After the overwhelming response to “10 Things Losing Candidates Say,” I decided to try to turn it around and point out some common themes from winning candidates. Of course these phrases don’t guarantee success — a candidate’s party and the partisanship of the state or district will be a larger determining factor. But these sayings […]
You can’t rewrite history, but Republicans probably wish you could. While two high-profile former GOP officeholders — Texas Rep. Tom DeLay and the late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens — have now had their convictions overturned or dismissed, Republicans are still dealing with the political consequences. It’s easy to forget the electoral impact of DeLay’s and […]
Political parties seem to suffer through internal battles periodically, but the current state of the GOP is much worse than what Democrats went through some 25 years ago, when organized labor and old-style liberals fought against the Democratic Leadership Council for the soul of the party. I still remember going to post-election events during the […]
The relationship between parents and children can be complicated, particularly when both are politicians. On Monday, state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger announced that he wouldn’t challenge Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina. In an interview with Reid Wilson of The Washington Post before his decision, Berger mentioned professional commitments to his colleagues […]
It’s August of an odd-numbered year, but the 2014 cycle is heating up. That means dozens of candidates are visiting us at The Rothenberg Political Report in anticipation of the midterm elections. Some of them will win, but most will lose. So we’ve started taking notes on some sure-fire ways that candidates end up in […]
The Senate playing field is starting to solidify, and the fight for the majority looks like it will be decided in about a dozen states. But even though the fields of candidates are still taking shape in some of those contests, both Republicans and Democrats are banking on some macro-factors that will affect races at […]
“The GOP needs to gain three or four seats to win control (depending on which party controls the White House), and already five Democratic-held Senate seats are no better than toss-ups. The Democratic outlook would improve markedly if the party could swipe a couple of Republican seats next year, but with only 10 GOP Senate […]