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Commentary by Michael Barone

Most Recent Releases

December 6, 2024

Politics of Economic Redistribution, RIP By Michael Barone

Whatever happened to the Democrats' reputation as the party favoring the working man? Put another way, what happened to the Democrats as the party promising economic redistribution from the rich to the average man?

November 29, 2024

The Groups and Barista Proletariat of the Democratic Party By Michael Barone

Postmortems of the Democratic Party's loss, running well beyond the defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), are starting to come in from some of the party's most perceptive thinkers.

November 22, 2024

Trump Gains Among Nonwhite People: Historical Precedent and Possible Harbinger By Michael Barone

Did anyone expect, when they heard the candidate's announcement at the base of the Trump Tower escalator in June 2015, that nine years later, he would be elected to a second term with sharp increases in Republican percentages from nonwhite people -- Latinos especially, but also Black and Asian people?

November 15, 2024

The Democratic Gerontocracy Forgets the Lessons of Its Youth and Maturity By Michael Barone

Here's another way to look at why Republicans swept the 2024 elections: It's the fault, only partly, of course, of the gerontocracy of the Democratic Party. Going back through history, it's hard to find a time when a party's leadership was so far along in years. The founder presidents retired in their mid-sixties. Andrew Jackson retired at 69, Abraham Lincoln was murdered at 56, and Ulysses S. Grant retired at 54. Theodore Roosevelt died at age 60, Franklin Roosevelt at 63.

White letter R on blue background
November 8, 2024

What You Didn't Hear About on Election Night: The Other 43 States By Michael Barone

Here are some observations on what you didn't hear on election night. Most networks' focus was, quite properly, on whether former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris would carry enough of the 93 electoral votes of the seven target states -- Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- to win the needed 270 electoral votes. Public polling, as reported and analyzed by websites such as RealClearPolitics and Silver Bulletin, had Trump ahead in most of the target states, but by microscopic percentages, and polling in both the 2016 and 2020 cycles had understated the percentages Trump ended up winning.

November 1, 2024

Who Will Make the Last Mistake in This Flawed Campaign? By Michael Barone

"The only garbage I see out there is his supporters," said President Joe Biden on Tuesday evening, referencing a comedian's comment at former President Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally, as Vice President Kamala Harris delivered on the Ellipse, visible from the White House windows, what her campaign has described as her "closing argument" speech of her campaign.

October 25, 2024

The Democratic Party's Bad October By Michael Barone

Was it just a coincidence that Vice President Kamala Harris showed up, 15 minutes late, to be interviewed by Fox News' Bret Baier a day before Nate Silver's poll aggregation website showed her chances of winning the election slipping below 50%? Probably not.

October 18, 2024

Are Minorities Voting Increasingly Like Normies? By Michael Barone

Not everything significant politically is happening just in the target states.

October 11, 2024

What the Census Can Tell Us About Swing States By Michael Barone

Jonathan Draeger, reporter for RealClearPolitics, wrote Tuesday that "the 2024 presidential contest couldn't be tighter." Unless, of course, it turns out not to be nearly as close as this season's run of polls suggests it is.

October 4, 2024

The Vice Presidential Debate May Matter By Michael Barone

Vice presidential debates don't matter, we have been assured over and over. No one votes for vice president or a presidential nominee for her or his choice of running mate. You can go back and look at snap polls taken after past vice presidential debates and find basically zero correlation with the final election results.

September 27, 2024

The Harris Campaign Might Need to Change Its Strategy By Michael Barone

In my time as a political consultant, I observed that carrying out a campaign strategy was surprisingly simple. You settled on a basic strategy, emphasizing the candidate's strong points on issues and character, framing the election in terms favorable to most voters. Then you just carried it out.

September 20, 2024

Voters Don't Want Harris' or Trump's Campaign Policies By Michael Barone

Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday's front page, has any proposals to cut the rapidly increasing national debt. Instead, both are proposing to hand out goodies to strategically positioned voters.

September 13, 2024

Kamala Harris Won the Debate, But Maybe Not the Election By Michael Barone

When I was in the polling business many years ago, our reports always started with the mood of the electorate, whether things were moving in the right direction or seriously off on the wrong track, then moved to two sections on character and issues.

September 6, 2024

What If Trump Runs Ahead of His Poll Numbers -- Again? By Michael Barone

As I try to understand public opinion in yet another presidential election year with former President Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, I see an anomaly.

August 30, 2024

Lots of Tumult and Little Bounce This Election Year By Michael Barone

What if they held a tumultuous election, with an early one-sided debate, a candidate substitution and third-party withdrawal, and no voters changed their minds? Well, that's not exactly what has happened in America's 60th presidential election year, but it's not so far off, either.

August 23, 2024

The White College Graduates' Party's Candidate Doesn't Know Economic History By Michael Barone

Learning isn't necessarily cumulative. Human experience over the centuries provides lessons, some clearer than others. But each generation has to learn lessons anew, and some do not.

August 16, 2024

Who's for the First Amendment -- and Who's Against By Michael Barone

"There's a lot of opposition to just hearing what President Trump has to say," Elon Musk said at the beginning of his two-hour interview on X with the 45th and would-be 47th president.

August 9, 2024

The Symmetrical Vice Presidential Picks: Polarized Politics Continues By Michael Barone

   There is an uncanny symmetry in the two presidential candidates' choice of vice presidential running mates. There are a few superficial differences -- Republican J.D. Vance is 40, Democrat Tim Walz 60. Vance is bearded, Walz balding.

August 2, 2024

The 'White Dudes for Harris' Zoom Call Was ... Weird By Michael Barone

Monday night's "White Dudes for Harris" Zoom call, with some 90,000 registered to participate, was surely a landmark in political history. Nearly 200 years ago, when the Democratic Party was being formed to elect and reelect Andrew Jackson, the entire American electorate, with exceptions, such as Black New Englanders, property-owning Black New Yorkers, and New Jersey widows, was made up of "white dudes."

July 26, 2024

Facing the Consequences of Presidents Choosing Their Successors By Michael Barone

The astonishing political events of the last four weeks make plain, once again, how much of America's history depends on what voters have come to accept as the choice of one person: each presidential nominee's choice of a vice presidential candidate. Even as the nomination process was expanded, half a century ago, to include millions of primary voters, the choice of the vice presidential nominee has devolved from smoke-filled rooms of bosses who represented large constituencies to the choice of a single person.