Politics Is Everything

On the second anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, we talk with Mark S. Zaid, an attorney with a practice focused on national security law, freedom speech, constitutional claims and government accountability. Mr. Zaid represents Sandra Garza, the partner of fallen Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, in a new lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court on January 5, 2023...

There has not been multiple ballots in a speaker election in 100 years, as Kyle Kondik wrote for the Crystal Ball earlier this week. On Thursday, January 5, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California offered new concessions to a group of conservative Republicans that have prevented him from winning the majority of votes needed to secure Speaker of the House. Mr. McCarthy has not yet been able to...

From the authentic to the hyperconstrued, from taking serious public issues and concerns to the utterly nonsensical and absurd, Kyle Kondik, Miles Coleman and Carah Ong Whaley share what they think are the best and worst of campaign ads, campaign moments and candidate moments of the 2022 midterm elections. What made your best and worst political moments of 2022? Share them with us by email goodpol...

In this episode, Kyle Kondik and Miles Coleman discuss the two eras in the Republican-Democrat two-party system that really stand out for competitiveness because of how close consecutive presidential elections were: the 6 elections between 1876-1896 and the elections in the 2000-2020 time period. They also discuss shifts in voting patterns In the 2000-2020 time period and the patterns that emerge...

In this episode, we talk with Bradford Vivian, Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State University and author of Campus Misinformation (Oxford University Press), about how the idea that free speech is under threat on college campuses became a core political appeal and how it has been manufactured through misinformation, distortion, and political ideology.

Kyle Kondik and Miles Coleman react to the Georgia Senate election, discuss House crossover districts, split ticket voting in 2022 and the Democratic Party's 2024 primary plan. Regarding the Republican candidate quality problem, Kyle suggests that the "Senate Leadership Fund needs to take a more active role in primaries going forward if Republicans want to do well in 2024."  Have a politics questi...

Fascism has had a firm grip on the American imagination for one hundred years. "Increased polarization in the United States reflects Americans' deepest fears of what might be happening in the polity," says Bruce Kucklick, "The disruptive politics of Donald Trump has been grist for fascism-obsessed America." Kuklick joins us to discuss the roots of fascism in American politics and popular culture b...

Are ranked choice voting and multi-member districts a cure for the hyperpartisanship and partisan extremism plaguing politics? In this episode, we talk with Rob Richie, who has been the leader of FairVote since co-founding it in 1992. Richie shares evidence for how ranked choice voting is increasing representation and opportunities for new voices and new players in politics in places where it has...

2022 was a great year for incumbents and a lot of things did matter - candidate quality, redistricting, reproductive rights and democracy. In this episode, Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, and Miles Coleman, Associate Editor, assess the 2022 election and why Republicans didn't do as well as expected in an election that historically pointed to their advantage. They also discus...

"This is a war on democracy and democratic principles," Dr. Yuna Potomkina, Advisor to Ukraine Minister of Defense tells us.  Armed conflict has been raging in Ukraine since early 2014 following Russia's annexation of Crimea. On February 24, 2022, during a last-ditch UN Security Council effort to dissuade Russia from attacking Ukraine, Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of a full-scale land, s...

The Senate is coming down to a jump ball situation. Candidates need to avoid a bad toss, and can't miss a foul or violation. Sabato's Crystal Ball is still projecting a Republican gain in the House in the high teens or low 20s. In this episode, we share our live discussion initially held on Twitter Spaces with resident experts Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball and Miles Coleman...

Kyle Kondik discusses changes in Sabato's Crystal Ball ratings to favor Republicans and he predicts the GOP will take control of the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterm elections. The Crystal Ball says the Senate remains a toss-up. We also talk about how the political environment matters and what to watch in the final week leading up to Election Day 2022. Links in this episode:  La...

"Democracy hangs there by a thread really," Clint Hill says on this episode of Politics Is Everything. "It hangs there by the will of the people. Without the agreement of the people to live by those circumstances, it will not exist. When it has been jeopardized by individuals, or groups or power mongers, it's very difficult to watch if you're one of those like myself who accepts the wonders of dem...

"Partisanship has become a problem on a personal level," says Dr. David Ramadan, a Republican who served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2012 to 2016 in "one of the most Democratic districts in the entire Commonwealth." Dr. Ramadan discusses ways to reduce extremism in both parties.  Dr. Ramadan is the Vice President of an innovative EdTech leader, Noodle, the world's fastest-growing onlin...

Margaret Brennan, moderator of "Face The Nation" on CBS and the network's chief foreign affairs correspondent based in Washington, D.C. joins us to discuss the crisis in confidence in the media and political institutions, and the importance of leaning in to fix the challenges facing our democracy and society. Brennan says we need to be paying more attention to what is happening around the world as...

In this episode, Larry Sabato, Director of the Center for Politics, and Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of the Crystal Ball, place the 2022 election in historical context, discuss which races are the hardest to predict and address the state of play as we head into the final three weeks of what is slated to be the most expensive election on record. Links in this episode: Sabato's Crystal Ball 

It's just four weeks until the last day to vote, a.k.a. Election Day 2022. What's happening that may be affecting the electoral environment now that people are playing closer attention to the elections? Kyle Kondik and Carah Ong Whaley discuss ads, the prospect for women candidates, and ballot measures, and they answer listener questions. Links in this episode:  Sabato's Crystal Ball 

"Everything has changed," says CNN political contributor and Center for Politics scholar Paul Begala about campaigns and elections since he was the senior strategist for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. "Partisanship is now part of our identity and social media has really put jet fuel behind all the fissures in our society…Elections have always been about dividing. We're losing the ability to...

The cost of elections is on the rise. Adjusted for inflation, the 2022 congressional elections are set to cost $9.3 billion dollars, compared to $6.7 billion in 2018, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. And the average cost to win a seat has doubled since 2004 . In this episode Kyle Kondik shares his outside spending analysis, where outside spending is targeted and how outsi...

Senator Tim Kaine joined the Center for Politics on September 23, 2022 to honor law enforcement who defended the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 for the first annual Defender of Democracy Awards. The J6 insurrection interrupted the proceedings of the House and Senate as they met to fulfill their Constitutionally prescribed duty to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election and...

Sabato's Crystal Ball has been tracking how 2022 is different from previous midterm elections years when the party that holds the White House is often punished. The 2022 midterm elections features both an unpopular president and there are also indications that the unpopular president's party won't be strongly punished. In this episode, Kyle Kondik discusses how echoes of the 1978 and 1982 midterm...

On Friday, September 23, the Center for Politics honored and recognized all of the police officers, state troopers, national guard, firefighters, and emergency responders who protected members of the U.S. Congress, their staff, journalists and other public servants at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 as the legislative branch of America's democracy carried out the Constitutionally prescribed certifi...

Activists have been campaigning behind the scenes for years now to change the U.S. Constitution to limit the federal government, with implications for education, health care and the environment. In this episode, we talk with former Senator Russ Feingold, President of the American Constitution Society, and Peter Prindiville, a non-resident fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center about thei...

Robert Costa, chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News and a scholar at the Center for Politics this academic year, shares his approach to covering campaigns, elections and politics to help the public make sense of the complex issues facing the nation. "It can become a blizzard that's hard to follow," says Costa, "You have to report deeply and you want to break news...Unless it's bre...

There's been some mixed electoral indicators - including the recent rise in President Biden's job approval rating and Democrats doing better in the generic ballot - that are making the 2022 elections more challenging to analyze. Henry Olsen, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Washington Post columnist joins us to discuss why the Republicans are now being underrated, including...