Dear Readers: This is the latest in a series of political science forecasts for the 2016 races for the White House and Congress. We’ll be featuring forecasts from nine different individuals and/or teams this year, which James E. Campbell is assembling as part of a project for PS: Political Science...
With Hillary Clinton taking a large lead in the polls following the Democratic National Convention, journalists have begun to discuss the extent to which Democrats may be able to capitalize on these gains in down ballot races for the House and Senate. As has been the case in every recent...
Dear Readers: This is the latest in a series of political science forecasts for the 2016 races for the White House and Congress. We’ll be featuring forecasts from nine different individuals and/or teams this year, which James E. Campbell is assembling as part of a project for PS: Political Science...
In a recent meeting, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R, WI-1) warned donors that the GOP’s House majority might not be safe. Now, politicians don’t like to project overconfidence -- just check your email for campaign fundraising pitches with subject lines like “the sky is falling” -- but Ryan, who romped...
Dear Readers: Larry J. Sabato, founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, will be the keynote speaker for the 54th annual Independence Day Celebration and Naturalization ceremony at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson and a must-visit American treasure. This ceremony is the oldest continuous naturalization...
The horrifying massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando forces us to ponder whether it will somehow change the national electoral calculus. The short answer is that it’s too soon to tell, but the grim reality is that the frequency of mass murder in the United States -- committed by...
While Hillary Clinton still leads Donald Trump in most national polling, her margin is not what it once was: She’s up about five points in the HuffPost Pollster average, down from nine points in mid-April, and she’s up just two points in the RealClearPolitics average, also down from nine points...
The 2012 election provided two powerful reminders about the electoral implications of overly-concentrated Democratic voters. First, the Republicans held their U.S. House majority, won in 2010, despite the fact that the Democratic candidates in the 435 House districts received more votes than their Republican opponents. Second, these House results were...
On Tuesday night, scandal-drenched Rep. Chaka Fattah (D, PA-2) became the first House incumbent to lose a primary this year. History suggests a few others will join him, but only a few. Since the end of World War II, there has never been a year where every single House member...
Pennsylvania’s Seventh Congressional District, which forms a misshapen U linking Greater Philadelphia in the east to the outskirts of Lancaster and Reading to its west and north, provides a vivid example of the challenges Democrats face on the current U.S. House map. It is a district that Democrats won in...
We are making 17 changes to our U.S. House ratings this week. On the surface, all that movement suggests that there is a lot going on in the battle for the House. Actually, though, the overall House picture remains largely where it has been for months: on hold until the...
Amidst the onslaught of news stories about the 2016 presidential primaries, it is easy to forget that voters in many states will soon be casting primary ballots in races for a variety of other offices. We haven’t yet heard much about incumbents “getting primaried” this year, but that doesn’t mean...
The upcoming battle for the Senate depends to a large extent on the presidential race; Democrats should gain House seats but not truly threaten the GOP’s big lower chamber majority; and Republicans are positioned to add to their already-substantial majority of governorships. That’s the early line on next year’s down-ballot...
The long saga of Florida’s legal battle over redistricting now appears to be over. The state Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, approved a new map for the state’s 27-member U.S. House delegation. The remap is an improvement for Democrats over the current map drawn by the state’s Republican-controlled state...
On Thursday, Nov. 19, the University of Virginia Center for Politics will host the 17th annual American Democracy Conference in Washington, DC. The conference will feature leading journalists and political experts discussing the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries as well as the overall political outlook for 2016. The conference will...
