The Surge, the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ postmortem of the 2014 midterms and preview of the 2016 presidential election, is now available. Edited by Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato and Sabato’s Crystal Ball editors Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley and published by Rowman and Littlefield, The...
Over the past few weeks the two parties’ House campaign arms, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, have begun to roll out their lists of vulnerable seats and of the opposing seats they are targeting. The primary purpose for these lists is, of course, fundraising....
On Wednesday, the Public Religion Research Institute released its new American Values Atlas. It is full of information regarding the American public’s religious identity, political views on hot-button issues such as abortion and immigration, and demographic information for regions, states, and major metropolitan areas. This atlas should prove to be...
The Surge, the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ postmortem of the 2014 midterms and preview of the 2016 presidential election, is now available for pre-order. Edited by Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato and Sabato’s Crystal Ball editors Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley and published by Rowman and...
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, elected to a third term earlier this month, often notes that the presidential cycle is harder for his party than midterms because the electorate is more diverse and Democratic. “For us to win a presidential election, we have to be just about perfect, and...
At the end of 2014, the Census Bureau released its 2014 population estimates. This provides new fodder for political geeks when looking ahead to the 2020 census and its major political impact: congressional reapportionment. Unfortunately, the Census Bureau doesn’t release state-level population projections anymore, just national estimates up to the...
Could the indictment of former Rep. Michael Grimm (R, NY-11) have worked out any better for national Republicans? Probably not. That may seem like an odd observation to make, but follow along. Despite winning reelection in 2012, an ethical cloud was hanging over Grimm, to the point where Democratic and...
There is great symbolic importance to the lone U.S. House race where votes are being recounted. If Martha McSally (R) holds her narrow lead against Rep. Ron Barber (D, AZ-2), Republicans will have netted 13 House seats, giving them 247 in the 114th Congress and narrowly topping the 246 seats...
U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato is contributing a regular column to Politico Magazine. This week, he examines the presidential party’s penalty for holding the White House: losing ground everywhere else. This article originally appeared in Politico Magazine on Dec. 1, 2014. Think of the billions the parties...
Today, Nov. 20, the University of Virginia Center for Politics will host the 16th annual American Democracy Conference. The conference, which will be held at Alumni Hall on the Grounds of the University of Virginia, will feature panels of leading journalists and political experts focused on the results of the...
Since President Obama’s reelection victory in 2012, a number of Republican state legislators around the country have proposed altering the electoral vote allocation processes in their respective states. Legislative activity on this front has been most common in competitive states that Obama won but where Republicans control most or all...
After going over the results from last week, we had a number of bite-sized observations to offer -- 14, to be exact: 1. The polls really were worse than usual This cycle featured the largest average miss by the two major poll aggregators, RealClearPolitics and HuffPost Pollster, in recent competitive...
