Skip to main content Skip to navigation
CAS in the Media Arts and Sciences Media Headlines

What to look for in the 2020 presidential campaign

By Cornell W. Clayton, Thomas S. Foley Distinguished Professor of Government anddirector of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service at Washington State University

Cornell Clayton.
Clayton

The presidential campaign begins in earnest this week as 20 Democrats debate each other in Miami over who should take on President Donald Trump in next year’s election.

Is it possible to predict the 2020 election before a single primary vote is even cast?

Disregarding Yogi Berra’s sage advice to “never make predictions, especially about the future,” here’s how a political scientist would do it.

First, I would explain that contrary to popular belief the polls in 2016 were pretty accurate. Nine of the ten major tracking polls predicted Clinton would win the popular vote, which she did by 3 million votes. Eight predicted her vote share within their margins of error.

The polls also accurately predicted the Electoral College in all but one state, Wisconsin. In six states, polls were too close to call, so they were “toss-ups.” Five of these ended up voting Trump. But the election turned on just three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — where the combined margin for Trump was about 86,000 votes, less than half of 1%.

The lesson from 2016 isn’t to doubt the polls. It’s when polls tell you it’s too close to call, you should believe them!

Find out more

Seattle Times

Bernie Sanders is winning the internet. Will it win him the White House?

The digital army behind Sanders, explained.

Onstage in front of California Democrats during the first weekend in June, Bernie Sanders warned that there is “no middle ground” on issues such as abortion and health care, taking a thinly veiled swipe at fellow presidential candidate Joe Biden. Soon after, Sanders’s campaign and online grassroots supporters, including ones in a behind-the-scenes Slack group devoted to his support, began to spread a #NoMiddleGround hashtag across the internet, and it started trending. By Monday, volunteers in that Slack channel had created a “No Middle Ground” Facebook group, complete with custom graphics, which they used to spread his message even further.

It’s an example of the power of Sanders’s online edge. He may have lost the Democratic nomination in 2016, but his campaign’s online savvy was on par with that of Donald Trump, who harnessed populist support on social media (not to mention an assist from Russia) to help catapult himself to the White House.

Travis Ridout.
Ridout

Digital strategy in politics is focused on raising money and adding to email lists, not necessarily persuading undecided voters, according to Travis Ridout, a professor of government and public policy at Washington State University. The money politicians raise through digital they can then use for television ads, which, while less targeted, may be more successful in reaching and persuading broad swaths of voters — it’s harder to skip over a TV commercial than an online video.

Find out more

Vox.com

WSU Vancouver offers English course on the Columbia River for the first time

Students in English 341 Native American Literature are taking a significant part of their lessons in a 15-person tribal canoe on the river.

Who says summer school is a drag? For some Washington State University Vancouver students, their summer English literature course is an adventure.

Desiree Hellegers.
Desiree Hellegers

Students in English 341 Native American Literature, taught by Desiree Hellegers, are taking a significant part of their lessons in a 15-person tribal canoe on the Columbia River. Chairman of the Chinook Indian Nation Tony Johnson will be at the helm for the course themed “Mni Wiconi, Water is Life.”

The centerpiece of the literature course is the novel “Solar Storms” by Linda Hogan. The story is set in the boundary waters between Minnesota and Ontario, and focuses the impact of the fur trade and massive hydropower projects, and the healing power of an all-woman canoe journey.

While they paddle, Johnson will teach the students about parallel impacts of the fur trade and dams on the Chinook and other Columbia River tribal nations. They will get an intimate introduction to the Columbia River ecosystems, and related cultural traditions and oral narratives of the Chinook and other Columbia River tribes. Students will leave with some understanding of the annual Pacific Northwest canoe journeys in the cultural revitalization work among the Chinook and other lower Columbia tribal nations.

The land-based part of English 341 is taught by Desiree Hellegers, associate professor of English. She is the recipient of a 2019 fellowship endowed by Lewis E. and Stella G. Buchanan, which provided seed money for the course. Hellegers developed the course in consultation with Lakota/Cheyenne activist/researcher Roben White, who is a member of WSU Vancouver’s Native American Community Advisory Board.

Find out more

Clark County Today

Unlocking secrets of the ice worm

Scott Hotaling.
Scott Hotaling

The ice worm is one of the largest organisms that spends its entire life in ice and Washington State University scientist Scot Hotaling is one of the only people on the planet studying it.

He is the author of a new paper that shows ice worms in the interior of British Columbia have evolved into what may be a genetically distinct species from Alaskan ice worms.

Hotaling and colleagues also identified an ice worm on Vancouver Island that is closely related to a separate population of ice worms located 1,200 miles away in southern Alaska. The researchers believe the genetic intermingling is the result of birds eating the glacier-bound worms (or their eggs) at one location and then dropping them off at another as they migrate up and down the west coast.

“If you are a worm isolated on a mountaintop glacier, the expectation is you aren’t going anywhere,” said Hotaling, a postdoctoral biology researcher. “But lo and behold, we found this one ice worm on Vancouver Island that is super closely related to ice worms in southern Alaska. The only reasonable explanation we can think of to explain this is birds.”

Find out more

WSU Insider

ScienMag – click to view

Technology Network – click to view

Times of News – click to view

Apocalypse Now

Evangelicals have played an important role in modern day American politics—from supporting President Trump to helping elect Jimmy Carter back in 1976. How and when did this religious group become so intertwined with today’s political issues? In this episode, what it means to be an evangelical today and how it has changed over time.

Matthew Avery Sutton.
Sutton

Research conducted by Matthew Avery Sutton, professor of history at Washington State University, is featured in this “Throughline” audio article.

Listen and find out more

NPR.org