December Mood Swings: Let People Say They Don't Know!

Keeping up our monthly Mood Swings discussion of polling and political strategy news that enrages, confuses, and inspires, host Farrah Bostic and guest Lauren Goldstein discuss the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, which explores American voters' opinions on a wide range of current events. We discussed the question types, answer options, and interpretation of the fairly extensive data - and beg researchers to remember how important it is to provide respondents with 'not sure' or 'don't care' or 'never heard of it' options to gauge true public sentiment.

We also talked about how brands deal with trends or issues that might be salient - but also controversial.

And this month's What's Good focused on the power of satire, humor, and fighting content with content.

Our Guest 

Lauren Goldstein is the lead advocacy pollster for Change Research and holds a PhD from UCLA with ten years of experience as a public opinion researcher and social scientist. She has done extensive research and polling on issues related to racial justice (and injustice), criminal legal reform and police divestment, immigration, and reproductive rights. She is the author of the Mind the Gap newsletter.

What we were talking about was...

• Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll December 2025 - https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/HHP_Dec2025_KeyFindings.pdf
• Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Give the Man a Prize - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdvSonnYw-E
• "The hidden axis: the left-right spectrum has a non-ideology problem" by G. Elliott Morris, Strength in Numbers - https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/not-just-left-vs-right-most-voters

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