Political Commentary

Most Recent Releases

August 7, 2025Previewing the 2026 Secretary of State Races By Louis Jacobson
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE— Next year, 26 states will hold elections for secretary of state. Currently, the GOP holds 26 secretary of state offices to 21 for the Democrats. Three states do not have a secretary of state.
— Our analysis suggests that five secretary of state races this year are currently competitive, including four in the Toss-up category. Democrats will largely be playing defense: All four Toss-up seats are currently held by Democrats.
— During the last election cycle that had this many secretary of state races, 2022, election denialism was a major issue, and in several purple states it helped Democrats defeat Republican nominees aligned with Donald Trump’s allegations of election fraud. With Trump winning back the presidency in 2024 and constitutionally ineligible to run for president again in 2028, it’s unclear whether this factor will remain as salient for voters in 2026.

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                            August 6, 2025My Socialist Mayor By John Stossel
I live in New York City. "Proud Democratic Socialist" Zohran Mamdani is likely to be my next mayor.

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                            August 5, 2025How to Make Sure the US Dominates 21st-Century Telecommunications By Stephen Moore
   Trump's announcement and executive order to ensure that the U.S. dominates the artificial intelligence revolution was a welcome America First policy directive. That mostly means keeping the government out of the way.

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                            August 5, 2025Will the GOP Make Liberals Generous Again? By Daniel McCarthy
   Before politics overwhelmed the word, the primary meaning of "liberal" was "generous."

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                            August 1, 2025Heading Toward Midterm Elections, Democrats Not Up Off the Floor By Michael Barone
        Here's a clue that the off-year elections in November 2026 may not go the way conventional wisdom suggests. That conventional wisdom is that the president's party almost always loses the House and, slightly less often, Senate seats.
July 31, 2025Texas Republicans Aim for Five-Seat Gain in New Proposed Gerrymander By Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE— A much-anticipated draft of a new Republican gerrymander of Texas emerged Wednesday morning.
— The map is designed to allow Republicans to win five new seats in Texas, which would have the effect of pushing their edge in the state delegation from 25-13 at full strength to 30-8.
— Not all the newly-drawn seats are guaranteed Republican pickups, though.
— We offer tentative possible ratings of the new map’s 38 districts below, although without knowing if the map will be enacted under this form (or at all), we are not actually making any rating changes today.

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                            July 30, 2025Public Believes RussiaGate Was Serious, But Few Expect a Reckoning By Brian Joondeph
Americans largely believe that RussiaGate was more than just smoke and mirrors or a conspiracy theory, as the media suggess. However, despite this belief, only 28 percent of likely voters expect criminal charges against intelligence or Obama-era officials involved in the scandal.

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                            July 30, 2025Tortured by Bureaucrats By John Stossel
Americans like licenses. People think they make us safer.
We license drivers.
We license dogs.

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                            July 29, 2025Desperately Seeking a Pro-Growth Democrat By Stephen Moore
   The most recent Wall Street Journal political poll shows that Democrats have swerved into a deep ditch.

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                            July 29, 2025Trump's Trade Lesson for Economists (and the World) By Daniel McCarthy
        If America is in a trade war, the question to ask is, are we tired of winning yet?

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                            July 25, 2025Are Ex-Presidents a Help or Hindrance? By Michael Barone
For a generation, Americans have had a historically large number of ex-presidents around, a possible source of counsel from one of only 45 people who have exercised the broad powers conferred by Article II of the Constitution.
July 24, 2025As Redistricting War Looms, Republicans Have More Plausible Gerrymandering Targets than Democrats By Kyle Kondik
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE— President Trump pushing Texas Republicans to squeeze more seats out of the Lone Star State has led to the possibility of other states on both sides trying to draw new maps.
— California stands out as a state where Democrats could potentially get several extra seats through a gerrymander, but their path toward doing so is much more complicated than the Republican path in Texas.
— Looking across the entire country, Republicans appear to have easier opportunities for drawing new gerrymanders than Democrats. Ohio was already set to likely produce a better map for Republicans, and there are other options too.
— In states where Democrats control the state government and might want to draw themselves additional seats, there are often roadblocks that don’t exist in Republican-leaning states.

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                            July 23, 2025War on Capitalism By John Stossel
Capitalism gets a lot of hate. 
I expect it from the left. They blame free markets for racism, "horrifying inequality" and even, according to Economist Joseph Stiglitz, "accelerating climate change."

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                            July 23, 2025The End of Immortality in Washington By Stephen Moore
Over the last several decades, you could count on your fingers (and maybe a few toes) the number of government programs that have been canceled -- no matter how obsolete, inefficient or wasteful they were, and despite the fact that, in some rare cases, their missions were accomplished.

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                            July 22, 2025Whose Politics Canceled Stephen Colbert? By Daniel McCarthy
Stephen Colbert is at the center of a conspiracy theory.

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                            July 18, 2025Higher Education in Trouble: Political Repercussions By Michael Barone
   Nine months after the 2024 election, we've been graced with definitive dissections of the electorate and how it has changed since that escalator ride 10 years and one month ago. There's wide agreement in the analyses of the Associated Press/Fox News Vote Cast, the Democratic firm Catalist's What Happened and the Pew Research Center analysis.
July 17, 20252004 to 2024, Part Two: When Each State Was at its Most Republican By J. Miles Coleman
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE— The “presidential lean” of a state can, over time, help us quantify its political trajectory.
— Much of the Heartland and Midwest has come to lean more to the GOP over the past two decades, though the Sun Belt has gotten more Democratic.
— By our “leans” metric, Donald Trump held up especially well in several swing states in 2020, even as he lost the presidency that year.
— Florida was the only state that was at its most Democratic in 2004, the earliest year that we consider, and its most Republican last year, showing a clear trend toward Republicans over two decades.

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                            July 16, 2025Big Green By John Stossel
Environmental groups are now rich.
In 2020 (the most recent data available), they collected $8 billion in donations.
$8 billion!

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                            July 15, 2025What Trump Knows About Superman By Daniel McCarthy
   The new "Superman" movie isn't an attack on Donald Trump's immigration policies, but it shows how alienated from America many liberals in Hollywood and politics now feel.

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                            July 15, 2025Trump Should Index the Capital Gains Tax for Inflation By Stephen Moore
   President Donald Trump should follow up on his historic "big, beautiful" tax bill with an extra booster shot for the economy by immediately indexing the capital gains taxes for inflation.