Election

The possible takeaways from Beto O'Rourke's performance.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

“I will tell the truth tomorrow.”

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Our model shows Republicans winning about 70 percent of model simulations.

SwingSeat: Republicans get good news in Tennessee but bad news in West Virginia and Montana.

In Mississippi’s special Senate election, Trump’s favor is ‘stronger than goat’s breath.’ This year that may hurt anti-establishment campaigns like Chris McDaniel’s.

Debbie Lesko underperformed Trump by about 16 Points—that's not a great result.

Can a new system of voting really deliver civility?

Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin, a former CIA officer in the Middle East and South Asia, presented himself to frustrated Americans Sunday as a fresh-faced unifier with foreign policy experience.

‘A vote for anyone other than Donald Trump in November is a vote for Hillary," the governor of Wisconsin has spent the week of the Republican convention robotically repeating. "It's a binary choice," the speaker of the House keeps on telling us, in his less colloquial, more game-theoretical…

‘Republicans in Turmoil!” “Chaos Confounds GOP Congressmen!!” “Catastrophic Conservative Crack-Up Imminent!!!” “Trump Likely GOP Nominee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Republicans are in trouble. A significant bloc regards their congressional leaders—House speaker John Boehner, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, and their underlings—as enemies. A quarter or more of grassroots Republicans think Donald Trump should be president. And to make things worse,…

Anderson Cooper’s final question in the Democratic presidential debate on October 13 led to an interesting and revealing moment. He asked:

As the sun starts setting on a crisp fall evening, Marco Rubio takes the stage in the backyard of a former editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader for a classic New Hampshire campaign event, a house party. “I love this weather,” Rubio says. “It doesn’t make you sweat.” Rubio flashes a smile, and…

Last year, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was asked a simple question: What was your proudest moment as secretary of state? Posed at a women’s forum, it was hardly hostile in intent. Clinton was unable to answer, and the resulting New York Times headline was brutal: “Hillary…

Nearly everything that was expected to happen in the 2016 presidential race hasn’t, and many things that weren’t expected have. The rise of Donald Trump—even that he would run—was not predicted. Nor was the fall of Scott Walker or the weakness of Jeb Bush’s candidacy. Polls have proved to be…

Judging by the number of House and Senate seats, governorships, and state legislative seats it holds, the Republican party is stronger than at any point since the 1920s. Yet, going by the presidential nomination battle alone, the party is a mess. There are too many candidates, a few of whom are…

Some Republican presidential candidate was sure to come along with a credible tax reform plan to erase tax loopholes, preferences, and special breaks, broaden the tax base, and lower rates. Now Jeb Bush has done it. This marks a departure point in the GOP race.

How big a problem is it that the two leading Republican candidates for president aren’t actually qualified to be president?

How big a problem is it that the two leading Republican candidates for president aren’t actually qualified to be president?

The Donald Trump candidacy has inspired a hundred writers to pen a thousand think pieces about the meaning of it all. Is Trump’s surge the sign of a new breed of populism? Is it the Tea Party reborn? Is it the reemergence of the old Ross Perot-Pat Buchanan strand of protectionism? Does it signal a…

What is happening in the world? When one looks at recent news, one can’t help feeling a sense of bewilderment. A storied Olympian announces his new gender on the cover of Vanity Fair, the Supreme Court declares same-sex marriage a constitutional right, racial violence returns to St. Louis and…

Republicans debated on the eve of Constitution Day, and did our founding document more justice than usual. The Republican debate on CNN was full of impressive performances by nearly all the candidates—and most who addressed the Constitution did so in a less clichéd way than they typically do. 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with online editor Daniel Halper, wrapping up the CNN Republican Debate.

The American people believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. When pollsters ask whether the country is on the right or the wrong track, wrong track prevails by better than two to one. And the American people are right. We are going the wrong way: The economy isn’t strong, the…

Today, Jon Favreau, the former director of speechwriting for President Obama, tweeted that Vice President Joe Biden should run for president.

Shortly before the start of a "Grassroots Organizing Meeting with Hillary Clinton" at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the backdrop of the stage fell down. Watch the video from America Rising PAC here:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on Hillary Clinton's bad weekend and the Iran deal. 

It’s been a rough month for Scott Walker. From February through July, the Wisconsin governor topped virtually every poll of likely GOP voters in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. But after a lackluster performance in the opening Republican presidential debate on August 6, Walker dropped nearly…

Whatever the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, the summer of 2015 will be remembered as the summer of Trump and Sanders. The other candidates, especially the Republicans, could learn a lesson from the two renegades, who have figured out how to capitalize on the fact that America is in a…

More than a few Republican graybeards are panicking about how the rise of Donald Trump is pulling at the seams of the GOP’s big tent. However, the Republican establishment itself has played a big role in creating this particular Frankenstein’s monster.

‘The Muse of History must not be fastidious.” Thus Churchill the historian. But as Churchill the politician knew, the Muse of Politics must not be fastidious either.

As the 2016 elections begin to dominate the news, a recurring message has seeped into the narrative being spoon-fed to the American public: Millennials will be the key demographic and the single most important voting group. Really?

Two political entities are in a state of panic. One is the leadership of the Republican party, suffering a fright attack over the visibility of Donald Trump as a Republican presidential candidate. The other is Hillary Clinton, whose Democratic presidential campaign plunges as she tries to appease…

Difficult, they say, to pass a family business on to the third generation. Proof of this assertion is the business known as the City of Chicago, run by the Daley family for two generations but now turned over to non-Irish carpetbaggers, with no future Daley in view. In the interregnum between Daley…

Al Gore is "gaining steam" in the presidential race, stated a report last night from Fox News. Watch Peter Doocy's report on Bret Baier's Special Report:

Tel Aviv

Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is up for reelection, and President Obama stopped by his campaign headquarters to praise his mayor.

Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be rising in the polls after being blasted by Obama administration officials for accepting John Boehner's invitation to address a joint session of Congress. Netanyahu is currently up for reelection in Israel.

Given the time and money that went into the recent elections, it seems there ought to be a final word. A summing up. A few words to put a period on the whole business. Something, somewhere. From somebody. There was plenty of analysis – not quite “instant,” but close enough. The television people…

Even before President Obama declared that all his "policies are on the ballot" in Tuesday's midterm elections, he told Chuck Todd in September's Meet the Press appearance that "if democrats hold the Senate," Republicans should get the message that "their strategy of just obstructing and saying…

In the eleventh hour, unaffiliated conservative candidate Joe Visconti gifted the Tom Foley campaign with a much appreciated present. Visconti announced his decision to drop out of the race on Sunday, urging his supporters to pull the lever for Foley on Tuesday. 

A Gallup survey earlier this month showing that Americans oppose Obamacare by a margin of 53 to 41 percent was  the 150th poll listed by Real Clear Politics during President Obama’s second term to find Obamacare unpopular. The number that found it to be popular was zero. 

Every election year, it seems, there’s a race that catches the political set in Washington by surprise. It’s possible that we’ve already seen the 2014 version of this with the defeat of House majority leader Eric Cantor, a result few anticipated and fewer still predicted.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on ebola in the U.S., the administration's response, and how ebola is impacting close senate races in 2014.

A new poll finds that three-fifths of likely voters support the repeal of Obamacare.  A large plurality — 44 percent — wants to see Obamacare repealed and replaced with a conservative alternative. A much smaller group —16 percent — wants to see it repealed but not replaced. Less than one in three…

With the announcement in Kabul of a power-sharing government between the two presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghan election comes closer to a resolution. What is missing, however, is an actual result. The “national unity government” was one part of a deal brokered…

It looks like Florida legislators are heading back to the drawing board—literally. On July 10, Tallahassee circuit court judge Terry Lewis ruled that the GOP-run legislature violated the state constitution by redrawing two congressional districts “with the intention of obtaining enacted maps…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on why the GOP shouldn't rest on its laurels when it comes to poll numbers and why they should continue the offensive through to November.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Florida congresswoman and chair of the Democratic National Committee, is nothing if not dedicated to the cause. “You’re darn right our candidates are going to run on the advantage that Obamacare will be going into the 2014 election,” she recently told CNN.

The governorship of Virginia has been held by some of the most eminent men in American history: Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, Henry Lee, James Monroe. And now, Terry McAuliffe will sit in their chair. Depressing? Perhaps, but it is worth remembering that for about half a…

Could the focus on Obamacare in the last couple of weeks before Tuesday's Virginia gubernatorial election enable the Republican nominee, Ken Cuccinelli, to come from behind in the homestretch? He's run a pretty awful campaign so far, and has been trailing badly for months, but ...

Sunday was September 15. It's an important anniversary, because it's the day that gave us President Barack Obama.

Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika returned to Algiers on July 16 after three months in a hospital in Paris. His health will prevent him from running for reelection in April, and it’s unclear whether he can run the country until then. As a result, the contest over his succession is already…

The Obama administration must have been hearing some awfully threatening noises from the business community lately, because its unilateral delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate, from 2014 to 2015, is otherwise very difficult to explain. The delay is an embarrassing move for the White House and will…

An article about the Iranian presidential election, published online earlier today, included this quotation from the father of Noushin Sobhani, a 31-year-old Iranian gynecologist: 

Following in the footsteps of other TWS contributors who've run for Congress (e.g., Jim Webb in 2006 and Tom Cotton in 2012), Quin Hillyer has thrown his hat in the ring for the GOP nomination in the First Congressional District of Alabama, where incumbent Jo Bonner announced yesterday he'll be…

The Democratic ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummings, said that today's IRS hearing "is more important than one election":

Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, the Democratic nominee for the South Carolina First Congressional District special election, is listed twice on today's ballot. Colbert-Busch is also the nominee of the Working Families party.

An odd exchange at the State Department press briefing, via the official transcript:

With President Obama's State of the Union Address coming up to night, the Washington Post's David Ignatus is wondering:

As we survey the political wreckage of 2012, it’s worth highlighting once again that Republicans lost the presidential election for two main reasons:  They failed to get their best candidates to run, and their eventual nominee failed to make the case to voters.  The result was a relatively lopsided…

As hard as it is to believe, it’s been only a little over three weeks since Election Day. But there are already plenty of signs that Republicans are learning many of the wrong lessons from that debacle. For starters, there’s been a lot of excessive emphasis on racial demographics, which actually…

We heard throughout the campaign of President Obama’s “all of the above” energy policy. That was then. This is now. About 48 hours after he was assured of reelection, the president’s Interior Department issued a plan to close to oil shale development 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West to…

Two thoughts for those TWS readers who—for some reason!—may be a bit down in the dumps, and especially for those who may have spent considerable time and effort trying to secure a better outcome on Election Day 2012.

Since the House passed Obamacare 961 days ago, on March 21, 2010 — two days before President Obama signed it into law — all eyes have been on November 6, 2012.  As Bill Kristol wrote on March 22, 2010: 

Mitt Romney will win.  The tie in the polls goes to the challenger. Here’s why:

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, is politicizing the clean-up of Hurricane Sandy and, he says he offered help to the Democratic mayors of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Emanuel does not appear to have made the same offer to Republican governors…

The bipartisan Battleground Poll, in its “vote election model,” is projecting that Mitt Romney will defeat President Obama 52 percent to 47 percent.  The poll also found that Romney has an even greater advantage among middle class voters, 52 percent to 45 percent.

Attorney Gloria Allred has reportedly been planning a pre-Election Day surprise targeting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The key for the attention-seeking lawyer, it seems, is to uncover "Mitt Romney’s 1991 testimony in the divorce of Staples founder Tom Stemberg," the Boston…

It’s bad enough that the administration has repeatedly cut defense spending in the midst of fighting a war but it now appears it is also shirking its duty to make sure those serving in that war are able to vote and have their vote counted.  At the end of last week, Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas)…

In election law, as in so many things, the word “reform,” when associated with a new idea, is usually a sure sign that mischief is afoot. A case in point: early voting reform. This innocuous sounding but insidious idea, which has led some 32 states to allow voting to commence as much as six weeks…

At a fundraiser today in New York, First Lady Michelle Obama expressed confidence in her husband's chances for reelection. "On Nov. 7 we're going to party hard," she said. Election Day this year is November 6.

On October 2, the day before the first debate, Mitt Romney trailed Barack Obama in the Real Clear Politics poll average by 3.3 percentage points. Today, just before the second debate, Romney led by 0.4 points—almost a 4-point swing in two weeks. What now?

Polls have closed in Georgia, the small Caucasus Republic that took center stage in the 2008 presidential campaign when Russian troops poured over the border there and threatened to topple the country's pro-American government. With both sides claiming victory, the country of 4.5 million people may…

Elm Grove, Wisc. & Washington, D.C.

"I don't think ultimately that the Europeans will let the Euro unravel, but they are going to have to take some decisive steps ... and I am spending an enormous amount of time, trying to work with them. The sooner that they take some decisive action, the better off we are going to be," Barack…

While attentions have been focused on outsourcing, tax hiking, and other political news, Iran has declined either to go away or to behave itself. Tensions have not eased and the Pentagon is taking precautions:

Assuming the polls are correct, Mexico’s notorious Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) will cruise to victory in Sunday’s presidential election and also win at least one chamber of the national legislature. Will this mean a return to the bad old days of authoritarian politics and corrupt deals…

LEXINGTON, KY (AP): Fifty-two-year-old Harrodsburg businessman Arnold J. Uncommitted, who had never before run for public office, stood before a delirious crowd of supporters at his makeshift headquarters here last night, basking in his near-upset of President Obama's reelection campaign in…

President Obama's reelection prospects look grim. The New York Times, in its account of Saturday's campaign launch, reported:

The latest Purple Strategies poll finds that, in Florida, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is running slightly ahead of President Barack Obama, 47 percent to 45 percent. Seven percent of the poll's respondents are undecided.

"If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition," President Obama said shortly after taking office on February 2, 2009. He was then referring to the economic recovery but, over three years later, the president's words seem prescient.

Matt Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:

It's over: CNN estimates that Barack Obama has won enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination for president in 2012.

President Obama's explanation today of his private request yesterday, captured on an open microphone, of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev for some "space" and "flexibility" until after November's election, simply compounds the problem. 

As Mike Warren noted earlier today, an aide to Mitt Romney compared the general election campaign to an Etch-a-Sketch. "Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign," Eric Fehrnstrom said on CNN this morning. "Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-a-Sketch. You can kind of…

At a posh fundraiser in Atlanta, where 40 guests each paid $35,800 to attend, President Obama talked about . . . the weather. As today's White House pool reporter notes: 

Matt Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:

Mitt Romney’s victory in New Hampshire was every bit as significant as it appeared. History is now on Romney’s side: Every candidate who has won the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary has captured his party’s presidential nomination.

A new web video from the Massachusetts Republican Party says Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is "too divisive" and "too radical." Watch below:

Richmond, Virginia

A reader with federal government experience emails:

From the moment the Democratic House passed Obamacare on March 21, 2010, it was clear that November 6, 2012, would be a defining moment in American history. It is not an exaggeration to say that, in many ways, that day will decide the future course of this country: Will our fellow citizens reelect…

Prosser pulls it out?

Like baseball players taking comfort in rituals, in times of uncertainty politicians look to historical trends. For Barack Obama this week, those trends are a mixed bag.

JTA's Ron Kampeas reports on the brouhaha developing in Pennsylvania between Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak and the Emergency Committee for Israel: