This is why the fight over the Supreme Court could make the US presidential election even nastier

Evan Vucci/AP

Jared Mondschein, University of Sydney

As the two sides in US politics begin jockeying for position following the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the similarities to the 2016 presidential election are striking.

That year, the fierce battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was made all the more contentious because the Republican-controlled Senate refused to allow a vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who had died in February.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged instead to “let the American people decide” the fate of the Supreme Court vacancy. His gambit worked. Trump won the election and successfully appointed a conservative justice to the court, some 14 months after Scalia’s death.

In recent days, however, McConnell is saying something altogether different. He’s made clear the Trump administration will decide who Ginsburg’s replacement will be — not the American people on election day.

Protesters began gathering outside McConnell’s house in Kentucky soon after Ginsburg’s death.
Timothy D. Easley/AP

And Trump has also already announced he will nominate a woman to the court — signalling his intention to move quickly to replace Ginsburg, with just over 40 days left before the vote.

The impending fight guarantees an already rancorous race will become even more acrimonious, with long-lasting implications.

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Why the Supreme Court is so important

As the third branch of government in the US, the Supreme Court not only keeps the powers of the other two branches (the legislative and executive) in check, it makes landmark decisions that can fundamentally transform the country, such as its 1954 ruling that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.

With the Supreme Court now featuring three judges appointed by Democratic presidents and five appointments by Republicans, the potential replacement of the progressive Ginsburg by a conservative judge could have generational implications for issues like affordable health care and access to abortion.

The Supreme Court has even settled contested presidential elections in the past, and with legal challenges to the 2020 election already mounting, there’s every likelihood this could happen again.

Why Republicans are passionate about conservative judges

Unlike American politicians, who are subject to the ballot box and term limits, federal judges — including Supreme Court justices — serve lifetime appointments.

The importance of such judicial appointments to Republicans cannot be understated. Few, if any, issues are more sacrosanct to them.

A key reason for this is that demographics are not on the side of the Republicans. The US is gradually becoming more urban and non-white — two trends that favour the Democratic Party more than Republicans.

This could explain why McConnell, whose memoir is called The Long Game, has prioritised the appointments of conservative judges to federal benches. These judges would certainly outlast the seemingly inevitable decline of conservative political power.

McConnell has said his motto for the year is ‘leave no [judicial] vacancy behind’.
Michael Reynolds/EPA

Before Trump was elected in 2016, many Republicans questioned just how conservative he would be. In response, the Trump campaign made the unusual move of releasing a list of its intended candidates for the Supreme Court.

The list of established conservatives effectively quelled conservative concerns about the Trump candidacy. Indeed, exit polling in 2016 indicated 26% of Trump voters said Supreme Court nominees were the single most important factor in their decision to vote for him — compared to 18% of Clinton voters.

With Trump’s victory reliant on a combined margin of just under 80,000 votes across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, even the smallest of advantages — in this case, those deciding who to vote for based on the Supreme Court — could have had outsized importance.

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped shape the modern era of women’s rights – even before she went on the Supreme Court

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Why Democrats are more passionate than ever

Some have posited a Supreme Court vacancy may help Trump’s chances in this year’s election because it shifts the focus of the race away from the president’s mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis and the poor economy.

But this ignores how much the issue could also energise the left. Indeed, in the hour after the announcement of Ginsburg’s passing, Democrats raised US$6.2 million on the Democratic digital fundraising platform ActBlue — more money in a single hour than the website had ever seen. This record was broken the next hour when donors gave over $100,000 a minute on average to total $6.3 million.

Altogether, some $42 million was raised in less than a day by Democratic online donors.

In 2016, many Republicans said they held their noses and voted for Trump because they were worried about the Supreme Court. Four years later, unenthusiastic Democrats may do the same with Joe Biden.

Biden’s campaign will likely turn the Supreme Court nomination fight into a referendum on the Affordable Care Act.
Carolyn Kaster/AP

‘Nothing is off the table’

Constitutionally, McConnell and Trump face few barriers in their mission to confirm a conservative justice to take Ginsburg’s place. Even a “blue wave” on election day — in which Democrats take control of the Senate and the White House — couldn’t stop them because the winners are not sworn into office until January. This would ostensibly provide enough time for the Republican-led Senate to confirm a Trump nominee.

There is no doubt what McConnell and Trump are planning to do. The more pertinent question is whether 49 Republicans in the Senate will go along with them.

Even the most anti-Trump Republicans — like Senator Mitt Romney, who voted to impeach Trump earlier this year — have supported the president’s previous picks for the Supreme Court. (Only one Republican chose not to support Brett Kavanaugh following his contentious confirmation hearing.)

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But amid deep political polarisation, the likes of which America has not seen for generations, some Republicans are asking themselves about the long-term impact of rushing through a Supreme Court justice — most notably, what doors this opens for Democrats if they gain power.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said “nothing is off the table” if Republicans try to fill Ginsburg’s seat before the outcome of the election.

Crowds gathered at the Supreme Court in the hours after Ginsburg’s passing.
Alex Brandon/AP

Some Democrats, already frustrated by Republicans having nominated 15 of the last 19 Supreme Court justices despite Republicans having lost the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections, have already pledged to make fundamental shifts to the country if they win the power to do so.

This could include giving statehood to Democratic-leaning Puerto Rico and Washington, DC — thereby almost assuredly giving the Democrats four more senators.

Some Democrats have also proposed expanding the Supreme Court to dilute the conservative votes — an idea Biden has explicitly criticised in the past.

Regardless of the electoral outcome, the death of Ginsburg only further raises the stakes and the likelihood of unrest in an already contentious election. There is no winner in such an outcome.

Jared Mondschein, Senior Fellow & Senior Advisor, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Coalition maintains Newspoll lead federally and in Queensland; Biden’s lead over Trump narrows

AAP/Lukas Coch

Adrian Beaumont, University of Melbourne

This week’s federal Newspoll, conducted August 5-8 from a sample of 1,509, gave the Coalition a 52-48 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since the last Newspoll, three weeks ago. Primary votes were 43% Coalition (down one), 33% Labor (down one), 11% Greens (up one) and 4% One Nation (steady). Figures from The Poll Bludger.

68% (steady) were satisfied with Scott Morrison’s performance, and 29% (up two) were dissatisfied, for a net approval of +39, just off Morrison’s record +41 in the last two Newspolls.

Anthony Albanese’s net approval improved two points to +3. Despite these slight movements against Morrison and favouring Albanese, Morrison’s better PM lead widened to 60-25 from 59-26 three weeks ago.

So far the Victorian Labor government is taking the blame for the coronavirus crisis. Three weeks ago, Newspoll polled the ratings of NSW Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews. 57% were satisfied with Andrews and 37% were dissatisfied for a net approval of +20, down 20 points since late June. Berejiklian’s net approval also slid eight points to +34, with 64% satisfied and 30% dissatisfied.

As long as the Victorian government is blamed for the new coronavirus surge, while the federal government escapes blame, it is likely the federal Coalition will maintain its poll lead.

Rex Patrick’s resignation from Centre Alliance makes Senate easier for Coalition

On Sunday, SA Senator Rex Patrick announced he was leaving Centre Alliance and would continue in the Senate as an independent.

After the 2019 election, the Coalition held 35 of the 76 senators, Labor 26, the Greens nine, One Nation two, Centre Alliance two and Cory Bernardi and Jacqui Lambie one each. In January, Bernardi resigned from the Senate, and his seat reverted to the Liberals.

Before Patrick left Centre Alliance, the Coalition’s easiest path to the 39 votes required to pass legislation opposed by Labor and the Greens was to win support from One Nation and one of Centre Alliance or Lambie.

Now the Coalition has an extra option if they win One Nation’s support, needing just one out of Lambie, Patrick or Centre Alliance.

Queensland Newspoll: 51-49 to LNP

The Queensland election will be held on October 31. A Newspoll, conducted July 23-29 from a sample of 1,000, gave the LNP a 51-49 lead. Primary votes were 38% LNP, 34% Labor, 12% Greens and 11% One Nation.

This poll was branded as Newspoll, but Newspoll is conducted by YouGov. A YouGov poll in early June gave the LNP a 52-48 lead from primary votes of 38% LNP, 32% Labor, 12% Greens and 12% One Nation.

Despite the LNP lead on voting intentions, Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s ratings improved from the late June premiers’ Newspoll. 64% (up five) were satisfied with her performance, and 29% (down six) were dissatisfied, for a net approval of +35. Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington was at 34% satisfied, 42% dissatisfied. Palaszczuk led as better premier by 57-26.

Both Palaszczuk and Morrison had great results on handling coronavirus, with Palaszczuk at 81% well, 14% badly and Morrison at 80% well, 17% badly.

Biden’s lead over Trump narrows

This section is an updated version of an article I had published for The Poll Bludger last Friday.

In the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, Donald Trump’s ratings with all polls are 41.4% approve, 54.7% disapprove (net -13.3%). With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 42.0% approve, 54.4% disapprove (net -12.4%). Since my article three weeks ago, Trump’s net approval has improved about two points.

Less than three months before the November 3 election, FiveThirtyEight’s national aggregate has Joe Biden’s lead narrowing to a 49.9% to 42.1% margin over Trump, from a 50.3% to 41.2% margin three weeks ago.

In the key states, Biden leads by 7.8% in Michigan, 7.3% in Wisconsin, 6.0% in Pennsylvania, 5.2% in Florida and 3.6% in Arizona.

On current polling, Pennsylvania is the tipping-point state. If Trump wins all states more favourable for him than Pennsylvania, and Biden wins Pennsylvania and other states that are better for him, Biden wins the Electoral College by 278 Electoral Votes to 260. But the issue for Biden is that Pennsylvania is currently 1.8% more pro-Trump than the national average.

Trump’s gains come despite a coronavirus death toll that has trended up to over 1,000 daily deaths on most days. There have been over 160,000 US coronavirus deaths. However, the daily new cases have dropped into the 50,000’s from a peak of over 78,000 on July 24.

I believe Trump has gained owing to memories of George Floyd’s murder fading, and thus race relations becoming less important to voters. An improving economic outlook could also explain the poll movement.

Despite the coronavirus’ effect on the US economy, Trump’s economic approval is close to a net zero rating according to the RealClearPolitics average. Analyst Nate Silver says real disposable personal income increased sharply in April, contrary to what occurs in most recessions. This increase was due to the coronavirus stimulus, and explains Trump’s better economic ratings.

In the RealClearPolitics Senate map, Republicans lead in 46 races, Democrats lead in 45 and there are nine toss-ups. If toss-up races are assigned to the current leader, Democrats lead by 51 to 49. If Trump’s numbers continue to improve, Republicans are likely to be boosted in congressional races.

Danger for Democrats in mail voting

Owing to coronavirus, much of the US election will be conducted by mail voting. Trump has been castigating mail voting, and this could depress Republican mail turnout. But there is a danger for Biden and Democrats in Trump’s attacks.

As Cook Political Report analyst Dave Wasserman says, mail votes can be rejected owing to voter error. Also, while there are some states that conduct elections mostly by mail, the US as a whole does not. This means there could be errors such as voters not being sent their ballot papers in time.

If Republicans mostly vote in person, while Democrats mostly vote by mail, it is likely to distort the election night results as mail votes usually take longer to count. Furthermore, mail errors, whether by election officials or voters, are likely to cost Democrats in close races.

If Trump could get within five points in national polls, his advantage in the Electoral College and the mail issue could see him sneak another win.

Another good US jobs report

After the terrible US April jobs report, the last three have indicated a clear recovery trend from coronavirus. In July, 1.8 million jobs were created and the unemployment rate fell 0.9% to 10.2%. The unemployment rate is still high by historical standards, but much better than the 14.7% in April.

Job gains in July slowed from 4.8 million in June and 2.7 million in May. The employment population ratio – the percentage of eligible Americans employed – increased 0.5% in July to 55.1%, but is still over 3% below the 58.2% low reached in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

NZ Labour has huge poll lead ahead of September 19 election

On July 28, I wrote for The Poll Bludger that a New Zealand Reid Research poll gave Labour a thumping 61% to 25% lead over the opposition National. A Colmar Brunton poll, released after the Poll Bludger article was published, gave Labour a 53% to 32% lead.

Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The US midterm elections are being billed as a referendum on Trump, but it’s not that simple

Much is hanging on the outcome of the US mid-term elections – and much of it is unpredictable.
Wes Mountain/The Conversation , CC BY-ND

Brendon O’Connor, University of Sydney and Dan Dixon, University of Sydney

From afar, the US midterm elections might seem to be all about Donald Trump, and there is some truth to this. The man, as has been the case for some years now, is unavoidable.

More than 700 days after the host of The Apprentice was elected to lead the world’s largest military and economic power, this will be the first chance for Americans to express buyer’s remorse at the ballot box by potentially giving the Democrats control of the House (and less likely the Senate) in order to rein in the president.

Trump himself is not up for re-election, though. Voters will be making decisions about local and state representatives, so it would be a mistake to presume the outcome will be entirely dependent on questions of federal leadership.

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However, Democrat Tip O’Neill’s famous claim that “all politics is local” is not entirely true here; this election has local, national and international implications.

This is why, once again, non-Americans are taking such an interest in an American election. Many believe that Trump and his Republican Party represent much of what endangers the world.

Who is up for election?

Members of the US House of Representatives serve two-year terms, and senators six-year terms. This means that all 435 members of the House and 35 out of 100 senators (33 plus two empty seats due to resignations) are up for re-election on November 6.

Due to the Democrats’ success in the 2012 election, just nine of those 35 Senate seats are Republican-controlled. So the Democrats’ chance of taking the Senate is slim – around 1-in-7, according to FiveThirtyEight.com – despite the fact Republicans currently hold only a narrow 51-49 majority.

For those outside the US, this may seem remarkable, given the profoundly unethical decisions enacted by the Trump administration, and the parade of misogyny that surrounded Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s recent Senate confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court.

And yet, there are a number of plausible scenarios in which the minority party could actually lose ground.

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To forge a path to victory in the Senate, Democrats will need to retain seats in states that Trump won easily in 2016 – North Dakota, Montana and Missouri – as well as in Florida, where incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson faces a tough race against multimillionaire Republican Governor Rick Scott.

They’ll also need to pick up a seat or two in the traditionally Republican states of Arizona, Texas, Tennessee and Mississippi (listed in order of likelihood). The fact that Mississippi and Tennessee are even in play for the Democrats is noteworthy because Trump won both in 2016 by over 15 percentage points.

But given the circumstances, the Democrats remain unlikely to win a Senate majority.

A Democratic victory in the House is far more probable, with FiveThirtyEight.com giving the minority party a 6-in-7 chance to take back control.

Because all House seats are up for grabs, this is the contest that many will view as a national referendum on the Trump administration. And the results will be shaped by voter turnout.

Typically, turnout for midterm elections is older and whiter than it is for presidential elections, and this is a demographic that favours Republicans. The Republicans have maintained or taken control of the House in every midterm election since 1994, with the exception of 2006, when President George W. Bush’s popularity had plummeted to the mid-30s due to his mishandling of the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina.

According to recent polling averages, Trump’s approval rating has been hovering at just over 40%.

Why is gerrymandering significant?

This election is consequential for far more than the future of the Trump administration. Republican victories in state legislatures and governors’ races, which occur alongside the national election, will provide another opportunity for the party to consolidate its power through gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is the underhanded process whereby elected politicians redraw federal and state electorate boundaries to group voters by demographics and improve their chances of success at the ballot box.

These lines are redrawn every 10 years, following a nationwide census. The next census is in 2020, so the lines will next be redrawn in 2021. This year’s midterm election is therefore crucial in determining which party will control each state during the upcoming redistricting process.

Gerrymandering tends to be a tactic of Republicans, who currently hold the majority of seats in 32 of America’s 50 state houses. Furthermore, the task of gerrymandering is more straightforward for Republicans, as Democratic voters are typically packed together in urban centres, while Republicans are usually spread out across states.

In a number of states, Republicans have engineered things so Democrats are sure to win just a few seats with massive majorities, while Republicans are favoured to capture far more by closer margins, for instance a 55% to 45% majority.

However, there is a catch. In a wave election, as this one may well be, those Republicans who would normally expect to get elected with 55% of the vote could be vulnerable. This may occur in this year’s House races in North Carolina.

What is the effect of voter suppression?

Further impeding the Democrats’ chances is the systematic and widespread strategy of voter suppression, which is typically utilised by Republicans to prevent likely Democrat voters, such as African Americans, from voting.

One particularly alarming example has been happening in Georgia, where Democrat Stacey Abrams is attempting to become the country’s first female African American governor.

Her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, also happens to be Georgia’s secretary of state. His office had been strictly enforcing a new law known as “exact match”, under which voter-registration applications are dismissed for absurdly minor discrepancies, such as missing hyphens or slightly mismatched signatures.

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A judge recently halted this practice, but over 53,000 registration applications have already been suspended. African Americans comprise 32% of the state’s population and nearly 70% of the rejected applications.

This kind of behaviour is not confined to a few rogue states. Other methods of voter suppression, such as felon disenfranchisement, voter ID laws and reductions in the number of polling booths in African American communities, are routinely used across the country to disproportionately target minority voters.

Even the fact that voting takes place on a Tuesday, rather than a weekend, marginalises people who cannot get off work. These people are likely to be poorer and less likely to be white.

Will Trump be impeached?

As was proven on the evening of November 8, 2016, while polls can show likelihoods, nothing is guaranteed. However, the polls currently suggest that the most likely outcome of these midterms is a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate.

What this would mean for Trump is more frustration. The Democrats would be able to investigate the president’s questionable financial deals, potential fraud related to Trump University and possible links to Russian interference in the 2016 election. They could also push for the release of Trump’s much sought-after tax returns.

It seems likely the House will find grounds to impeach Trump. But, hold your breath – that would be only step one of a lengthy process.

Dismissal of a president requires 67 of 100 Senate votes, a threshold that makes such an event unlikely. Given the president’s propensity for mendacity, it will be intriguing to see whether he is able to avoid any perjury charges that might arise from Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian election interference. But again, such charges are unlikely to lead to his removal from office.

Yet who can say? Whatever the outcome on November 6, there is much about the future of US politics – and the global ramifications – that remains entirely unpredictable.

Brendon O’Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney and Dan Dixon, PhD Student in English, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Arming teachers will only make US school shootings worse

US President Donald Trump talks to high school students about safety on campus following the shooting deaths of 17 people at a Florida school.
Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Rick Sarre, University of South Australia

On February 14, in Parkland, Florida, 17 teachers and students were shot dead at their school by an estranged student armed with a high-powered, military-style rifle. Mass shootings at places of learning in the US are, sadly, not uncommon.

On this occasion, however, the backlash against the political establishment has been more fearsome than usual. Significantly, the target is the gun culture of the country itself.

Notwithstanding, US President Donald Trump has come up with a plan to tackle the crisis. He wants to arm and train thousands of teachers to carry firearms in schools.

Let’s examine the evidence for the efficacy of such an idea.

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The Trump plan is not a new one. Many US state legislatures have modified their gun control laws or softened regulations, now allowing holders of “concealed carry” permits to take their firearms into a wide range of public places including bars, churches, and government buildings.

Some state laws allow schools to permit teaching staff to carry weapons on campus. In June 2015, Texan lawmakers passed a bill giving not only faculty members but even students at public and private universities in that state a right to apply for a permit to carry concealed handguns into classrooms, dormitories and other buildings.

It should be mentioned also that Donald Trump is a strong supporter of the National Rifle Association, the powerful US-based lobby group committed to the idea that a citizen has a right to bear arms. The thinking of this group is that the “good guy” with the gun will deter, kill or maim the “bad guy” (the would-be shooter) before he can unleash his lethal mayhem.

Is there any evidence that the Trump approach is workable? No, not a skerrick.

The evidence continues to mount against guns as a form of urban crime prevention strategy, and for the proposition that a greater proliferation of guns actually increases the likelihood of urban violence.

Researchers in 2010 found that gun availability positively influenced the rates of several violent crimes in a sample of cities across 39 countries. Further research reviewed data for 27 developed countries and concluded that the number of guns per capita per country was a strong and independent predictor of firearm-related deaths.

Significantly, van Kesteren concludes:

In high-gun countries, the risks of escalation to more serious and lethal violence are higher. On balance, considerably more serious crimes of violence are committed in such countries. For this reason, the strict gun-reduction policies of many governments seem to be a sensible means to advance the common good.

I do not know of one serious crime prevention advocate in the developed world who would suggest that children are safer in a school because of firearms in their teachers’ hands.

Leaving aside the possibility of theft of a gun, its misuse or an accident, it would be fanciful to suggest that teachers could be trained to make split-second determinations of who is a “bad guy” and who is a “good guy”. Even the most highly specialised armed forces units get that wrong sometimes.

And let’s not forget the cost of the plan. Trump needs to multiply the price of the weapons plus the costs of training by the number of teachers who volunteer to take on this task in the 100,000 educational institutions in the US today.

The evidence that countries with higher levels of gun ownership have higher gun homicide, gun suicide and gun injury rates is convincing. The US gun ownership rate (guns per 100 people) is more than five times the Australian rate. Its gun homicide rate is more than ten times the Australian rate.

Of all US homicides, 60% are committed by firearms. The equivalent figure in Australia (2010–12) is 14%.

The only ways to stop or reduce the likelihood of a school shooting is, first, to take seriously the role of the state in enacting laws to make firearm ownership an earned privilege and not a right, and second, to remove from public hands altogether, as Australia has done, automatic, semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns. They are simply not needed in any 21st-century urban setting.

Are either of these things about to happen in the US? Not in my lifetime, nor in my children’s lifetimes.

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Estimates in 2009 were that there were more than 300 million guns in private hands in the US. This figure would be significantly higher today, although one of the problems is that it is not known exactly how many people own how many guns.

They are not going to disappear in the foreseeable future. And if the deaths of 20 children between six and seven years old, as well as six staff members, at Sandy Hook elementary school in December 2012 cannot re-direct the political wind, then nothing will – not even the cries of pain outside of the White House from families from Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Will more mass shootings occur in US schools and on college campuses in the years to come? Most certainly, with or without the implementation of Trump’s latest suggestion. Indeed, the situation is likely to get worse.

Unless something radically changes some time soon, Americans just have to live with the inevitable.

Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Strong US economy boosts Trump’s ratings, as Democrats shut down government for three days

Before the government shutdown, Donald Trump exceeded a 40% approval rating for the first time since May 2017.
Reuters/Carlos Barria

Adrian Beaumont, University of Melbourne

On January 20, 2018, exactly one year after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, the US government entered a partial shutdown for three days – the first shutdown since 2013. This is the second shutdown that has occurred when the same party controlled the presidency and both chambers of Congress; one agency was shut down for one day in 1980.

While Republicans hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, it usually takes three-fifths of the Senate (60 votes) to invoke cloture and prevent filibustering of legislation. In the House of Representatives, Republicans have a 238-193 majority, and a bill that funded the government passed 230-197.

In the Senate, the same bill won the vote 50-49, but was short of the 60 votes needed for cloture. Five Democrats, all representing states Trump won by at least 18 points in 2016, voted in favour of this bill, and five Republicans voted against, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “no” vote was technical, to allow him to reintroduce the same bill.

The reason Democrats denied supply was a dispute over “Dreamers” – children who came to the US illegally. Under President Barack Obama, the approximately 800,000 Dreamers were eligible for renewable two-year non-deportation periods, and work permits. Trump rescinded this program in September 2017, but Congress was given until March 2018 to legislate an alternative.

Four months since Trump’s rescission, no legislation on Dreamers has been voted on by either chamber. On January 11, Trump reportedly said “shithole countries” in reference to immigrants from Haiti and some African countries. Democrats clearly believe Trump and Republican congressional leaders will do nothing to stop the Dreamers being deported, so they blocked Supply to try to force action.

On 22 January, the shutdown ended with Democratic support after McConnell promised the Senate would vote on action for the Dreamers. However, the government’s funding expires on February 8. If McConnell fails to honour his promise, it is likely there will be another US government shutdown.

The funding bill agreed to also funded the Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years – a key Democratic priority.

Even if a bill that stopped the deportation of Dreamers passed the Senate, the House of Representatives is more difficult, as there is a large bloc of hard-right Republicans who would detest leaders bringing any pro-Dreamer legislation to a vote. Trump can veto legislation, and it requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override his veto.

The strong US economy has improved Trump’s ratings in the last month. According to the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, Trump’s ratings were 36.4% approve, 57.5% disapprove on December 16, but they are now at 39.1% approve, 55.9% disapprove.

Before the shutdown, Trump exceeded 40% approval for the first time since May 2017.

The strong US economy also appears to be helping Republicans in the race for Congress. A month ago, Democrats led Republicans by 50-37, but that advantage has shrunk to 46-39 in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate.

Republicans may also be benefiting from a lack of media focus on the controversial bills they had passed or attempted to pass, such as the corporate tax cuts or Obamacare repeal.

The shutdown was not long enough to have a large impact on Trump’s ratings or the race for Congress. According to FiveThirtyEight analyst Harry Enten, the previous two long shutdowns – in 1995-96 and 2013 – had a large negative short-term impact on the Republicans, who were blamed for both. However, once the shutdowns were resolved, voters quickly forgot about the disruption.

Midterm elections will be held this November, in which all 435 House of Representatives members and one-third of the 100 senators are up for election.

Owing to natural clustering of Democrats in cities and Republican gerrymandering, Democrats probably need a high single-figure lead on the popular vote to take control of the House of Representatives. A seven-point lead for Democrats would give Republicans some chance of retaining control.

Commissioned Tasmanian polls stronger for Liberals than December EMRS

The Tasmanian election is expected to be called soon for either March 3 or 17. Tasmania uses the Hare-Clark system for its lower house, with five five-member electorates. A December EMRS poll gave the Liberals 34%, Labor 34% and the Greens 17%.

There has been no media-commissioned polling since this poll, but the Liberals released a MediaReach poll last week that gave them 41.1%, Labor 34.3%, the Greens 12.8% and the Jacqui Lambie Network (JLN) 6.2%.

A ReachTEL poll for the left-wing Australia Institute in the seat of Bass gave the Liberals 49.4%, Labor 27.6%, the Greens 10.5% and the JLN 10.1%.

MediaReach has previously only taken polls in the Northern Territory, so it does not have a track record. ReachTEL’s Tasmanian polls were biased against Labor at the last two federal elections, but the Liberals performed better than ReachTEL expected at the 2014 state election.

Essential 53-47 to federal Labor

The first federal poll of 2018, an Essential poll, was released last week. Labor led by 53-47, unchanged from the final Essential poll of 2017 five weeks ago.

Primary votes were 38% Labor (steady), 37% Coalition (steady), 9% Greens (steady) and 6% One Nation (down one). This poll was conducted on January 11-15 from a sample of 1,038.

According to the Poll Bludger, Essential will be a fortnightly poll this year. Previously, Essential polled weekly, with a rolling two-week sample used for voting intentions.

Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval was minus seven, down four points since December. Bill Shorten’s net approval slumped to minus 17, down eight points since December.

By 44-29, voters would support Australia becoming a republic with an Australian head of state (44-30 in January 2017). By 53-38, voters would support a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks.

More than 50% thought all types of crime had increased in the last few years, including 70% who thought youth gang crime had increased, and 76% who thought drug-related crime had increased. 53% and 40% respectively thought drug crime and youth crime had increased a lot.

I expect the first Newspoll of 2018 when federal parliament resumes in early February.

Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

God is not dead and neither is Christianity in America

The Bible cautions that “The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him,” reports Baptist Press.

Unfortunately, this proverb has become increasingly actionable in recent years as Christians and their beliefs are being presented unfavorably — alternately as a monolithic bloc and then as fragmented and waning in numbers — by a media that at times is not too sophisticated and at other times apparently is just malicious. Even some evangelicals have shown a disappointing lack of discernment in claiming to know evangelicals (the “I am one of them” credential), but then advocating views that seem at odds with what is obvious or established about evangelicals.

Probably the most egregious example of late was the media’s representation of the American Religious Identity Survey 2008 (pertaining to adults) released in March 2009 by Trinity College of Hartford, Conn.

The cover of Newsweek proclaimed “The decline and fall of Christian America” and the magazine reported that according to the survey, “the percentage of self-identified [adult] Christians has fallen 10 percent since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent.”

Editor Jon Meacham opined, “This is not to say that the Christian God is dead,” he said, “but that [H]e is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory.”

He conceded that the U.S. is “decisively shaped by religious faith,” but offered that “our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago,” adding that he thought this was a “good thing” for both the political culture and Christianity. In his view “the decline and fall of the religious right’s notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment” and in his estimation this perceived shift “may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.”

In examining the A.R.I.S. data, the Washington Post simply stated “15 Percent of Americans Have No Religion” but offered the same data as Newsweek that “the percentage of [adult] Americans identifying as Christians has dropped to 76 percent of the population, down from 86 percent in 1990.”

“The increase in people labeling themselves in more generic Christian terms corresponds strongly with the decline in people identifying themselves as Protestant, the survey found,” Michele Boorstein wrote.

She offered one insight to help explain the shift, but stopped short of any meaningful analysis.

“People calling themselves mainline Protestants, including Methodists and Lutherans, have dropped to 13 percent of the [adult] population, down from 19 percent in 1990. The number of people who describe themselves as generically ‘Protestant’ went from approximately 17 million in 1990 to 5 million.”

The headline in USA Today read, “Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds” adding to the chorus about the “percentage of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% [of adults] in a generation.

“These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS)…. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.”

The writer, Cathy Grossman, offered some contextualization by recognizing the shift in our population from immigration, but she fell short in pursuing what this shift means to the changes reported by the A.R.I.S. 2008 study. Later she also observed that sexual abuse by Catholic clergy might have contributed to some changes in the numbers of those who identified themselves as Catholics, but said nothing about other similar influences that might have shaped respondents’ answers to the poll.

Even the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research, weighed in.

He applauded the USA Today account of the A.R.I.S. 2008 findings and lauded the A.R.I.S. methodology. He also tagged on his observation that “denominations and denominationalism are in decline, the cultural influence of Christianity continues to slip, more people are describing themselves as non-religious (now at 15%) and minority religions are increasing in popularity (like Islam and Wicca).

“Baptists are shown to be an aging group that continues to lose the younger generations and leaders,” he added.

What each of these assessments misses is what the research actually said, and even what the study’s principal investigators concluded about their findings.

On the first page of the report, researchers Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar offered this conclusion in the highlights section of their study:

“Overall the 1990-2008 ARIS time series shows that changes in religious self-identification in the first decade of the 21st century have been moderate in comparison to the 1990s, which was a period of significant shifts in the religious composition of the United States.”

Indeed.

The researchers might have been too passive in their assessment that the changes from 2001 to 2008 were “moderate” compared to the “significant shifts” from 1990 to 2000.

Look, for instance, at the common data highlighted by the mainstream media that “the percentage of [adult] Americans identifying as Christians has dropped to 76 percent of the population, down from 86 percent in 1990.”

The data points are factual, but the way the data are presented is not.

The reality is that the percentage of adult Americans who claimed to be Christians dropped from 86 percent in 1990 to 77.7 percent in 2001 and THEN to 76 percent in 2008. In other words, almost none of the change happened in the last 8 years of the study. Even Kosmin and Keysar stated that “the most dramatic changes in the balance of religious sentiments seem to have occurred during the 1990s.”

Moreover, these percentages do not reflect an exodus from Christianity or an ineffectiveness of the faith.

The A.R.I.S. data show the absolute number of adult Christians actually increased from 151,225,000 in 1990 to 159,514,000 in 2001 (a gain of nearly 8.3 million) and grew to 173,402,000 in 2008 (increasing by nearly 14 million). During this same time the U.S. adult population as a whole grew by 32.5 million in the 1990s and by 20 million from 2001 to 2008.

What a different perspective the numbers actually present.

In the time from 2001 to 2008, the U.S. adult population grew by 20 million and 14 million of these were Christians!

Taken in the whole, Newsweek got the story absolutely wrong. The proper interpretation is not a “fall and decline of Christian America” but that the fall or decline has substantially stopped (or at least dramatically slowed). To be frank, an objective interpretation shows we have not become a post-Christian America, but does suggest that perhaps that we are no longer moving toward becoming a secular America.

Such a conclusion is even more plausible from a true look at the growth of “nones” (those claiming no religious identity or connection). Most mainstream media proclaimed the numbers in this category had nearly doubled in 18 years, with the “nones” portion of the U.S. adult population leaping from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 15.0 percent in 2008.

But the truth is almost all of the gains occurred in the 1990s (8.2 percent to 14.1 percent) and less than one percent of the shift happened from 2001 to 2008 (0.9 percent to be exact).

There are other elements of the study that also received almost no mention.

In discussing some of these points, I do not mean to suggest that the study was poorly designed or that the methodology was lacking in any respect. However, every study has limits to what can be inferred from the information it presents because of limits in the design or other aspects of the study.

For instance, the three A.R.I.S. surveys that compose the whole work were self-reporting. In other words, respondents described themselves; the data were not obtained from formal observations by trained investigators using set criteria to categorize participants’ actual behavior.

Likewise, the A.R.I.S. project is not a longitudinal study of a single sample of people, but a series of three surveys that gathered information from different samples in different time periods, each contextualized by different circumstances that should be examined for how they informed respondents’ answers. At any other point during the two long time spans between surveys, given a different set of influences, the very same respondents could have responded remarkably different than they did at the actual moment in time they responded for the 2001 and 2008 surveys, respectively. Essentially, there are three data points out of an 18-year period and graphing a trend using just these three plotted coordinates is a guess at best.

Consider that the 2008 survey was conducted from February through November, during a highly contentious presidential campaign in which faith voters were a highly sought-after constituency. Ironically, during this same season, religion was highly negatively portrayed, and this could have been an interacting factor.

For example, look at the data reported about the absolute numbers and the percentages of the adult population for those who identified themselves with the United Churches of Christ. In 1990, 0.2 percent (or 438,000) claimed affiliation, climbing dramatically to 0.7 percent (or 1,378,000) in 2001, and dropping almost as dramatically to 0.3 percent (or 736,000) in 2008.

What might explain such a dramatic swing in the numbers for this denomination?

During the same time the 2008 survey was being conducted, then Sen. Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was the subject of almost nightly reports on television, daily articles in America’s newspapers and hourly commentary on radio. Although some defenses were offered on behalf of Obama for his relationship to the controversial figure, there was no positive press for Wright. In fact, after attacks by his Democrat rivals as well as GOP candidates citing Wright’s anti-white tirades and anti-America rhetoric, in May 2008, Obama dropped his 20-year membership with his home church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Chicago. Wright’s denominational affiliation was repeated in nearly every news report.

It can’t be stated definitively that this was a factor, but it certainly appears that it could have been a major influence in how participants in the study responded when contacted by phone.

But Wright was not the only person of faith who came under fire. During the two months just prior to the February start of the 2008 study, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon, was a popular subject in the mainstream media and much of the coverage repeated the criticisms of him for the more controversial aspects of his faith tradition. Likewise, Southern Baptist Mike Huckabee was portrayed more as a former Baptist minister with conservative views on marriage and the unborn (sometimes favorably and sometimes not for these views), and less as a governor with 10 years of executive experience. Then there was the mainstream media’s almost totally negative portrayal of vice presidential candidate and evangelical Sarah Palin.

Given these almost constant negative portrayals just before and also during the timeframe for the 2008 survey, the wonder is that the data didn’t show more than just a small negative change among those who identified themselves as Christians.

Numbers are important but only in context of the circumstances which shaped them.

This is true when assessing Christianity in America and also when looking at what research shows about the state of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Report from the Christian Telegraph