Minnesota’s senior U.S. Senator, Amy Klobuchar, is occasionally mentioned as a possible presidential contender. How well-liked is she in her home state? In two recent surveys, Klobuchar received higher ratings than any other politician on the list.
Read More
How might our nation’s continually changing demographics play into the 2018 midterms and beyond? Here are some insights from an analysis of the data: Democrats dominate among “majority minority” districts; Republicans dominate among congressional districts with White majorities. Republicans do well in older districts; Democrats do well in younger districts.
Read More
Now that we are several states into the primaries, with the mid-term elections nearly upon us, there couldn’t be a better time to review some fundamentals about political polling. Major media outlets and many survey research firms have a strong reputational incentive for investing in solid surveys. Still, some pollsters and media outlets have either partisan motivations, more interest in attention than credibility, or both. We should all beware of polling results that seem too good (or too bad) to be true—especially those that may circulate on social media with little information concerning who did them or how they were done.
Read More
Just a week after the announcement that the nation’s unemployment rate had hit its lowest level since late 2000, I spent a day immersed in some of the latest and greatest research ultimately aimed addressing labor market weaknesses at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank.
Read More
The answer to the question of whether school districts decrease, replicate, or increase inequality is “Yes.” Or, more precisely, it depends on which district you are talking about. New research reveals that third graders in districts with high average reading and math test scores will not necessarily see bigger (or smaller) gains by eighth grade than will third graders in lower-scoring districts. But even the most effective school districts are only able to help their third graders achieve one extra year of growth by eighth grade.
Read More
The tragic shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has once again put gun policy on center stage in our national dialogue. Among the many and varied responses is a call to put more guns in the hands of trained school personnel, who might defend otherwise vulnerable students and school staff.
Read More
Caitlyn Jenner. Bathroom bans and related boycotts. Amazon Prime’s Golden Globe winning Transparent series. President Trump’s (now overturned) order excluding transgendered individuals from the military. It is safe to say that questioning the traditional male-female gender binary is now part of our national dialogue. Other researchers and many of those working in public health are among those calling for more and better measurement of the nation’s gender diversity. Like other relatively small and difficult-to-estimate populations—those experiencing homelessness, some immigrant populations, the rare true geniuses that walk amongst us—getting some idea of the population size is but one step in helping to understand their unique needs and contributions.
Read More
It has been a little disheartening to see the recent spate of reports on mistrust in the news media. How can we rebuild trust in America's essential fourth estate? I suspect that some combination of listening to others, presenting solidly-researched information, and being as transparent as possible will help. And that is just what we've been doing in our first major project: the Ground Level Survey with Minnesota Public Radio News.
Read More
This holiday season Andi, Kassira, and I are feeling grateful to the collaboration and support we have received in the Lab’s first half year of existence. We’ve benefited from the wise counsel of many formal and informal advisers.
Read More