Commentary By Kyle Kondik

In 2016’s Game of Musical Chairs, the Music Stopped at the Wrong Time for Clinton By Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

After the Bay of Pigs debacle, when U.S.-backed forces tried and spectacularly failed to topple Fidel Castro’s nascent communist regime in Cuba, President John F. Kennedy held a press conference and took blame for the failure. Speaking on April 21, 1961 — just a few months into his presidency — JFK memorably declared, “There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan,” meaning that when something goes right, many will want to take credit for it, but when something goes wrong, no one wants to take the blame.

Why Trump Will Do Better in Ohio Than He Does Nationally By Kyle Kondik

For the first time since Ohio rejected Kennedy in favor of Richard M. Nixon in 1960, it seems quite possible that the Buckeye State will find itself on the losing side of a presidential election this year.

Why Ohio Picks the President By Kyle Kondik

In their influential 1970 book The Real Majority, political demographers Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg identified the individual they saw as the American “Middle Voter.” This person was a metropolitan “middle-aged, middle-income, middle-educated, Protestant, in a family whose working members work more likely with hands than abstractly with head.” They then drilled down a little deeper: “Middle Voter is a forty-seven-year-old housewife from the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio, whose husband is a ma­chinist.” Scammon and Wattenberg did not actually have a specific person in mind. Their description of Middle Voter was an archetype, but after the book was published, Wattenberg said, “I do not know for sure if the lady exists. But I suspect that if you looked hard enough, you’d find her.”

As Deadline Approaches, Rubio Ponders. But his re-entry would not dramatically change the Senate calculus By Kyle Kondik

The horrifying massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando forces us to ponder whether it will somehow change the national electoral calculus. The short answer is that it’s too soon to tell, but the grim reality is that the frequency of mass murder in the United States — committed by ISIS-inspired lone wolves or others — suggests that this, terrifyingly, might not be the last major spasm of violence that takes place between now and the election. How candidates react could have consequences in November, although it’s also easy to overstate the potential impact of jarring events on the choices that voters make. After all, the American electorate is partisan and the vote choices for the vast majority of them don’t waver much throughout the campaign.

House 2016: The Balancing Act: How expectations of a Clinton victory could hinder Democrats down-ballot By Kyle Kondik

While Hillary Clinton still leads Donald Trump in most national polling, her margin is not what it once was: She’s up about five points in the HuffPost Pollster average, down from nine points in mid-April, and she’s up just two points in the RealClearPolitics average, also down from nine points seven weeks ago. Now that she’s the presumptive nominee, Clinton will hope to restore those numbers to their prior luster.

Indiana: #Nevertrump’s Last Stand? By Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

One could not be blamed for looking at the Republican primary results over the past 10 days and questioning how someone could stop Donald Trump from being the Republican nominee.

How Trump Could Win the Republican Nomination in Five (Not-So) Easy Steps By Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Let’s get the easy part out of the way first. Bernie Sanders went into the New York Democratic primary with essentially no path to catching Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and he leaves it with even less of a path after Clinton’s victory. Despite some national polls showing the race effectively a tie, Clinton has a lead in pledged delegates and superdelegates that Sanders cannot catch. Unless Clinton is somehow forced from the race, she will be the nominee. Sanders assuredly still has some victories to come, but the eventual outcome really is not in doubt.

House 2016: How a Democratic Wave Could Happen By Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Pennsylvania’s Seventh Congressional District, which forms a misshapen U linking Greater Philadelphia in the east to the outskirts of Lancaster and Reading to its west and north, provides a vivid example of the challenges Democrats face on the current U.S. House map.

Assessing Trump’s Path to 1,237 By Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

About a month ago, after Donald Trump won the South Carolina primary and all of its delegates, we headlined a piece “The Hour is Growing Late to Stop Trump.” Well, the hour has grown later, and we have to ask the question: Has Trump been stopped?

For the Anti-Trump Forces, It May Be Now or Never By Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

As we’ve suggested, the past few weeks have been defined by increasingly-loud talk of a contested convention and the possibility that the presidential contest will go beyond the first ballot, something that has not happened in either party since 1952. The highly unusual circumstances on the Republican side, where the polarizing Donald Trump has finished first in the majority of contests so far and has won more than a third of the delegates he needs for a first ballot nomination, make the outcome impossible to predict with precision at this point.

Democrats 2016: From South Carolina to the Ides of March, Part Two By Kyle Kondik

This is the second part of a two-part series analyzing the flood of primaries and in both parties from now through March 15. Last week we looked at the Republicans, and this week we look at the Democrats.

Republicans 2016: A Contracting List of True Contenders By Kyle Kondik

The atrocities in Paris over the weekend show that events can and will inject new issues into the presidential contest or intensify ones that already exist. But it’s important to remember that what dominates news today might not be what dominates it a month from now, and we still have two and a half months until the primary season begins and nearly a year before the general election.

Biden Out By Kyle Kondik

The decision by Vice President Joe Biden to pass on the presidential race confirms what would have been true even if he had entered the contest: This is Hillary Clinton’s race to lose.

Democrats 2016: After Months of Struggles, Clinton Helps Herself at Debate By Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Last year at this time, Democrats were in the final month of their losing battle to hold the U.S. Senate. But while licking their wounds after the election, they consoled themselves with a 2016 comeback vision. Democrats already had a candidate so credentialed she was likely to sweep to the nomination and be in a solid position to bury the eventual GOP nominee. Demographics and destiny were on Hillary Clinton’s side, and she’d help the party recapture the Senate too.

House 2016: Is It Possible for Republicans to Kick Away Their Majority? By Kyle Kondik

Republicans working to maintain the party’s historically large House majority appear relatively confident about the aspects of the next campaign they can control: incumbent performance, recruitment of challengers, staffing, fundraising, etc. What concerns them are the aspects of the campaign they do not control.

The Real Presidential Deadlines By Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

The presidential fields on both sides are so much in flux that rumors of new candidates entering the race continue. For the Democrats, the whispers about Vice President Joe Biden making a late charge into the fray have become roars. Biden made a campaign-style appearance at a Labor Day rally in Pittsburgh and otherwise seems to be strongly considering a run as frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s polling has dipped significantly (though to us she remains the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination).

Democrats 2016: Biden His Time By Kyle Kondik

It’s time to ask a question, the answer to which we do not know: Will former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server scandal do fatal damage to her campaign?

Eight Decades of Debate By Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Next week begins what has become a regular presidential primary tradition: the debates. As a way of previewing them, we decided to look back at the history of primary debates. Readers may be surprised to learn that primary debates existed before the advent of televised general election debates in 1960. Less surprising is that the number of debates has been steadily increasing over time, although it appears that both parties will have fewer in 2016 than they did in their last competitive primary seasons (2012 for Republicans, 2008 for Democrats).

Ohio, New Mexico the Best Presidential Bellwethers By Kyle Kondik

The Buckeye State, long recognized as perhaps the nation’s premier presidential swing state, deserves its status. In the 30 presidential elections since 1896, Ohio has correctly picked the winner 28 times.

Ohio has company at the top though -- it beats out another top presidential swing state, New Mexico, by only a hair. Like Ohio, the Land of Enchantment has also only been incorrect twice, but because statehood arrived in 1912, its record is just 24-2, and thus it has a slightly lower batting average (92%) than Ohio (93%).

House 2016: Gridlock Ahead for a Possible Clinton Administration By Kyle Kondik

If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, there's a decent chance that she will achieve a historic first, but not the one everybody talks about.

Clinton could become the first Democratic president in the party's nearly two century-long history* to never control the House of Representatives while she's in office.