Chris Riback's Newsletter

If you really want to know how good the Cook Political Report is, you’ll want to listen up – because we’ve got the real thing! Charlie Cook is Editor and Publisher of the eponymous Cook Political Report. He is also a National Journal columnist, and it’s only a slight exaggeration that there is nothing in the political world that Charlie can’t analyze, clarify or explain. Which is good news, becaus...

The candidates may be riding the subway in New York. Perhaps they’re thinking about Pennsylvania – Even California. But all political eyes are on Cleveland. While polls show Donald Trump crushing in the Big Apple, Ted Cruz was the Big Cheese in Wisconsin. Cruz’ double-digit win there significantly increased the chances of a contested Republican Convention. 538’s panel of experts estimates Trump wi...

Many of us look at this extraordinary, ridiculous, seemingly-unprecedented political season and wonder: How is this possible? The anger perhaps we understand. The feeling that the system is so corrupted that the only effective approach will be to kick over the table and figure out later how to rebuild it? Even those who don’t agree the problem is that dire can get their heads around the idea. But...

Chris Riback speaks with pollster Mark Blumenthal on what we know about the 2016 presidential election. For answers to a Presidential campaign that few predicted and fewer, perhaps, pretend to understand, we often turn to the dark science of polling. Given the overwhelming amount of data each of us generates each day – from clicks to searches to surveys and more – the people who tell us what we th...

Chris Riback and Taegan Goddard discuss the how Donald Trump's campaign not only broke the Republican party but broke political science. What in the world is going on? We are well into a primary season with results few of us expected, headed straight to a general election that even fewer dare to predict. All of us – and certainly both major political parties – are in unchartered territory. For Dem...

With the elections finally behind us, our focus turns the hard work of governing – and the big question of what, if anything, will get done? With Republicans controlling Congress and a lame duck Democrat who’s surely thinking about his legacy in the White House, what will give? Or are we about to see gridlock so extreme that the last few years will look incredibly productive in comparison? It won’...

Midterms 2014 are just around the corner, and for Repubicans it seems the voting can’t come soon enough. State by state, poll by poll, the GOP appears to pick up steam by the day. They can taste Senate control. Are the appearances true? Might there even be a Republican wave? Which key races – in the Senate and the House – should we make sure to watch? David King is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy...

It’s almost time – Election Day 2014, Midterm style is less than two weeks away. We can see the finish line from here – unless, that is, the finish line gets moved. With Republicans seeming more and more likely to take Senate control, could this election instead go into overtime? With possible runoffs in Georgia and Louisiana, recounts in close races, vote count challenges in states like Alaska, d...

We’re proud to have as our guest today – our sponsor, Charlie Cook, Editor and Publisher of the Cook Political Report and Columnist for the National Journal. Few follow the ins and outs of political campaigns more closely than Cook and his team of reporters and editors. And with less than three weeks to go before the new "most important election of our lifetimes," they’re tracking all the key race...

With less than a month to go, the question that’s been at the center of the midterm elections continues to be the big unknown: Who will take control of the Senate. We know that stats: 36 races are on the ballots; to takeover control, Republicans need a net gain of 6. And the closer we get, the more the contest seems to be coming down to just 4 or 5 key states. As listeners of this podcast know, mo...

Is there any office in American politics with simultaneously more and less power than the Vice Presidency? Indeed, there may be no phrase in American politics that carries more unspoken meanings than “A heartbeat away.” It’s been used to create fear and doubt, as well as confidence and sure-handedness. It’s both an insult and an honor – the burden and opportunity that comes with attaining our nati...

It remains impossible to talk about the 2014 Midterms without turning immediately to the big question – the only question –which party will take Senate Control? And who are we to fight that power? So while we wait 6 weeks for actual results, we turn instead to predictive analysis –deep dives into dozens of race-by-race polls that seem to be released hourly. What do they show? How many seats are tr...

As we make our way towards the first Tuesday in November, a highly-watched, always-debated component of American politics is ready to take it’s place center stage: Statistical models. These models, which connect and weight a range of ever-changing data, have replaced the simple “who will win by how many points” projections. And with Senate control both still undetermined and central to our politic...

Every topic has its own slang, it’s own lingua franca. From football’s NFL stadiums to academia’s ivory towers to California’s beaches, every niche these days maintains a coded language of its own. To really understand these niches – to be clear on what’s behind the headlines, what people are really saying, what’s really going on – you need to speak the language. And if you don’t speak the languag...

Finally, summer is over! The relaxation, beach vacations and barbecues are finally behind us and in this post-Labor Day glow, Americans can focus on our prime national sport – the one with the late hits, flagrant fouls and crazy fanatics. Of course, I mean politics. And while this glorious season brings out the political junkies, it also brings out the political crazies. The extremists who have sp...

In little more than a week, we’ll mark 40 years since one of the darkest days in American politics, government and culture – 40 years since President Richard Nixon resigned our nation’s highest office. Much has been written and reviewed about Watergate. So much that there would seem little room for anything new. But there is. John Dean played a key role in the Watergate tale.  He served as counsel...

It’s time to review what may become the most important words in the 2014 Midterm and 2016 Presidential campaigns. These words are not immigration or gun control or employment. They’re neither liberal or conservative The most important words just may be microtargeting. Data mining. Analytics. That’s because the science of campaigning is hitting an all new level. Not only can politicians and campaig...

Is political courage dead? The question gets asked a lot these days, most recently around President Obama and the immigration-border control disaster. Joe Klein of Time wrote what many of us feel: “True political courage is near extinct.” He continued: “Nowadays politicians are swaddled by their media consultants, who determine whether it is ‘safe’ to be ‘courageous.’”Of course, it’s not just immi...

It’s an annual summer event, as much a part of our American culture as a Fourth of July barbeque – often with its own set of fireworks: Another Supreme Court term ended. It’s time to make sense of the policies and the politics. Important and intriguing decisions and alliances again this year: Birth Control and Obamacare; Privacy, police searches and cell phones; abortion protests; campaign finance...

It’s no shock, of course, that we live in polarized times. Even with no empirical evidence, everything seems to feel more ideological and divided than it has in many of our lifetimes. So is that true? And if so, is there a way out? Well, we now have a major set of data, and they don’t look so great. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press recently released the first of multiple report...

For anyone who thought Midterms 2014 was only about the Senate and which party will take control, we recently got our wakeup call. Congress has another chamber, as well. You may have heard: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary race to a Randolph-Macon College Economics Professor, David Brat. And since that shock – the first primary challenger to beat a sitting House Majority Leader s...

Today’s issue, who’s running harder against President Obama – Republicans or Democrats? The question is only partly exaggerated. From criticism on “who lost Iraq” to the handling of the Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl prisoner exchange to even the environment. And, of course, there’s always Obamacare. So how legitimate is this criticism? Is President Obama – and his low approval ratings in various key sta...

For anyone who looks at our government today and says, “Everything seems great to me. No room for improvement here,” well, today’s conversation is not for you. Now that that person has stopped listening, here’s what the rest of America can learn from today’s talk: The problem is even worse that you thought. While most discussion on fixing government deals with the politics and the posturing, we in...

At first glance, today’s conversation might seem as surprising as dog bites man: Money has taken over our political process. I know – not a shocker. But what if I told you that, quite possibly, our next President will be chosen by 5 or 6 of the richest people in America? Or a dozen? Certainly no more than 100?It’s hardly an exaggeration. From the historic growth of PACs to the Supreme Court’s 2010...

The White House recently announced a change at the top. Not the very top, of course, but as head of the Press Office. Jay Carney is stepping down; Josh Earnest is stepping up. The White House Press Secretary is, quite often, America’s face to the world. And speaking for the President, sometimes several times a day, the Press Secretary faces many masters – the Commander in Chief, the media, and of...