Many vulnerable Republicans hoped that the GDP and jobs numbers and their signature legislative accomplishment, the tax cut, would persuade voters to keep them in office. Instead, Democrats won with a strong message that the Trump economy is failing to raise wages and that the Republican tax law gives huge […] Read more »
Across South, Democrats Risk Speaking Boldly and Alienating Rural White Voters
When Mike Espy, the Democrat challenging Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, faced his opponent at a debate ahead of this Tuesday’s runoff election, he had to make a choice: confront Ms. Hyde-Smith over her comments about attending “a public hanging,” which evoked the state’s racist history, or take a milder […] Read more »
House results underscore that what’s good for Trump isn’t so good for the GOP
When President Trump won the White House in 2016, he did it by hijacking the Republican Party. Now, after what happened in the midterm elections, it’s clearer than ever that the president’s fortunes and his party’s future are at odds. During the final weeks of the fall campaign, Trump put […] Read more »
California Has Become a Crisis for the Republicans
For all the focus since Election Day on the Republican Party’s precipitous decline in California, the true depth of the collapse is still only coming into focus. And so are the implications of that fall for the GOP’s prospects in other western states following the same trajectory of geographic and […] Read more »
The 2018 House elections may be historic enough to end the redistricting wars
The US midterm elections were historic in part because of the success of reforms to state redistricting processes. Citizens in Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah passed initiatives that take control of redistricting US House districts out of the hands of state legislatures. Reformers went undefeated, and this is a major […] Read more »
Why Nancy Pelosi makes a lot of sense as speaker
A group of House Democrats are trying to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker next Congress. It’s not clear at this point whether they’ll be successful. They claim that it’s time for new leadership, after Democrats won a majority on a message of change. Fair enough. Pelosi has been in […] Read more »