workings of the White House may be, it isn’t a coup.

President Trump is apparently a Hurricane Maria Truther.

A new study concludes that the total death toll from Hurricane Maria was vastly higher than previously reported.

Despite Republican hopes, the tax cuts passed by Congress in December are not manifesting themselves in increased wages.

In the wake of yesterday’s killing of eight in a Texas high school, WaPo’s Philip Bump provides a chilling statistic.

With the accusations mounting, the nomination of Ronny Jackson to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs is becoming more and more imperiled.

Dueling data on civil service compensation belie the adage that you can’t choose your own facts.

ESPN the Magazine has broken out the slide rule to rank the top athletes during its first two decades.

A confusing new report from the Washington Post.

Americans as a whole are becoming less religious and some people are panicking about it.

A sign of hope that Alabama voters could end up rejecting the far-right theocratic politics of Roy Moore? Possibly.

Texas suffers another legal setback in its effort to pass a Voter ID law.

Now Donald Trump is alleging that the 2016 Election was tainted by ‘illegal voting,’ even though he won!

Some musings on the RCP average and such.

Once again, the debate commission controlled by the two major parties is excluding third-party candidates from the Presidential debates.

The election is now fifty-six days away and, while the race is tighter than it has been, it’s still one in which Hillary Clinton has seemingly all the advantages.

The “independent conservative” running for President is finding it hard to even get on the ballot.

After grabbing a lead at the end of last year, Ted Cruz has seen Donald Trump completely reverse fortunes in Iowa with just one week to go before voting starts.

Seemingly disproving yet another round of predictions of his imminent demise, Donald Trump continues to dominate the race for the Republican nomination.