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You are here: Home / 2016 Campaign / How Trump Controversies Give Him a Boost

How Trump Controversies Give Him a Boost

December 15, 2015 at 10:56 am EST By Taegan Goddard 12 Comments

Nate Silver: “The interesting thing, as we’ve pointed out before, is that a candidate can potentially gain in the polls in the short term by increasing his media coverage, even if he potentially hurts his favorability rating. Trump seems to realize this. So far in December — a month in which, among other things, he’s proposed to ban Muslims from entering the United States — he’s been the subject of 70 percent of media coverage of the Republican race, even higher than his long-term average of 54 percent. According to the regression, that extra media coverage is worth about 8 percentage points in the polls: almost exactly how much Trump has gained in national polls since the month began and enough to put him in the mid-30s in the polling average instead of the high 20s.”

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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

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Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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