Every incumbent isn’t going to lose and the candidate that spends the most money doesn’t always win. Those are just two lessons learned from the Republican primary in Colorado’s 5th District, where Rep. Doug Lamborn defeated wealthy businessman Robert Blaha, 61 percent to 39 percent. Early on primary night, it appeared that the incumbent was […]
For a race that had plenty of twists and turns in its final month, the runoff in South Carolina’s new 7th District was almost anticlimactic. Horry County Council Chairman Tom Rice (R) and former Georgia state Rep. Gloria Tinubu (D) are now set to face off this fall, and Republicans are heavily favored to win […]
A slew of retirements and a changing presidential election landscape have made for some ups and downs for the two parties in this year’s fight for the Senate. But the basic contours of the cycle remain the same: The Senate is up for grabs in November. Republicans who last year looked at the number of […]
Back in October, President Barack Obama’s job approval rating stood at 44 percent in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey and only 17 percent of voters said that things in the country were “generally headed in the right direction.” Those numbers suggested that the president would lose re-election unless he was able to change the […]
Everyone has an opinion about swing states. I figured it was time to explain how I see the presidential map. My approach isn’t based solely on statistics, though numbers matter a great deal. (I suppose this means that while I admire Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s approach to baseball, I also think that non-quantifiable […]
Twenty years ago this week, my first column appeared in the pages of Roll Call. I had no intention of becoming a columnist or working for a newspaper, and I certainly had no expectation that two decades after my first column appeared in print I’d still be writing for Roll Call. As with most of […]
Democrat Ron Barber’s win over Republican Jesse Kelly in the Arizona special election to succeed former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) should boost Democratic morale but does little, if anything, to change the outlook for control of the House this fall. Of the special elections held this cycle, this was the truest swing district, and one […]