Republican leaders in South Carolina and Kansas have voted to scrap their presidential nominating contests in 2020, while party officials Nevada were deciding whether to follow suit as the GOP erects more hurdles for the long shots challenging President Donald Trump. CONT. Meg Kinnard, Associated Press Read more »
Republicans have confidence in presidential appointees, Democrats trust career government employees
The deep differences between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to the federal government go beyond policy. Partisans have markedly different levels of confidence when it comes to the type of personnel who hold government jobs – presidential appointees or career employees. CONT. John Gramlich, Pew Read more »
The Gerrymandering Fight Moves To The States
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts would not decide cases on partisan gerrymandering. Now the legal battle has moved to the states. A North Carolina court panel ruled Tuesday that the state’s legislative maps violate the state’s constitution, ordering that they be redrawn within two weeks. In […] Read more »
The power of Texas in presidential politics
Latinos attract less attention than they otherwise merit in American politics because almost half of Latinos live in the two biggest states, neither of which is a presidential swing state: comfortably blue California and reliably red Texas. In the first half of this third, two-part post in my series about […] Read more »
The Secret Files of the Master of Modern Republican Gerrymandering
Thomas Hofeller preached secrecy as he remapped American politics from the shadows. The Republican Party operative, known as the master of the modern gerrymander, trained other G.O.P. operatives and legislators nationwide to secure their computer networks, guard access to their maps, and never send e-mails that they didn’t want to […] Read more »
Dare We Dream of the End of the G.O.P.?
Toward the end of his new book, “R.I.P. G.O.P.,” the renowned Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg makes a thrilling prediction, delivered with the certainty of prophecy. “The year 2020 will produce a second blue wave on at least the scale of the first in 2018 and finally will crash and shatter […] Read more »