Democrats are hopeful that Republicans’ vote last week to pass the American Health Care Act provides them an argument to use in next year’s election. Only 20 House Republicans voted against the bill, which is not polling well and which Democrats are angling to use as a cudgel against the...
Note: This piece has been updated to reflect the final results in GA-6 as of Wednesday morning, April 19. The first round jungle primary in the nationally-watched special election in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District offered something for both parties. Republicans are pleased that they forced a runoff, and Karen Handel...
Whatever happens in the first round of voting in the special election in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District on Tuesday, it seems like a safe bet that the result will get a fair amount of national attention because of what it may tell us about the 2018 midterm. But before getting...
Dear Readers: Our new book on 2016’s remarkable election, Trumped, is now available. Trumped features some of the nation’s sharpest political reporters and analysts breaking down an election that truly broke all the rules. The following is taken from Chapter 10 of the book, authored by Ariel Edwards-Levy and...
It’s been nearly a week since the Republican plan to dramatically alter the Affordable Care Act died without a vote in the House of Representatives. It’s 84 weeks until the next national election, the 2018 midterm. So saying anything with confidence about how, if at all, the GOP’s failure to...
Democrats have a path to winning a House majority next year, but that possibility is highly dependent on variables over which they have effectively no control. That’s the takeaway from our initial ratings of 2018’s House races, a list that is heavy on Republicans who start this cycle only mildly...
Editor’s Note: The Crystal Ball is taking off next week for the University of Virginia’s spring recess. We’ll be back on Thursday, March 16. -- The Editors With politicos everywhere turning their eyes to the still-distant 2018 midterm election, we thought it would be useful to review some of the...
Democrats would appear to face long odds in the 2018 U.S. House elections. They need to pick up 24 seats to take back control of the House, and there are only 23 Republicans who hold districts carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016. In this politically-polarized era, presidential election results strongly...
It’s become far less common in recent years for voters to vote for one party for president and another for their local U.S. House seat. While the number of “crossover” districts did go up from 2012 -- there are 35 of them, as opposed to 26 after the 2012 election...
Election years are separate but also connected. Assuming he is confirmed by the Senate to be the next secretary of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price (R, GA-6) will be vacating his suburban Atlanta seat sometime soon. He would be replaced by the winner of a special election, which...
Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a story we previously published in June 2015. Redistricting the U.S. House of Representatives is not a unified, national process, unlike most national legislatures. Rather, it’s the result of cumulative actions taken by individual states. Nevertheless, it is useful to look at...
Dear Readers: Several times a year, Bruce Mehlman releases a fascinating PowerPoint presentation filled with interesting nuggets about American politics and government. Mehlman, a Republican lobbyist with the bipartisan firm Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, is a University of Virginia Law School graduate and friend of the Crystal Ball. Because...
It’s already clear that the very strange political year of 2016 is bleeding over into the New Year. How could it be otherwise? President-elect Donald Trump, loved and hated by about equal numbers of Americans, continues to ignore or break with convention in a wide variety of areas. Just as...
