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KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — More than four of every five of the nation’s state legislative seats will be on the ballot this year. — The usual midterm presidential penalty extends to state legislative seats, where the presidential party loses an average of more than 400 state legislative seats each midterm. — On average, 12 chambers flip party control each cycle. Democrats should net chambers but may fall short of that average. — One possible outcome in November is that Democrats pick up hundreds of seats but manage to wrest control in just a few legislative chambers because the GOP holds such big majorities in many states. — The nation is likely to elect a historically high number of women state legislators. About one in four state legislators are women currently. The battle for the statehouses National political coverage in 2018 is focused on the political destiny of Congress, naturally enough. The strong consensus is that Washington is headed for divided political control again, meaning continued gridlock and possibly even more unproductive partisan warfare. That’s why the 6,000+ legislative seats on ballots in 46 states are critical to the direction of the country. Policy innovation has become almost exclusively

The University of Virginia Center for Politics and Ipsos invite members of the media to the launch of their new 2018 Political Atlas — an interactive tool providing unique data on the 2018 midterm elections — at the National Press Club, Tuesday, August 28, 10-11 a.m. Larry J. Sabato, Founder and Director of the UVA Center for Politics, and Clifford Young, President of Ipsos, will provide commentary and analysis of the 2018 midterm election. Mark Polyak and Chris Jackson of Ipsos will also give a live demonstration of the new tool and background on the program. What: Launch of UVA Center for Politics/Ipsos Political Atlas When: Tues. Aug. 28, 10-11 a.m. Where: National Press Club Kindly RSVP to: Ileana Wachtel, [email protected] or 310-702-4240; or Kyle Kondik, [email protected] or 434-987-6894.

The University of Virginia Center for Politics has received an extensive collection of mid-20th century U.S. presidential memorabilia and artifacts from the estate of the late Jack F. Christie. The donation represents one of the largest privately-owned collections ever donated to the Center for Politics, and it’s made up of hundreds of items from the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Carter political eras. Donated items include: presidential historical memorabilia, including presidential campaign itineraries and inaugural planning documents; original signed documents; original audio recordings; never-broadcast video news footage; political artwork; presidential campaign ephemera; presidential volumes published over the last 75 years; and Republican and Democratic National Convention artifacts, including the podium Bible used at the 1960 Los Angeles Convention where John F. Kennedy was nominated for president. The Center for Politics will host a public exhibit of selected items during a planned series of events to be announced in fall 2018 and spring 2019. “The Center for Politics is delighted to receive this impressive collection of Presidential artifacts, and we’re grateful to the Christie family for their support of our ongoing work in this field,” noted Center Director Larry J. Sabato. “These items, many of which are not only

Table 1: Crystal Ball Senate and gubernatorial ratings changes Senator Old Rating New Rating Sherrod Brown (D-OH) Leans Democratic Likely Democratic Governor Old Rating New Rating OH Open (Kasich, R) Leans Republican Toss-up A confluence of recent polls and reporting suggests that Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is not really among the top Republican Senate targets this year. Those indicators include: — Recent nonpartisan polls from the Cincinnati Enquirer/Suffolk University, Fallon Research for the 1984 Society (an Ohio political group connected to Republican lobbyist Neil Clark), and Quinnipiac University showing Brown leading Rep. Jim Renacci (R, OH-16) in the Senate contest by 16 points (53%-37%), 14 points (48%-34%), and 17 points (51%-34%) respectively. — Senate Majority PAC, the major Democratic outside Senate spending group, leaving Ohio off its initial $80 million round of television reservations, perhaps indicating confidence about Brown’s position (although reservations can of course be added later). — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) not listing Ohio among the nine most competitive Senate races in a conversation with the Washington Post before Memorial Day. He instead named the exact same nine states where Senate Majority PAC would book television time, although he later argued to The Hill that Ohio

As the White House lurches from one self-inflicted crisis to the next — “chaos is the new normal,” as the Columbia Journalism Review put it in a Tuesday morning headline — Senate Republicans have to be worried that President Donald Trump’s difficulties will imperil their opportunity to make gains next year despite a very favorable map. While Republicans can and probably will suffer at least some erosion in their House majority next year, with significant losses possible but far from guaranteed, the GOP could end up netting Senate seats next year even in a bad environment (and could net several in a good one). A new model from RealClearPolitics suggests that even with President Trump at a weak 40% approval — his current average approval rating according to the poll aggregators — the likeliest projection would be for no net change in the Senate. As noted previously in the Crystal Ball, Republicans are only defending nine seats this cycle (including a special election in Alabama later this year), while Democrats are defending 25 seats (including two held by independents who caucus with the Democrats). The Democrats hold 11 Senate seats in states that Trump won in the presidential race last

Dear Readers: This essay is adapted from Crystal Ball managing editor Kyle Kondik’s new book, The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President, which is now available. As the nation turns its eyes to Cleveland next week, Kondik explains why his home state is seemingly always a reflection of national presidential voting and a major prize in any competitive election. The Crystal Ball will publish a special issue with reaction to Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick after he announces the selection. — The Editors In their influential 1970 book The Real Majority, political demographers Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg identified the individual they saw as the American “Middle Voter.” This person was a metropolitan “middle-aged, middle-income, middle-educated, Protestant, in a family whose working members work more likely with hands than abstractly with head.” They then drilled down a little deeper: “Middle Voter is a forty-seven-year-old housewife from the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio, whose husband is a ma­chinist.” Scammon and Wattenberg did not actually have a specific person in mind. Their description of Middle Voter was an archetype, but after the book was published, Wattenberg said, “I do not know for sure if the lady exists. But I suspect that if you

The American presidential nomination process gives enormous influence to two small and, in many ways, highly unrepresentative states: Iowa and New Hampshire. Not only are Iowa and New Hampshire sparsely populated states without any major metropolitan areas — Des Moines is the 89th largest metro area in the U.S. and Manchester is the 131st largest — but both are populated overwhelmingly by non-Hispanic whites in a country that is becoming more and more racially diverse. Even the Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire are overwhelmingly white, and that is very significant politically in 2016. Despite their small populations, tiny numbers of national convention delegates and racially homogeneous electorates, the national parties continue to allow Iowa and New Hampshire to exert an outsized influence on the selection of the presidential nominees by kicking off the primary and caucus season. Because they go first and second, the national media provide massive coverage of the contests in these two states. This means that what happens in Iowa and New Hampshire can influence the opinions of voters in the rest of the country and, therefore, the results of later contests and the eventual outcomes of the nomination races. The last candidate to win a

The University of Virginia Center for Politics and Politico are pleased to announce an exclusive media partnership to offer readers interactive ratings from Sabato’s Crystal Ball on Senate, House, and gubernatorial races. The new feature on Politico’s website shows which way the Center believes a race is leaning each week as well as the logic behind changes in ratings. “Partnering with Politico is an exciting next step for the Crystal Ball, and we look forward to contributing our race ratings and analysis to one of the top political news outlets in the country,” said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “This partnership with the Center for Politics adds a new dimension to Politico‘s agenda-setting coverage of congressional elections,” said Mike Zapler, national politics editor for Politico. “It provides readers an easy-to-access barometer of House and Senate races as well as additional analysis of the contests that will decide control of Congress.” The Crystal Ball will also play a role in a series of four Politico polls on the 2014 midterms — the second of which is being released Monday, July 21. Produced in partnership with SocialSphere Inc. of Cambridge, MA, the polls survey likely

Some short takes on what’s going on in the world of politics: Ponzi scheme comments might not hurt Perry… in primaries During the Tea Party debate last week, Mitt Romney harshly criticized Gov. Rick Perry for his description of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.” Romney went so far as to call Perry’s description “unnecessary” and “frightening to many people.” A recent USA Today/Gallup poll, however, found that voters — and especially Republicans — might not be as frightened as Romney thinks (or hopes). The poll found that, among Republican respondents, only 19% were less likely to support Perry due to his comments, while 43% say the comments either made no difference or will make them more likely to support the Texas governor. While his comments will most likely not hurt him in the primaries, they could be more consequential in the general election if Perry receives the nomination. The same poll found that 32% of Independents are now less likely to support Perry. If Perry hopes to win in November 2012, he will have to tone down his comments in order to appeal to this critical group of voters. – Tim Robinson The Democrats’ built-in big state advantage A

Every 10 years the quietly methodical Census leads to blood on the floor of most state legislatures, as members try to convert the population numbers into districts from which they and their fellow politicians in the U.S. House will run for reelection. If anything, there’s even more blood flowing than usual in 2011. The political maneuverings are a constant, but so is the change generated by population patterns. Virginia is a good example. A predominantly rural state for much of the 20th century, the Old Dominion has become a fast-growing urban-suburban New Dominion. In every decade since 1950, the behemoths of Northern Virginia, the Richmond metropolitan area, and Hampton Roads have grown substantially. (Click on image to expand) Since the 1980s we have produced The Political Map of Virginia, which shows every city and county in proportion to its actual share of the state’s population. As you can see, Northern Virginia has grown so large that, on the political map, it stretches almost to the North Carolina border. The three great metropolitan regions together contain 70% of the state’s 8 million people, and thus the same proportion of the land area on our map. (For comparative purposes, we also are

Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009, 1 to 5 p.m. The Newseum, Washington, DC Please join the University of Virginia Center for Politics and POLITICO for the 11th annual American Democracy Conference. This year’s post-election conference will bring together today’s leading journalists, party insiders, and political analysts to examine the year’s key campaigns and elections, evaluate current politics, and look ahead to the 2010 midterm elections. The conference will take place on Thursday, December 3 from 1 to 5 PM at the Newseum in Washington, DC. The conference is free and open to the public with advance registration by clicking here. Professor Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics, and John Harris, editor-in-chief of POLITICO, will each moderate panel discussions. The conference will also feature a special panel with the executive directors of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Other panelists will include the following, with more to be announced soon: Mike Allen, chief political correspondent for POLITICO Paul Begala, advisor to President Clinton and CNN contributor Maria Cardona, Democratic strategist Roland Martin, CNN contributor and political columnist Kiki McLean, Democratic strategist Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for

The graphs below show Gallup approval ratings for the first year of each of Richard Nixon’s presidential terms.

The following scholarly articles concern the effect of ballot placement on the behavior of voters. For each article we have included a short summary and/or the article’s abstract to assist interested readers in finding pertinent sources of information. Where possible, we have included a link to the article which can be read online, although many (if not most) articles require require a subscription to JSTOR academic database. If you do not have such a subscription, these articles and papers can most likely be found at a local or university library: Avichai, Yakov. “Equity in Politics: Name Placement on Ballots.” American Bar Foundation Research Journal 4.1 (1979): 141-178. Summary: The subject of this article is detecting bias in the lottery systems used to rotate candidate and party placements on ballots (it finds no systematic or inherent discrimination in the lottery systems studied, but states that complete randomness in elections with a large number of candidates is impracticable because of the large number of permutations that would entail producing). Near the start of the article, however, Avichai conducts a fairly thorough literature review to set the basis for real ballot effects as the impetus for his article. He concludes that “all studies

Compiled by Isaac Wood and William Cooper, University of Virginia Center for Politics.