Brendan Nyhan

From my new Upshot column, which will run tomorrow in Sunday Review:

Do Americans understand the scientific consensus about issues like climate change and evolution?

At least for a substantial portion of the public, it seems like the answer is no…

As a result of surveys like these, scientists and advocates have concluded that many people are not aware of the evidence on these issues and need to be provided with correct information…

[But] when [Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan] instead tested whether respondents knew the theory of evolution, omitting mention of belief, there was virtually no difference between more and less religious people with high scientific familiarity. In other words, religious people knew the science; they just weren’t willing to say that they believed in it.

From my new Upshot column:

Hillary Clinton’s artificially inflated poll numbers have made her seem like an especially strong presidential candidate, but the Clinton bubble is quickly coming to an end.

Earlier in June, Ross Douthat of The New York Times noted that she has been “leading every potential Republican candidate by around 10 points” and “running far ahead of President Obama’s job approval numbers.” Carl Cannon, the Real Clear Politics Washington bureau chief, cited her standing as the most admired woman in America, a contest in which she easily topped Oprah in 2013.

But Ms. Clinton’s re-entry on the political stage over the last few weeks is turning her back into what she was before her stint as Secretary of State: an intensely polarizing political figure.

From my new Upshot column:

Real gross domestic product (G.D.P.) in the United States shrank by 1 percent in the first quarter of the year. What made this announcement seem so significant?

We already knew that the economy did not perform well in the first part of the year — the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis initially estimated G.D.P. growth at 0.1 percent — and that early economic estimates are often revised substantially as more data become available.

The key difference is the direction of change. A shrinking economy is far more scary — and newsworthy — than a slow-growing one.

From my new Upshot column:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s stunning primary loss Tuesday night will reshape the landscape not only within the Republican caucus but on K Street as well. As Dave Brat, his primary challenger, highlighted in his campaign, Mr. Cantor had a close relationship with business lobbying groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.

What’s less widely appreciated is how the defeat of Mr. Cantor — once seen as the next speaker of the House — will ripple through the ranks of Washington lobbyists, who often trade on their connections to the powerful politicians for whom they once worked. Former Cantor staff members are likely to find that they are less attractive to outside interests seeking influence on Capitol Hill.

From my new Upshot column:

Is vote fraud common in American politics? Not according to United States District Judge Lynn Adelman, who examined the evidence from Wisconsin and ruled in late April that “virtually no voter impersonation occurs” in the state and that “no evidence suggests that voter-impersonation fraud will become a problem at any time in the foreseeable future.”

Strikingly, however, a Marquette Law School poll conducted in Wisconsin just a few weeks later showed that many voters there believed voter impersonation and other kinds of vote fraud were widespread — the likely result of a yearslong campaign by conservative groups to raise concerns about the practice.

My new Upshot column is on the influence of partisanship on attitudes toward the age of presidential candidates – specifically, how the views of Democrats are likely to change now that Hillary Clinton is the likely older candidate instead of John McCain, Bob Dole, or Ronald Reagan:

Does a candidate’s age matter in presidential elections? It’s less relevant than you might think.

A Pew poll released last week asked voters how likely they would be to support a presidential candidate with various traits or experiences, like being a governor, a Catholic or a woman. Although these might seem like important factors in how people make up their minds, voters often seem to work backward, rationalizing their views of the likely contenders rather than expressing a strong preference for a particular type of candidate.

Read the whole thing for more.

In a new Upshot column for the 50th anniversary of the Great Society speech, I take on the LBJ mythology that plays a central part in the Green Lantern theory of presidential power:

Lyndon Johnson was not known as a great orator, but 50 years ago today he stood before graduates at the University of Michigan and described his vision of “the Great Society” — a more humane society that “demands an end to poverty and racial injustice.” In his efforts to achieve those goals he enacted programs like Medicare, food stamps and the Voting Rights Act, giving Johnson an image of legislative effectiveness that every president since has been measured against.

On the anniversary of the speech, it’s worth taking a closer look at the Johnson presidency and the frequent comparisons invoked by critics of President Obama and analysts in the press.

The implications of Johnson’s administration for Obama are different from what many of these commentators think. What we perceive as presidential leadership (or lack of it) often reflects structural factors that are largely beyond the control of the chief executive himself — a reality of presidential power that critics of Mr. Obama’s speechmaking and relations with Congress often fail to appreciate.

Read the whole thing for more.

Why is Jeb Bush struggling to find a message that will resonate in the 2016 invisible primary contest for the GOP presidential nomination? One reason, I argue in a new Upshot column, is the mismatch between the Florida electorate he previously served and the national GOP primary electorate:

The former Florida governor Jeb Bush is a strong potential candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination with one big problem — finding a message that will resonate with the activists, donors and elected officials who dominate the invisible primary process…

It’s true that Mr. Bush’s political skills may be rusty after seven years out of elected office.

But the deeper problem is that the messaging and positions that worked for him in Florida — a swing state with a large Hispanic population — are not necessarily a good fit with the national G.O.P. primary electorate, which is far whiter and more conservative.

Read the whole thing for more.

In a new Upshot column that was published yesterday, I explore the relationship between domestic elite conflict and misperceptions using new survey data on Holocaust denial. Here’s how it begins:

Why do misperceptions become widespread? More often than not, they have been spread by elites seeking political advantage. Many of the most significant myths and false claims in American politics were popularized or promoted by elites like Sarah Palin and Michael Moore, for instance. The same logic often applies internationally.

Read the whole thing for more.

In my new Upshot column, I show that the Democrats’ current advantage on major issues in the polls is unlikely to allow them to escape what appears to be an unfavorable electoral landscape:

Democrats know they face a difficult midterm campaign landscape, but they can cling to one seeming reason for hope: The public agrees with them more than with Republicans on the issues.

More Americans say they trust Democrats than Republicans on the “main problems the nation faces over the next few years” as well as a number of key policy issues, including the economy, health care and immigration. Members of the public also typically indicate that Democrats are closer to their opinion than Republicans on specific issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and raising the minimum wage.

This apparent political advantage is less important than it might seem, however. For instance, Democrats had greater advantages on several major issues at comparable points in the 1994 and 2010 electoral cycles, which both resulted in Republican landslides.

For more, read the whole thing.