March Nonsense

Rebounding off of Dave Wilson’s post yesterday on who participates in NCAA tournament bracket games, it may also be important to take note of how much our nation spends on these gambling pools. Spending on bracket gambling has jumped three-fold from $2.5 billion in 2008 to an estimated $9 billion in 2015. This is despite the […]

March (Not-so-much) Madness

As the 2015 NCAA Tournament begins, I thought it would be interesting to examine exactly who is taking the time to fill out tournament brackets. While studies show that March Madness costs businesses between one and two billion dollars in lost productivity nationwide each year, data from a HBO Real Sports/Marist Poll shows that just […]

Education a top tier concern as Americans look to 2016

As Americans begin looking toward the 2016 elections, they say education will be a key factor in determining how they will vote for President. In the February CNN/ORC survey,* more than eight-in-ten (82{09f965da52dc6ab4c1643a77bd40d1f729d807040cd8db540234bb981a782222}) Americans rate this issue as an extremely (40{09f965da52dc6ab4c1643a77bd40d1f729d807040cd8db540234bb981a782222}) or very (42{09f965da52dc6ab4c1643a77bd40d1f729d807040cd8db540234bb981a782222}) important consideration. The economy (88{09f965da52dc6ab4c1643a77bd40d1f729d807040cd8db540234bb981a782222} total important), terrorism (80{09f965da52dc6ab4c1643a77bd40d1f729d807040cd8db540234bb981a782222}) and health […]

A Look at the 2014 Q4 Nielsen Total Audience Report

Yesterday, Nielsen released the Total Audience Report for the last quarter of 2014. As always, the report is chock-full of interesting data about the media consumption habits of the American people. The piece rightly notes that the use of what they call Subscription-Based Video on Demand (think Netflix, Hulu, the On Demand feature from cable […]

Spamming Hillary

Up until last week, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed headed for the Democratic nomination simply by coronation from her own party (and maybe the presidency itself if you listen to anyone in the national press corps). It’s hard to argue with their reasoning given Clinton’s initial lead in the polls, and the lack […]

Smartphones during the 2014 Campaigns

With new data illustrating the increased amount of cell phone usage that I discussed last month, it is important to look at how voters use their smartphones to access campaign information. (Fully 90{09f965da52dc6ab4c1643a77bd40d1f729d807040cd8db540234bb981a782222} of American adults have a cell phone, and nearly two-thirds – 64{09f965da52dc6ab4c1643a77bd40d1f729d807040cd8db540234bb981a782222} – of all American adults with a cell phone have […]

The “New” News

I have spent just over 17 years in polling at Public Opinion Strategies. That had occurred to me, certainly, but not in the same way until Jon Stewart voiced the same timeline in his announcement this week that he would be leaving “The Daily Show.” Seventeen years. As they say, the days are long, but […]

Americans Divided on Obama’s Community College Proposal

Earlier this month President Obama outlined a proposal to offer students two years of free community college tuition.  The President enters the discussion about college affordability with a sizable advantage over Republicans.  According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll*, 61{09f965da52dc6ab4c1643a77bd40d1f729d807040cd8db540234bb981a782222} of Americans believe that Obama has the better ideas to help more students afford […]

Hillary Clinton’s Wild Ride

As the long march to November 2016 is underway, Hillary Clinton – Democrat heir apparent – has a very similar image rating to President Obama according to the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey.  Not a very auspicious way to launch a campaign … hence, a delay? Hillary Clinton has experienced the peaks and […]

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