Reexamining conventional campaign wisdom
Here's something to do while waiting on those results ...
When it comes to winning elections, is it really, "the economy, stupid?" Are "soccer moms" the quintessential swing voter? And does it matter which candidate you'd rather share a beer with? Every election cycle, cliches come easy. But are they right?
That's what we try to get to the bottom of in our new mini-series on the 538 Politics podcast, "Campaign Throwback." In the first installment we interrogate the role that the economy plays in electoral outcomes, in the second we ask how suburban women came to be viewed as swing voters and whether that is the case today. In our final installment, which will come out tomorrow morning, we look at the "beer question." Starting in the 2000s, pollsters and pundits began speculating that voters are drawn to the candidate they'd rather have a beer with. We go back and look at the data to try to determine if that's actually how Americans choose their presidents.
So while you wait for that last set of polls to close, take some time to catch up on the latest "Campaign Throwback" episodes in the podcast feed, and tune back in tomorrow morning for our final installment!
—Galen Druke, 538