(updated to reflect a narrow win by Amy McGrath over Charles Booker in the Democratic primary) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has made a successful career out of exploiting the rules of government. He is the single greatest architect of changes that move the U.S. away from democracy. But national Democrats and voting rights […]
Entries Tagged as 'Senate'
Election tracking 2020, Part 2: The U.S. Senate
June 17th, 2020, 8:42pm by Sam Wang
Close watchers of politics sense that conditions are turning against Senate Republicans. Exactly when this began has been hard to tell by looking at individual polls. But a statistical aggregate clarifies the answer: the middle of April, at the same time as President Trump’s increasingly wild coronavirus-19 press conferences. The core calculation is to determine […]
Tags: 2020 Election · Politics · Senate · Site News
Close races taking shape in 2020: Senate control in play?
January 16th, 2020, 8:16pm by Sam Wang
Graphed by Ben Rosenblatt, here are the top 10 most-popular and bottom 10 least-popular Senators, as measured by Morning Consult. Notably, five of the bottom six are up for re-election this November – and all are Republicans. These five races would seem to present some ripe opportunities – potentially enough to switch control of the […]
Tags: 2020 Election · Senate
Optimal Donations, 2018 (Runoff Edition)
November 24th, 2018, 8:42am by Sam Wang
Election season’s not quite over. We have two high-profile runoffs, one for Georgia Secretary of State and one for Mississippi U.S. Senate. In both cases, no candidate reached 50%, as required by state law there. Both races are highly consequential. Therefore the thermometer at left has been updated. The Georgia Secretary of State race goes […]
Tags: 2018 Election · 2020 Election · Senate
Electoral maps based on 2018 results
November 7th, 2018, 12:28pm by Sam Wang
(revised Friday November 9th to correct an error in Maine Senate) The election turned out approximately as expected from advance information, a narrowly-Democratic House and a Republican Senate. I thought it might be good to look at the results from the perspective of 2020.
Tags: 2018 Election · House · Senate
What you’re voting for today
November 6th, 2018, 8:22am by Sam Wang
You’re voting, right? Check your poll location and closing time. And you donated [PEC’s high-leverage picks] [NRSC]. And now, on Election Day, three cheers to those of you who are getting out the vote. Good luck – your country needs you! In addition to the House (final snapshot here) and Senate (final snapshot here, post-Kavanaugh […]
Tags: 2018 Election · House · Senate · U.S. Institutions
In late Senate polls, a small signal – or noise?
November 5th, 2018, 8:56pm by Sam Wang
I assume you’ve all been getting out the vote. And donating to one of the organizations in the left sidebar. Maybe you’ve even voted already! OK, now let us take stock of late-breaking developments, which are a little unexpected. All season I’ve thought that Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) wouldn’t come close to unseating Senator Ted Cruz […]
Tags: 2018 Election · Senate
Two Futures: 45 or 50 Democratic Senate seats…but not in between?
November 4th, 2018, 4:00pm by Sam Wang
Four years ago, I pointed out that close Senate races all tend to fall in the direction of one party or the other. Since then, the idea has stood up pretty well. It implies two very different possible futures. There are a few races I will be watching on Tuesday to figure out which is […]
Tags: 2004 Election · 2006 Elections · 2008 Election · 2012 Election · 2014 Election · 2016 Election · 2018 Election · Senate
Why You Should Vote: Red States, Blue Priorities
November 4th, 2018, 9:42am by Sam Wang
(Written in collaboration with Owen Engel ’21.) Progressive policies are more popular than progressive candidates. Red-state candidates who advocate for increases in the minimum wage and Medicaid expansion lose to opponents, who tar them as liberals. Yet surveys show large bipartisan majorities in favor of these same policies. This is a testament to how well […]
Tags: 2018 Election · Health · House · Senate
Senate outlook: 45-50 Democratic/Independent seats (median=47)
November 2nd, 2018, 10:47am by Sam Wang
If systematic polling error is no larger than past midterm elections (median of 3 percentage points, as high as 5 points), control of the Senate appears to be a difficult lift for the Democrats. The polling error would have to be at least 5.0 points (that’s how the Meta-Margin is defined). They have a much […]
Tags: 2018 Election · Senate
