Changing Southwest may bring Democrats a milestone win

In a critical mark of the shifting political landscape, Democrats in November could secure a clean sweep of the Senate seats from the four key Southwestern states — a milestone the party hasn’t reached in nearly 80 years. … Even as Democrats struggle to maintain their position in slow-growing, predominantly […] Read more »

Republicans Still Skeptical of COVID-19 Lethality

The novel coronavirus pandemic provides a view into the deep partisan divisions that have persisted despite the unfolding national crisis. Two recent Gallup/Knight Foundation surveys find Americans’ understanding about the coronavirus is strongly shaped by partisan affiliation and news consumption habits, especially when basic facts are politicized. CONT. Zacc Ritter, […] Read more »

Donald Trump, Joe Biden and the Vote of the Irish

In 2016, my vantage point on the donnybrook between Donald and Hillary was an Irish bar in Queens, where I was a bartender a few nights a week. … Half the patrons were Irish immigrants who considered Mr. Trump a real “eejit,” but the other half, the Irish Americans, thought […] Read more »

The Coronavirus Is Deadliest Where Democrats Live

The staggering American death toll from the coronavirus, now approaching 100,000, has touched every part of the country, but the losses have been especially acute along its coasts, in its major cities, across the industrial Midwest, and in New York City. The devastation, in other words, has been disproportionately felt […] Read more »

Rattled by a Pandemic, People Turn to Leaders — Any Leaders

As world leaders grapple with when and how to safely reopen their countries, many are also facing a political problem: how to maintain support as they oversee tanking economies, stifling restrictions and staggering death tolls. … Whether they realize it or not, such leaders have a powerful force on their […] Read more »

Georgia is a swing state in 2020

Democrats have Georgia on their minds. When former Vice President Joe Biden’s team presented their electoral strategy in mid-May, Georgia was one of three states, along with Arizona and Texas, that they believed they could compete in, even though those places haven’t voted for a Democratic presidential nominee in at […] Read more »