Conventions Can Boost the Incumbent. Did It Work This Time?

The last two presidential re-election campaigns followed a similar playbook: define the opposition early on the most important issue, emphasize a few cultural wedge issues to rally the base while appealing to a few swing voters, and reinvigorate supporters at the convention. It was enough for George W. Bush in […] Read more »

Religion Takes Larger Role for Democrats This Year

It looks to me as if religion is going to be a bigger part of the presidential election process this year than it has been historically. This, to some extent, reflects a renewed emphasis on religion by Democrats and Joe Biden’s campaign, particularly as evidenced during the recent Democratic National […] Read more »

Ron Brownstein on Trump’s, Biden’s Paths to Victory

Ronald Brownstein, a senior political analyst at CNN and senior editor at The Atlantic, rejoins the podcast to look back at the spot-on 2020 Democratic ticket prediction he made two years ago. How does this seasoned analyst assess the U.S. political landscape in the 10th presidential election he has covered? […] Read more »

2020 Republican National Convention Recap

This week’s Republican convention did an especially efficient job of encapsulating the current state of the party after four years of Donald Trump’s leadership. In terms of the roster of speakers and the venues at which they spoke, the convention reflected the extent to which the party has become a […] Read more »

Biden’s New Consolidated Lead In The Battleground

Democracy Corps’ phone, mostly cell poll with 1,500 respondents in sixteen battleground states shows Joe Biden and the Democrats moving into the kind of lead it needs to deny Donald Trump the ability to disrupt Election Day. The poll was conducted after the selection of Senator Harris and the launch […] Read more »