Henry Olsen is a political analyst and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, known for his expertise on elections, populism, and working-class voters. He is also a columnist for the Washington Post. He contributed essays to The Weekly Standard analyzing electoral trends, voter behavior, and the challenges facing the Republican Party.
I had thought that Matt Lewis's new book about the conservative Republican future, Too Dumb To Fail, had a title that was accurate but a bit ahead of its time. Then, on the eve of the book's publication, Sarah Palin endorsed the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump, with a rambling "speech" that…
Indications of a midterm GOP wave are making Republicans more optimistic about the party’s 2016 presidential chances. Data from a recent 50-state poll offer support for that feeling. But the survey also shows the party’s core economic message may not be as popular as many Republicans think.
Last week’s election indicates that the GOP marriage with the white working class is on the rocks. That’s bad news, since the epic Republican landslide in 2010 was fueled by record-high margins among these voters. It’s doubly bad for the GOP frontrunner, multimillionaire Mitt Romney, who is already…
As a cradle-to-grave welfare state, Sweden has long been the northern light of liberals, the pole star of congressional progressives. And yet when the Social Democrats cast the recent election as a choice between tax breaks for the rich and more welfare, they were handed their worst electoral…