History said there should be a red wave. After all, on average, in the 19 midterms between the end of World War II and this one, the White House party lost 27 House seats, and four in the Senate. And these were not average times. The president’s approval rating was one of the lowest on…
If Democrats lose a net of eight House seats, will that be a lot or a little? How will you know? Most numbers mean little on their own. We ascribe meaning to them based on comparisons. Of course, at a very important level, only one metric counts in measuring the outcome of the November elections:…
I know exactly how to get you to stop reading right now: We’re going to do a little arithmetic! It’s simple, so I hope you’ll bear with me. Each cycle, pollsters and pundits alike seem to derive great pleasure from anointing some segment of the electorate as the decider of the outcome. For months, perhaps…
Forty years ago, Connecticut featured a marquee Senate race. Incumbent Lowell Weicker cemented his reputation as an independent Republican leading the charge against Richard Nixon’s Watergate crimes on the Senate investigating committee. Democratic Rep. Toby Moffett burst on the scene as a “Nader’s raider,” an anti-Vietnam War activist and leader of the environmental movement. Weeks before Election Day, the…
Issues are the accepted language of political campaigning. But rarely, if ever, has a single issue so transformed the political landscape in the weeks before an election as abortion seems to have done this year. In a country that generally supports abortion rights but has long been falsely confident that those rights faced no threat,…
Democrats’ electoral prospects improved in recent months as a function of several developments, including the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion decision and Democratic legislative successes. Some have taken the improvement as a sign that “fundamentals” no longer count. A careful sifting of the evidence suggests, on the contrary, that Democrats’ fortunes…
Dec. 18 has joined the list of days that will live in infamy. Unlike Dec. 7 and Sept. 11, this latest addition does not recall foreign adversaries using force against our country. Rather, it featured an “unhinged,” profanity-filled meeting of lawyers violating their oaths by plotting to undermine the very Constitution they swore to support.…
Radical justices are doing serious, possibly irrepealable damage to the Supreme Court on which they sit. When the draft abortion opinion leaked, I wrote here that by “slapping two-thirds of the country in the face [those who oppose overturning Roe], the Court will have sacrificed its legitimacy at a time when restoring it may be…
“Professors Debate” is a headline that would not have merited a “breaking news” banner, even under CNN’s old regime. But this debate is both important and timely, given the January 6 committee hearings: How many Americans countenance political violence and what difference does that level of support make? As with many academic debates, the differences can seem…
While no one knows exactly how bad this year will be for Democrats, every serious analyst recognizes 2022 is unlikely to be good for my party. Whatever the precise outcome, too many will blithely assume that the 2022 results will yield significant insights into President Biden’s prospects in 2024. History makes clear that 2022 will tell us…
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