On election night, in the back room of an exclusive country club outside of Charlotte, N.C., Mark Harris, a pastor turned politician, gathered a small group of friends and advisers to pray as they waited for the results. … Mr. Harris’s race was one of the few House seats that […] Read more »
Latest House results confirm 2018 wasn’t a blue wave. It was a blue tsunami.
The final votes are being counted from the 2018 election. They confirm that the Democrats crushed Republicans. Let’s start in the seat count. Republican Rep. David Valadao of California’s 21st District conceded on Thursday to Democrat T.J. Cox. Cox’s victory combined with other election results means that Democrats have picked […] Read more »
Are White Evangelicals the Saviors of the GOP?
Amid all the talk about shifting demographics and political changes over the last decade, one key voting group has remained virtually unchanged: white evangelicals. According to one evangelical leader, a record number of white evangelicals voted in the 2018 midterms after an inspired turnout effort. … But since turnout was […] Read more »
Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan Aim to Hobble Incoming Democrats
In both Wisconsin and Michigan, Democrats followed a similar formula last month to win the governorship and other key statewide offices: big turnout in urban centers and gains in white-collar suburbs. But in each state, Republican dominance of small-town and rural communities—reinforced by a highly partisan gerrymander of legislative district […] Read more »
The John Birch Society is still influencing American politics, 60 years after its founding
Some of the far-right group’s staff in 1976. AP Photo/J. Walter Green Christopher Towler, California State University, Sacramento The retired candy entrepreneur Robert Welch founded the John Birch Society 60 years ago to push back against what he perceived as a growing American welfare state modeled on communism and the […] Read more »
Are Rural Voters the ‘Real’ Voters? Wisconsin Republicans Seem to Think So
In much of Wisconsin, “Madison and Milwaukee” are code words (to some, dog whistles) for the parts of the state that are nonwhite, elite, different: The cities are where people don’t have to work hard with their hands, because they’re collecting welfare or public-sector paychecks. That stereotype updates a very […] Read more »