It’s too early for a genuine gut check about what the midterm elections might produce in November in terms of control of Congress. Nonetheless, political strategists are debating whether there has been a recent change in the political environment that could ease fears among Republicans that a big blue wave […] Read more »
Politics as (Un)usual
In Marine Corps jargon, a “duty station” is the military base or camp where a Marine is assigned to live. Reflecting our national inclination both to romanticize what is past and to criticize what is current, Marines will regularly gripe that there is no duty station better than the one […] Read more »
Democrats’ Midterm Margin for Error Is Shrinking
It’s still true that Democrats are far more likely than not to capture a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since 2010, but their margin for error may be less than it was six months or even one month ago. The micro-political, race-by-race picture has improved […] Read more »
What Do We Know With Just Under Six Months to Go
Given the warped time-space continuum in which those of us in DC live – a flood of news, tweets, and leaks makes each day feel like a week – it may be hard to comprehend ‘real’ time. So, let me help out. We are less than six months – 173 […] Read more »
Sex and religion were the biggest influences on #NeverTrump Republicans
… In a recent work, we explored the question “‘why did Republican lawmakers oppose Trump’s candidacy in the 2016 campaign?” There are diverse—and often contradictory—explanations of the #NeverTrump movement offered by politicians, pundits, and journalists in 2016. After cataloguing these explanations, we distilled them into four theoretical categories: (1) policy […] Read more »
The Republican Party’s Generational Bet
Representative Martha McSally, the establishment favorite for the Republican Senate nomination in Arizona, took the unusual step this week of removing her name as a co-sponsor of legislation to provide a path to citizenship for the so-called “Dreamers,” young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents. … McSally’s […] Read more »