Electoral Dynamics Quotes

I think behavioral economists don't have any more of an explanation about the rise of Trump than anyone else.

People try to identify who is the most likely person to turn out, and what we did is that we changed who turns out. And that changes the whole electorate.

The majority of Puerto Ricans in Florida and New York are Democrats, but nonetheless, we have Republican governors.

Donald Trump got almost 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton! He happened to get more in some of the right places. It was just like one of those things where a stock going up and people impose a false sense of order on it. It's really more intellectually honestly viewed as a disorderly process.

Polls can change; people's opinions can change. Voting intentions can change, and I think it would be a silly leader, a silly political party, that would assume that we have it sewn up.

When the economy is bad, the party in power is blamed. When the economy is good, people look at other issues.

We tend in this country to talk about Democrats and Republicans, and think there's little group over there called Independents that's maybe 2%. That is not the case, and it has not been the case for most of modern American history.

You can't get back to power by defining your project in negative terms. But it helps to have somebody in office who represents the opposite of what you believe.

Politicians are simply reflections of the public.

Indeed, when all parties campaign effectively the overall effect is to push up voting rates, as you see in tight marginal seats or close general elections. That must be good for democracy.

Obama's coalition would have consigned him to the political margins as little as 12 years ago, but the nation's demographic changes are moving far more quickly than most Republicans anticipated.

The reality is, our problem isn't that more people are voting Republican than Democrat - our problem is most people who would vote Democrat aren't voting.

The SNP became a minority government in 2007, then a majority one in 2011. But Labour viewed what was happening as some kind of aberration. They felt the problem wasn't theirs: they didn't have to change; the Scottish people had just gone down this wrong road, and if they waited long enough, they would find their way back.

Not everybody who supports Donald Trump, not everyone who supports Hilary Clinton, are exactly the kind of people that you want as supporters.

When it comes down to it, Hillary Clinton will very much excite the Republican faithful to get out and work hard. I don't know if a similar case can be made if Obama is the candidate.

There are change elections and there are 'more of the same' elections, and there was a lot of economic anxiety in the 1992 election and (Bill Clinton) was able to drive a change narrative. after eight years of Barack Obama, it's very difficult to understand what kind of change it is that Hillary Clinton's candidacy could represent.

It is no exaggeration to say that undecided voters could go either way.

You've got to remember that it's a two horse race. So when the Government is doing badly the Opposition is doing better and vice versa.

It's a fact of life that positive reasons don't always get people to vote. You need some negative reasons.

The stronger Hillary is, the weaker she is. The more she seems like a likely presidential winner, the more difficult the senate race becomes in New York. It's perfect.

American politics is always somewhat fluid. In this age of social media, it means that voters can swing back and forth.

History shows that people often do cast their votes for amorphous reasons-the most powerful among them being the need for change. Just ask Bill Clinton.

We all live in the moment, and we often mistakenly believe that what is true today was true always. Not so in politics, and especially in Congressional elections.

One lesson is that if you want to predict voter turnout, you should ask whether at least one candidate is attracting high levels of enthusiasm - not whether the stakes are high, or even perceived to be high. That fits the historical pattern.

Politicians must pick sides regularly; every time they vote. So it's perhaps natural that they see the world as a battle between competing groups.