Senate News & Analysis
After two years of campaigning in the latest most consequential election of our lifetimes, election night could be a huge letdown. The disappointment is not about which party prevails Nov. 6, but the reality that a combination of close races and West Coast contests could prevent enough races from being…
I’m pretty sure three new profiles of Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke have been published in the time it took me to write this lede. Yet the only thing more remarkable than the sheer volume of stories written about the congressman is that none of them put his 2012 House victory…
By Nathan L. Gonzales and Leah Askarinam
After nearly two years of campaigning, 52 days is still plenty of time for the midterm elections to develop.
Most of the races are finally fully engaged and the rest of September will be the proving ground for the effectiveness of GOP attack…
Republicans’ Slumping Surveys. President Donald Trump’s job approval rating dipped across the board, which should be disconcerting for Republicans on the ballot this fall. Fundamentally, midterm elections are most often a referendum on the president. And if voters are dissatisfied with the president’s performance, they can’t vote against him, so…
Arizona. Open; Jeff Flake (R) not seeking re-election. GOP Gov. Doug Ducey appointed former Sen. Jon Kyl to late-Sen. John McCain’s vacant seat. The appointment could last until the end of the term in 2020, but Kyl left open the possibility of leaving the seat before then, after this Congress…
After 30 years of covering Congress, David Hawkings has a good idea of how Capitol Hill works — or more important, how it doesn’t — and he laid out five key reasons why Congress is broken.
But whether it’s money, maps, media, mingling or masochism, there are no easy…
Gun control has been a third rail of Democratic campaigns, but a new poll suggests that Democratic candidates should embrace a bolder approach to restrictions on guns, even in general elections.
Up to this point, Democrats have been decidedly defensive on guns. The most famous instances of Democratic candidates using…
Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke began the cycle being dismissed as a three-term congressman running an unconventional campaign in an unwinnable race in Texas. But he’s proven to be a fundraising juggernaut and has some Democrats wondering whether he’s rewriting the playbook for winning in red states.
O’Rourke has largely focused…
Following Hillary Clinton’s defeat, Democrats are in the midst of an identity crisis. Some are looking forward to building a racially diverse, urban-centered coalition, as the country becomes less white and more urban. But where that’s not an option, Democrats are looking back to what they hope will be the…
Democrats are defending Senate seats in 10 states that President Donald Trump carried in 2016. In two of those states, he won by more than 35 points. In three others, Trump won by about 20 points. Florida is one of four states that Trump carried by one percentage point or…