The 2025-2026 Gubernatorial Races: Rating changes in Virginia, Iowa and Maine. (@kkondik.bsky.social and @jmilescoleman.bsky.social, @center4politics.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250905-top...

Trump approval rating down to 42% amid... Displeasure with economy — public wants focus on prices, not tariffs Disapproval of Big Beautiful Bill — most say wealthy benefit Declining deportation marks — most say dangerous criminals not being prioritized Analysis: www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-new... 1/

@kkondik.bsky.social writes an excellent companion piece for Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Extra meaningful because it compares the Catalist findings as well.

Digging into a New 2024 Postmortem: Findings from Pew’s Validated Voter Study. (@kkondik.bsky.social @center4politics.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250627-top...

How the New @catalist.bsky.social Report on 2024 Compares to the Exit Polls. (@kkondik.bsky.social @jmilescoleman.bsky.social @center4politics.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250522-top...

Excited to share some tips for writing about polls for anyone coming in cold to the subject! (Pictured: a thing on which pollsters are probably not calling you these days).

Crystal Ball -- @jmilescoleman.bsky.social on the NH Senate race as well as how the VA Dem electorate might be getting more "efficient" as state House races loom this fall centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

The 2026 midterm is still more than a year and a half away. Yet there are a few things we can already predict about it with at least a reasonable amount of confidence. (@kkondik.bsky.social @center4politics.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250313-top...

Crystal Ball -- Three Things That Usually Happen in Midterms: Smaller turnout, an older/whiter/more educated electorate, and the non-presidential party typically improving its share of the overall House vote centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

Lessons from History: House Incumbents from the Non-Presidential Party Rarely Lose Reelection in Midterms. (@kkondik.bsky.social @center4politics.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250306-top...

Crystal Ball: Lessons from History: House Incumbents from the Non-Presidential Party Rarely Lose Reelection in Midterms centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

i have a new @goodauth.bsky.social piece with Caroline Soler on immigration attitudes. an increasing plurality of Americans support both a path to citizenship and increased border security but this group is also becoming increasingly polarized on party lines goodauthority.org/news/surpris...

NEW Crystal Ball: @jmilescoleman.bsky.social on House district presidential voting in Trump's three elections. All but 28 districts (shown in the map) voted the same way in all 3 elections based on the current lines centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

President Trump’s Approval: Still Positive, but Overperformance with Democratic-Leaning Groups May Be Hard to Maintain. (@kkondik.bsky.social @center4politics.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250221-top...

This is like Senators asking for Trump to release funding for their pet projects. When you campaigned for a personalist presidency you have turned yourself into a beggar seeking the King’s favor rather than a citizen who can be confident of equal treatment for all.

NEW Crystal Ball -- Trump's approval a month in Still net positive but has weakened a bit. He's also overperforming with some Democratic-leaning groups -- reasonable to wonder whether that will continue centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

I’m on my third presidential library archive visit, and still I cannot get over that anyone, everyone, can access these historical documents. It’s wonderful. Also, this was the first document in the first folder I opened.

Republicans Start as Strong Favorites to Hold Senate Majority. (@kkondik.bsky.social @jmilescoleman.bsky.social @center4politics.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250213-top...

NEW Crystal Ball Senate ratings, including analysis of midterm Senate rhythms and setting expectations. Rs heavily favored to hold majority. Ratings updated to reflect Tina Smith's retirement earlier today centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

A good piece at Fox News about impoundment (in which I'm quoted). We need more like this in outlets that are read by Republicans. www.foxnews.com/politics/con...

The Separation of Powers system was NOT built for parties, but it sort of worked as long parties weren't THAT cohesive. It's been under pressure for years. Now for the first time a party's President can withhold renomination from legislators who don't vote as they're told and it doesn't work.

No matter how much a member may like shuttering a specific agency or "pausing" to "review" it's work, it blatantly violates congressional authority and weakens their control of future presidents. It is the worst kind of abdication of power and precedent imaginable.

Raw votes in IA Sen District 35, 2022 midterm -- a little under 24k votes, R wins by 22 pts Turnout in last night's special -- roughly 9,300, D wins by roughly 3.5 pts obviously great result for Ds but also much lower turnout than even a midterm, common in these kinds of races

I don't disagree with this change. But people shouldn't react to retirements like it's 1976. The incumbency advantage is only about 1-2% on average in recent years. National conditions matter much more. If Dems can't win in MI in 2026 with a less well-known candidate, the party has bigger problems.

Peters will be 68 at the end of his term. Others these days are only elected to the Senate in their 60s.

We haven't done Senate ratings yet, but Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) retiring probably moves that race from starting in Leans D to starting in Toss-up.

Trump return-to-work policy will be a nice case study in implementation of EOs and presidential influence in the bureaucracy. Even seemingly cut-and-dry WH dictates are tough to implement w/o skill, persistence, and buy-in. Will be interesting to see if/how WH accomplishes it.

Worth reading from @kkondik.bsky.social centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

The 2024 Crossover House Seats: Overall Number Remains Low with Few Harris-District Republicans. (@kkondik.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250116-top...

NEW Crystal Ball: 13 Ds in Trump districts, just 3 Rs in Harris districts. Total of 16 crossover districts ties 2020 for fewest in modern history. centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

This is a burgeoning phenomenon that should not be overlooked: Establishment Republicans in state legislatures are banding with Democrats to keep Freedom Caucus-type extremists from getting their way. It happens regularly on legislation, but in Texas, it just determined control of the state House

Final mail and provisionals were added for Virginia special elections Boosted Dem numbers a bit SD-32 2024 Margin: Harris +21.6% 2025 Special: Dem +23.6% SD-10 2024 Margin: Trump +26.9% 2025 Special: GOP +15.67% HD-22 2024 Margin: Harris +22.1% 2025 Special: Dem +24.77%

Miami-Dade's sharp rightward shift in 2020-24 has pretty much realigned FL from light pink to bright crimson.

Trump popular vote improvement driven more by nation's 150 largest counties than the rest of the country centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

Jan 6 still viewed negatively by large majority of Americans, but GOP disapproval has softened considerably Today, just 30% of Republicans *strongly* disapprove — its lowest level yet and 21-point drop since 2021 And most Republicans support Trump pardoning rioters www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-an...

As part of running 6 points ahead of his 2-party national popular vote margin from 2020, Donald Trump improved his margin in every single state this year by at least some amount. (@kkondik.bsky.social @center4politics.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/241219-top...

Always read @mattglassman312.bsky.social - excellent overview of the 119th Congress (de facto underway now), which is truly the dog that caught the car mattglassman.substack.com/p/welcome-to... Dynamics of the GOP caucus are utterly pathological.

Detailed recap from @kkondik.bsky.social for Larry Sabato's UVA Center for Politics. Uniform in direction movement towards Trump, increasing divergence between Red and Blue with further ideological drift. EV College problem in 2032 for D's as Red States gain centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

New Crystal Ball: How the states have voted relative to the nation from 2000-2024, featuring big R swings in FL-IA-OH and more, GA/NC trending toward voting with the nation, and much more centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

*Seven* governors could run for a third (or even fourth!) term in 2026, which could smash previous records. The most in a single year was four, which has happened three times, the last time in 1994. Great piece from Eric Ostermeier at UMN

After the election, people attributed Trump's victory to local conditions -- high cost of living, increases in immigration, poor city governance. In fact, local conditions didn't matter that much. At @goodauth.bsky.social, I run through the data and explain why. goodauthority.org/news/local-p...

Bolts has made huge leaps in our year-end fundraising: e.g. 288 new monthly subscribers over last month! We're still pushing till end of 2024: This, right here, is big for us in how we are independent & shore up our journalism. What else can I say I haven't said on the need for nonprofit media rn!

New Crystal Ball: @jmilescoleman.bsky.social on the small but vital shifts across Wisconsin that flipped the state back to Trump, albeit by a smaller margin than the other closely-contested swing states: centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

Voters are mostly partisans who rationalize, swing voters are often ignorant and voters project their views onto their candidates. But this has always been true! The media was better once, but there was no golden age. Most of their grandparents did not read Walter Lippmann's column.

The interesting thing is that lots of people think of the GOP advantage in the Senate comes from small red states (North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, etc.). But Ds also have their share of small states. The real GOP advantage comes from the dominance of medium to large southern states.

For decades, the Senate has been stacked against Democrats, whose past majorities relied on red states where ticket splitting has since collapsed. Republicans have won the Senate despite Dems winning more votes & representing more people in 7 of 13 elections since 2000. A repeat in 2026 is likely

This year, Republicans knocked out the final remaining Democratic senators from a group of 20 states that have consistently voted Republican for president since at least 2000. (@kkondik.bsky.social @center4politics.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/241205-top...

The Götterdämmerung that Democrats have long feared in the Senate is officially here. The Senate’s rural bias has locked them out of power, perhaps for a while.

In the early days of America, newspaper editors were political appointments and rags were owned by parties. Maybe America is returning to these roots?

Democrats chances of controlling the Senate at any time in the near future took a hit with Red State wipeouts. Read @kkondik.bsky.social centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...