Brendan Nyhan

From my new Upshot column:

For decades, Democrats have been the party that emphasizes concerns about inequality. So why are many top Republicans — including a number of the party’s presidential hopefuls — talking about the issue?

“Issue ownership” theories predict that parties and candidates will emphasize issues on which they have an advantage — specifically, ones in which the public tends to see their party as more competent. For instance, Democrats historically “own” education and health care, while Republicans are typically seen as better on crime and national security. Given that the G.O.P. has prioritized economic growth and opportunity over distributional concerns in recent decades, we would therefore expect concerns about inequality to be voiced primarily by Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, not Republicans.

Yet last week, Jeb Bush gave a speech in Detroit titled “Restoring the Right to Rise in America” — the latest in a series of proposals and statements by top Republicans focusing on the rapid increase of income inequality in this country.

From my new Upshot column:

Will a measles outbreak persuade more parents to vaccinate their children?

That’s the question people are asking as concern grows about the outbreak linked to Disneyland that has spread to 67 cases across seven states.

Some doctors have expressed hope that parents will be more likely to get their children immunized. I hope they’re right, but research suggests that the long-term effects of the outbreak could be worse, not better. The social and political conflicts we’ve seen emerge over the outbreak threaten to polarize the issue along political lines and weaken the social consensus in favor of vaccination.

From my new Upshot column:

Public service announcement: For now, you should ignore surveys testing potential Democrat/Republican matchups for the 2016 presidential election.

I’m referring to polls like The Washington Post-ABC News survey released last week, which made headlines with the finding that Hillary Clinton enjoys a big lead against Republicans like Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney. Other media organizations have also been releasing head-to-head polls like this, and more are sure to follow in the coming months.

I realize it’s tempting to believe that these head-to-head polls have at least a little bit of meaningful information in them. Poll numbers are irresistible to political obsessives like me, but it’s just too early for them to be useful in forecasting the general election.

From my new Upshot column:

It’s audition time for presidential candidates in the “invisible primary” — the critical period before the state primaries and caucuses in which party elites help choose the eventual nominees.

While Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite on the Democratic side, internal divisions among Republicans are making it hard for pundits — or betting markets — to predict the likely G.O.P. nominee. Endorsements by donors, elected officials and other elites are the best observable indicator of which candidate has the party support needed to win the nomination, but few have been made at this point…

I’ve therefore adopted a different approach to help size up the Republican nomination contest. Taking inspiration from sports analysts who use qualitative and quantitative methods to identify the best comparisons for individual athletes, I’ve identified the historical candidate who I think most resembles each of the top six G.O.P. contenders. I also created a computer algorithm that matched current and former candidates…

From my new Upshot column:

State of the Union addresses — like most presidential speeches – rarely produce a bump in job approval ratings or bring around lawmakers of the opposite party. So why does tonight matter?

[T]he issues presidents emphasize in the State of the Union seem to affect which areas are rated most important by the public. In this way, President Obama may be able to help set the issue agenda for his last two years in office and the 2016 election…

But Mr. Obama faces a significant challenge — breaking through the clutter that increasingly hinders presidential efforts to communicate with the public.

From my new Upshot column:

When will the improving American economy translate into higher approval ratings for President Obama?

It will take time. But if recent trends continue, Mr. Obama’s political standing is likely to strengthen.

From my new Sunday Review/Upshot column:

When will we give up on the idea of a leader who will magically bring consensus and unity to our politics?

At election time, candidates seduce us with promises to bring America together, but inevitably fall short while in office and end up leaving office with the country more polarized than when they arrived. After blaming them for their failure to unite us, we turn to the next crop of presidential aspirants, and the cycle of hope and disappointment begins all over again.

Jason Reifler and I have a new study in Vaccine on the effect of correcting the myth that the flu vaccine gives you the flu. Here’s the abstract:

Seasonal influenza is responsible for thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of medical costs per year in the United States, but influenza vaccination coverage remains substantially below public health targets. One possible obstacle to greater immunization rates is the false belief that it is possible to contract the flu from the flu vaccine. A nationally representative survey experiment was conducted to assess the extent of this flu vaccine misperception. We find that a substantial portion of the public (43%) believes that the flu vaccine can give you the flu. We also evaluate how an intervention designed to address this concern affects belief in the myth, concerns about flu vaccine safety, and future intent to vaccinate. Corrective information adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website significantly reduced belief in the myth that the flu vaccine can give you the flu as well as concerns about its safety. However, the correction also significantly reduced intent to vaccinate among respondents with high levels of concern about vaccine side effects – a response that was not observed among those with low levels of concern. This result, which is consistent with previous research on misperceptions about the MMR vaccine, suggests that correcting myths about vaccines may not be an effective approach to promoting immunization.

This graph illustrates our key finding, which is that corrective information actually decreased intent to vaccinate among people with high levels of concern about vaccine side effects:

For more, please read the article in Vaccine or check out some of the coverage to date:
–Chris Mooney, Washington Post Wonkblog
–Lindsay Abrams, Salon
–Lenny Bernstein, Washington Post
–Kathryn Doyle, Reuters
–David Shultz, Science Magazine
–Teresa Mull, The Week
–Tara Haelle, NPR

From my new Upshot column:

One of the key factors driving the growing scandal surrounding Bill Cosby is shared awareness of the numerous rape allegations against him, which has prompted media companies and his beloved Temple University to distance themselves from him while encouraging new accusers to come forward.

A Rolling Stone article has had a similarly galvanizing effect at the University of Virginia by reporting a pattern of sexual assaults on campus. The attention it drew to the issue prompted Teresa A. Sullivan, the university’s president, to suspend all fraternity activities until January.

Most accounts of sexual assault never reach this level of awareness, however. Few are even reported. One reason is that reporting systems on college campuses and in the criminal justice system are widely regarded as unfriendly to victims. In particular, even though research suggests that many rapists engage in repeated attacks, survivors of sexual assault are rarely aware of other victims or able to come forward together.

Callisto, an online sexual assault reporting system under development by a nonprofit called Sexual Health Innovations, aims to change this and provide better options for victims of sexual assault on college campuses.

From my new Upshot column:

How did Bill Cosby suddenly become radioactive?

On Wednesday, the cable network TV Land pulled reruns of “The Cosby Show” from the air, a development that echoed decisions by NBC to drop a sitcom starring Mr. Cosby and Netflix’s announcement that it would postpone the release of his new comedy special.

What’s surprising is the way that rape allegations against Mr. Cosby, which go back decades, have become so damaging to him now.

According to the research of Ari Adut, a University of Texas sociologist, moral scandals like this one arise when a suspected transgression becomes common knowledge.