Blog 2.2

1. What kind of voters did Ross Perot appeal to?

2. What similar message do voters hear from Trump and Perot?

3. What similar strategy is used by both Trump and Perot?

4. What was the result of the Perot campaign in 1992?

5. Why does the author suggest that Perot helped lead to Trump's success in 2016?

6. What is the most likely Electoral Vote outcome at this point?

7. What was the only date in which Trump had a better chance of winning the election than Clinton?

8. What percent chance does Clinton have of winning the election today? 

9. Which date did she have the best chance of winning the election?

10. Which three states (or districts) does the forecast predict Clinton will win by the biggest margin?

11. Which three states does the forecast predict Trump will win by the biggest margin?

12. What percent chance does Clinton have of winning the popular vote? How about Trump?

13.  HOW ABOUT GARY JOHNSON?

Answers:

1. He appealed to what is now called the "alt-right."

2. There is a certain something that is "destroying our country."

3. "Both the Perot and Trump campaigns relied on their candidate’s charisma, a simple message and a successful media strategy."

4. "Nearly 20 million people cast a ballot for him, but he didn’t win a single vote in the Electoral College."

5. Perot essentially paved the way for Trump, seeing as how their campaigns are radically similar.

6. Clinton is most likely going to win the election.

7. On July 31st, Trump was 2.0% more likely to win the election than Hillary.

8. Clinton has an 81.1% chance of winning the election today.

9. On August 14th, Clinton had a chance of winning 78.4% higher than that of Trump's: 89.2% to 10.8%, respectively.

10. Clinton is supposed to have the largest margin of victory in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Vermont.

11. Trump is supposed to have the largest margin of victory in Nebraska's third district, Wyoming, and West Virginia.

12a. Clinton has a 49.5% chance of winning the popular vote.

12b. Trump has a 44.0% chance of winning the popular vote.

13. GARY-FREAKING-JOHNSON CURRENTLY HAS A 4.9% CHANCE OF WINNING THE POPULAR VOTE

Note: My answers were given with the forecast set to consider "what polls alone tell us about [November 8th]," as of 7:30 pm on 10/29/16.

Blog 2.1

1. Right before the first debate, how close was the race?  How much do debates typically impact the polls?

2. Why are these debates less important than the debates that take place in the primaries?

3. Why can we not be sure that the debates themselves are what causes changes in the polls during the debate season?

4. How was the Obama-Romney campaign affected by the first debate?

5. What aspects of Richard Nixon & Al Gore's debate performances may have swung the outcome of elections?  Is this related to how they would perform at president in any way?

6. How might low expectations of Trump's performance end up helping him?

7.  How can the media impact what people think about the performances in the debate?

8. How did the Arizona State study measure the media's effects on people's perception? What was the result of their study?

Answers:

1a. "Recent polls suggest Hillary Clinton is still on track to win — but just barely."

1b. "Debates have the potential to make a small but real impact on the race. Polls have often shifted by a few percentage points during debate season, and in a close race, that could really matter."

2. During the primary debates, not as many people are whole-heartedly committed to a candidate; therefore, the primary debates are of greater importance because they are more likely to win over voters as compared to the general election debates.

3. Many things can occur during debate season; that is to say, "Because events can occur outside of debates that have effects on the election but still during debate season, we cannot assume that the only changes during debate season are a result of said debates."

4. Obama lost his four point lead over Romney, possibly due to how people viewed his performance in the first debate.

5a. The way the two presented themselves during their respective debates, i.e. appearance and body language, may have swung the outcome.

5b. Not at all; we, as Americans, are just very superficial.

6. Because Trump sets the bar so low, a moderate performance during the debates can actually make him look like a huge success.

7. The media is who decides who "won" the debate, and for some reason, the public cares about this; therefore, the media can shape how the public thinks about who had a better performance in the debate.

8a. To Group A, they only showed the debate. To Group B, they showed the debate along with twenty minutes of post-commentary by NBC. To Group C, they showed the debate along with commentary on CNN's website.

8b. A majority of Group A thought John Kerry won against George W. Bush; a majority of Group B thought George W. Bush won against John Kerry; and most in Group C either thought there was no clear winner OR Kerry had the edge.

Blog 1.5

1. What do people who do blame the media for Trump argue that they did?

2. What did Berelson and Lazarsfeld find in their study of media impact?

3. What aspects of the election does the media tend to focus on?

4. What does "priming" mean?

5. What does the article claim is the main thing the media did that impacted Trump's success?

6. What impacts did this have exactly?

7. What evidence does this author use to refute the claims that Trump has benefited from the coverage?

8. When does the author claim that media coverage is most important to a candidate?

9. How does the article characterize the media coverage of Trump during the primaries?

10. Why does the author claim that the "media is the effect, not the cause?"

Answers:

1. They feel Trump gained too much media attention, which gave him a greater platform. 

2. "They found very little evidence that the media exerted an independent influence on whom voters decided to back. They found that the voters’ choices owed much more to their partisan predispositions and socioeconomic standing..."
3. The media focuses on what they think are the major issues along with how candidates stand on said issues.
4. Priming is "the way the press can influence the standards by which audiences evaluate a candidate. [For examples,] when... researchers exposed viewers to programs focused on national defense, [they] asked them to evaluate a president’s performance... [V]iewers were more likely to judge the president by how well they thought he had provided for the nation’s security (as opposed to, say, domestic issues)."
5. The media gave Trump large amounts of extra attention he should not have been entitled to.
6a. "It signaled that Trump’s candidacy was something to take seriously, rather than a novelty act that viewers might dismiss."
6b. "The disproportionate coverage of Trump’s views on issues like trade and immigration made these issues more salient to voters, meaning they were more likely to consider them when choosing a candidate."
6c. "His 16 Republicans rivals, and the issues they might like to see highlighted, were not getting beneficial exposure."
7. "He now is viewed negatively by 70 percent of voters, and would lose to Hillary Clinton by 12 points if the general election were held today."
8.  Positive media coverage is most important during the invisible primary.
9. "Trump enjoyed more 'positive or neutral' news coverage than the other Republican primary candidates,... that the volume and tenor of early coverage were disproportionate to voters' interest in Trump's candidacy."
10. The authors feels that "[t]he media [was merely] noting—often to their collective surprise—that more and more Republican primary voters were becoming receptive to Trump's message," not necessarily inherently advocating it.