Delegates:  
Needed 1215
   
Haley 43
Trump 273
Other 12
   
Remaining 2101
Political Wire logo The Filibuster’s Days Are Numbered
Biden’s Plan Is to Bury Trump in Campaign Cash
Jon Tester Holds Edge in Re-Election Race
Nikki Haley to Exit Republican Presidential Race
Biden Loses Caucuses in American Samoa
Behind Mike Johnson’s Dysfunctional Majority
TODAY'S HEADLINES (click to jump there; use your browser's "Back" button to return here)
      •  The Shame of John Roberts
      •  Trump Wins North Dakota
      •  Super Tuesday Is Today
      •  One Last Look at Michigan
      •  New Polls: Trump Ahead Nationally by 4-5 Points

The Shame of John Roberts

Well, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the Colorado ballot-access case yesterday. And our assessment, in a sentence, is this: They reached the right conclusion, but took the absolute worst possible route to getting there.

First, the "getting it right" part. It's clear what the fellows who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment intended, but it's also clear that they did not anticipate—gasp!—how American politics would evolve in the next century and a half. In particular, they did not appreciate the extent to which one political party would become willing to abuse the norms of constitutional government. Is there really any question that a Republican Party that would try to impeach Joe Biden for... something, something, mumble, mumble, would eventually discover that Biden or some future Democrat had "encouraged insurrection" by not securing the border, or calling for an increase in taxes, or supporting trans athletes, or saying meany-pants things about Donald Trump? You just can't let states have the power to disqualify candidates for president for whatever reason they deem fit, because you cannot guarantee they will operate in good faith. This is obvious enough that the Supremes agreed 9-0 on this point. So, Donald Trump will stay on the Colorado ballot, and those of the other states (Illinois, Maine) that had also booted him.

The political impact here is probably a wash. Booting Trump off the ballot would have made Democrats feel good, but would not likely have cost Trump any EVs (except maybe one in Maine). At the same time, it would have fed into his "victim" narrative and would have enraged the base. So, while this is nominally a "loss" for Democrats, it's not much of one. And while it's nominally a "win" for Republicans, again, it's not much of one.

And now, let us move on to the "worst possible route" part. Again, we are not lawyers, and we certainly did not go to fancy law schools. And yet, we don't think we could have screwed this up worse than Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues did. Given that the Supreme Court in general, and the Roberts Court in particular, need to project legitimacy, and a sober-minded calling of balls and strikes, a decision this important and this closely watched should have been 9-0 or 8-1, and that's the end of it. And Roberts should have done whatever needed to get there. Then the Court would be speaking with one voice, with liberals and conservatives united.

But that is not what happened. Yes, as we note above, the actual question before the Court was decided 9-0. But, in a move reminiscent of the Dred Scott decision, the five conservative men just could not help themselves, and felt the need to go further. So, they added a bunch of extra findings that were not needed. That, in turn, caused Amy Coney Barrett to write one concurrence, and the three liberals to write another (that is a scorcher). And so, a decision that is 9-0 on the top line is as bitterly divided as is possible when you look more closely. A John Marshall or an Earl Warren would never have let this happen, not with a decision this critical.

So, what did Roberts and his four merry men feel the need to add? Well, they decreed that the Insurrection Clause does not automatically apply to candidates for federal office, and that if it's going to apply, Congress must pass enabling legislation.

At first glance, this does not change things all that much. Non-federal candidates can still be disqualified (although that's only happened once, ever). Insurrectionists who try to take a seat in Congress have invariably been disqualified by having their credential refused. That's happened seven times, and it could still happen in the future. And so, the Court's decision really only applies to candidates for president and vice president. Those are very important offices, obviously, but it's also hard to imagine that a president or VP was ever going to be disqualified successfully.

That said, this decision involves the five conservative justices making "law" up out of thin air. There is zero evidence that the Fourteenth Amendment was not intended to apply to federal officeholders, especially since the text of the Insurrection Clause literally specifies that it applies to "member[s] of Congress" and "officer[s] of the United States." More importantly, there is no reason to argue that the Insurrection Clause requires enabling legislation. And if it does, does that mean that, for example, the other parts of the Fourteenth ALSO require enabling legislation? Did Americans just lose due process rights because there has been no enabling legislation? Are the descendants of enslaved to be returned to bondage, since Congress did not pass enabling legislation ending slavery? What about the other amendments? Did gun owners just lose the right to bear arms? After all, Congress has never passed a law defining "arms." Does that include crossbows? Broadswords? Howitzers? Nuclear weapons? Did newspapers just lose the right to print political opinion?

As a sidebar, note that we predicted yesterday that the Supremes would keep Trump on the ballot, and that they would kick the can over to Congress. So, we're not surprised by this outcome, but we are disappointed in how badly it was handled.

And the thing is, it gets worse. Perhaps the five conservatives realized their opinion is worthy only for use as bird-cage liner, because none of them took responsibility for writing the opinion. And let us tell you that it may well be the worst-written opinion we've ever seen. Again, we're not lawyers, but (Z) has read plenty of SCOTUS rulings, including many from the 19th century, when judges tended to use archaic language and tended to suffer from serious cases of verbal diarrhea. And in case you don't believe us, actual lawyers are saying the same thing. For example, conservative attorney George Conway decreed the opinion and the concurrences to be "fundamentally incoherent." He continued:

I think they did have a very difficult time with it because I don't think any of the three opinions make any sense whatsoever. I think these opinions are fundamentally incoherent and they're fundamentally arbitrary. And I think it just shows the difficulty the court had in trying to select an off-ramp here. I mean, they totally rejected Trump's principal arguments, which were that the president is somehow not an officer of the United States, and the other argument, which was that he did not engage in an insurrection.

Note that last observation, about insurrection, because it's coming back in a short while. So too is the bad writing.

The initial response to the decision was that it makes it nearly impossible to hold an insurrectionist would-be president responsible for their insurrectionist behavior. This was the conclusion that the three liberals drew, writing that the 5-4 portion of the ruling would "foreclose future efforts to disqualify a presidential candidate under [the Insurrection Clause]." While this is probably true, we think it grossly misses two much bigger, albeit related problems.

See, because of the bad writing, and because of the failure to define ANY terms (including insurrection), the Court has said "Congress, it's up to you. Do... whatever." To point out the first problem this creates, consider what happens if Donald Trump wins this year's election, and then, on 1/6/2025, Democrats in the House (assuming that party regains the majority) assert their Supreme Court-granted right to reject him as president. Since yesterday's decision is very vague, it's at least possible it could happen, triggering a constitutional crisis, in which both sides claim the law and precedent are on their side. Democrats are not known for their willingness to play hardball like this, but since they (quite reasonably) regard Trump's return to the presidency as a giant constitutional crisis, they'd really be choosing the lesser of two constitutional crises. And keep in mind that while many things must be approved by both chambers of Congress, there are some things that are the province of only one chamber, like approving ambassadors. An argument could be made that since the House has sole responsibility for resolving disputes about who is president, then a law disqualifying a president on the basis of being an insurrectionist would only have to pass the House. So, control of that chamber alone might just be enough to reject a president, as of yesterday.

There are quite a few articles, including the one linked in the previous paragraph, talking about a potential 1/6/2025 crisis like this. However, we see a much larger problem, and it's one that nobody seems to be talking about. At least, none of the dozens of sites we looked at had anything about this. Not only did the five in the majority fail to define what constitutes insurrection, they also did not specify a timeline for the exercise of Congress' newly bestowed authority. And so, consider this situation: Joe Biden is reelected in 2024, but Republicans gain control of both chambers of Congress in the 2026 midterms. Not only is there nothing stopping the GOP from passing a bill on Jan. 3, 2027, declaring Biden to be an insurrectionist (and Kamala Harris, along with him, thus putting the Republican Speaker in the White House), they would have clear Supreme Court sanction for doing so. And, assuming the Republicans would be willing to put aside the filibuster in order to steal the White House (which, who are we kidding, of course they would), then they could do it with a bare majority in both chambers. Who needs something as onerous as impeachment under those circumstances?

Or, to flip it around, what if three more senators had been willing to side with the Democrats after Trump got himself impeached the second time? The articles of impeachment were approved by a majority of the House, while 57 senators voted to convict. That's within a hair's breadth of the votes needed to pass a bill declaring Trump to be an insurrectionist, even WITH the filibuster in place. Again, why would any member of Congress consider an impeachment ever again? Surely any offense that is impeachable can also be framed as an act of insurrection against the U.S., right?

To summarize, then, we have a decision that is bitterly divided, undermines the legitimacy of the Court, has no real basis in anything other than hand-waving and wishful thinking, is badly written, does not really solve the problem it was supposed to solve, and brings with it the very real possibility of triggering a constitutional crisis in two different ways. And that's before we get into the fact that the Supremes were willing to fast-track this one, but are sitting on the presidential immunity decision. Nice job, Mr. Chief Justice. Somewhere, Roger Taney is smiling at the prospect of moving up, out of the doghouse. (Z)

Trump Wins North Dakota

Yesterday, we had an item about Nikki Haley's win in Washington, DC, in which we suggested that she would get only 2 days to enjoy her first primary win. We forgot that North Dakota was scheduled to hold its caucus yesterday. Oops! If only there was a site that had a map at the top of the page, with the dates of all the Republican primaries and caucuses.

In any event, the Haley victory march lasted less than 24 hours, as she lost resoundingly in the Flickertail State (is there any state whose nickname is less familiar than that one)? Donald Trump claimed 1,632 votes, which is 84.6%, and entitles him to all 29 delegates. Haley got 273 votes, which is 14.1%. The rest of the votes, all 25 of them, went to David Stuckenberg and Ryan Binkley. That means that Binkley might be able to get his price per vote down to $4,900 or so. Progress!

Caucuses tend to attract the true believers and the party activists, so to the extent that you can draw conclusions from 1,930 total votes, it's that the base loves, loves, loves Trump and has no real interest in Haley. All of this will quickly be forgotten, of course, once the Super Tuesday results are in. Thereafter, we will all wait with bated breath to see if another Trump challenger bails out. What we are saying is: David Stuckenberg, all eyes are on you. (Z)

Super Tuesday Is Today

We've spent months waiting and now it is upon us: Super Tuesday. Over a third of the Republican delegates are up for grabs. Most states are winner-take-all. Tomorrow we will almost certainly know who the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees will be. Fifteen states will vote and 865 delegates to the Republican National Convention will be selected. If Donald Trump gets nearly all of them, then he won't quite be at the 50% point, but he will be unstoppable. He can't reach the 50% point until March 12. For Biden, it is March 19.

Here is a list of states that will vote today, the number of delegates the state has, and who may vote in the Republican primary. The delegate count is taken from The Green Papers; other sources have slightly different counts.

State Delegates Who can vote?
Alabama 50 Any voter
Alaska 29 Only Republicans
Arkansas 40 Any voter
California 169 Only Republicans
Colorado 37 Republicans and independents
Maine 20 Republicans and independents
Massachusetts 40 Republicans and independents
Minnesota 39 Any voter
North Carolina 74 Republicans and independents
Oklahoma 43 Only Republicans
Tennessee 58 Any voter
Texas 161 Any voter
Utah 40 Only Republicans
Vermont 17 Any voter
Virginia 48 Any voter
Total 865  

All of the above are primaries except Alaska and Utah, which are caucuses. "Uncommitted" is an option in Alabama, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

For Nikki Haley, this will be do or die. She and her super PACs have spent $96 million so far, to Donald Trump's $60 million. If she ends up winning no states, that is a pretty poor return on investment. A related question is: What will Nikki Haley do if she doesn't win five states today? Or any states? If she is whomped everywhere, she is likely to drop out later in the week. Then what? The big question is whether she will then endorse Donald Trump. Yesterday, she said that she no longer feels bound by her earlier pledge to support the Republican nominee. During the campaign, she has repeatedly said Trump is unfit to be president. If she endorses him anyway, she will expose herself as a huge hypocrite, but in the Republican Party that is often a feature, not a bug. If she is planning on running again in 2028, she probably has to endorse Trump this year to have a chance in the 2028 Republican primaries. But if she gets the 2028 nomination, the juxtaposed clips of her calling Trump unfit and then endorsing him could be deadly in the general election.

If Haley refuses to endorse Trump, or worse yet, endorses Joe Biden, she will go down in history as a brave person, but she will never again hold public office as a Republican. That is asking a lot from any politician. But she could refuse to endorse him, leave politics, get some corporate board seats, and go around giving six-figure speeches. It is a viable life, albeit outside electoral politics. And if she endorses Biden and he wins, she could well be rewarded with a Cabinet or other position in Biden II. She could even make a deal with Biden now in which they agreed what position she would get in return for her support if he wins.

One thing Haley won't do is run on the No Labels ticket. She rejected that option yesterday. So far, No Labels doesn't seem to have a candidate. The group promised to make a decision about going forward with its plans in March, but so far it seems to be flailing because nobody of note wants to run on its ballot line.

In five states—Alabama, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, and Texas—state and local offices are on the ballot Tuesday. The biggie in the state races is California, where the battle for second place in the Senate race will determine whether Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has to campaign this year. If Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) comes in second, the two will gouge each other's eyes out in the coming months. If Republican Steve Garvey comes in second, Schiff can spend the rest of the year in D.C. doing his work as a representative and not bothering to campaign. Texas is slightly interesting, since there are nine Democrats on the primary ballot for that U.S. Senate race. However, Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) is favored. There are also many competitive House primaries in Texas.

In North Carolina, the gubernatorial primaries are interesting. On the Democratic side, AG Josh Stein has raised more money than any of the other candidates and is the overwhelming favorite. The Republican side is much more interesting. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC), a Black Army veteran and extremely outspoken Trumpist and all-purpose bigot, wants a promotion. He is running against state Treasurer Dale Folwell and lawyer Bill Graham. If Robinson wins, Stein can break out the champagne as Robinson will be an easy target in November. All Stein will have to do is make ads featuring Robinson speaking. There is plenty of material. A Robinson victory could also affect the presidential election. Trump carried the state by about 1% in 2020, but Stein could have coattails that help Joe Biden. The Republican primary in NC-01 is also important, as NC-01 is the only competitive district in the state. (V)

One Last Look at Michigan

We had a bunch of questions this weekend about the Michigan primary, and what it all means for the presidential race. We set them aside, so we could write a somewhat more thorough assessment of the numbers. Since Super Tuesday is going to sweep aside nearly all thoughts of earlier primaries and caucuses, it's now or never.

There are primarily two subjects that we were asked about: the uncommitted votes for Joe Biden, and the fact that far more Republicans showed up to vote than did Democrats. We'd like to give a data-driven response to those questions as best we can. That said, the amount of relevant data that is available is pretty scant.

What we mean by that is that the only real basis we have for drawing conclusions is past primary and general election results in Michigan. However, the Democrats awarded their delegates via a caucus prior to 2008. And then, in 2008, Michigan pulled a New Hampshire and defied the Democratic Party, scheduling their primary earlier than they were supposed to. Hillary Clinton stayed on the ballot, Barack Obama withdrew. So, this means we really only have three elections where the setup is the same as 2024, plus the fourth, in 2008, that's kinda close. Here are the data:

Election 1st Place 2nd Place Uncommitted Total Votes
2008 Democratic Primary Hillary Clinton, 55.2% Dennis Kucinich, 3.7% 40.1% 594,398
2008 Republican Primary Mitt Romney, 38.9% John McCain, 29.7% 2.1% 869,169
2008 General Barack Obama, 57.3% John McCain, 40.1% N/A 5,010,129
         
2012 Democratic Primary Barack Obama, 89.3% N/A 10.7% 194,887
2012 Republican Primary Mitt Romney, 41.1% Rick Santorum, 37.9% 1.9% 996,499
2012 General Barack Obama, 54.0% Mitt Romney, 44.6% N/A 4,730,961
         
2016 Democratic Primary Bernie Sanders, 49.7% Hillary Clinton, 48.3% 1.8% 1,205,552
2016 Republican Primary Donald Trump, 36.6% Ted Cruz, 24.7% 1.7% 1,323,589
2016 General Donald Trump, 47.5% Hillary Clinton, 47.3% N/A 4,799,284
         
2020 Democratic Primary Joe Biden, 52.9% Bernie Sanders, 36.3% 1.2% 1,587,679
2020 Republican Primary Donald Trump, 93.7% Bill Weld, 0.9% 4.8% 683,431
2020 General Joe Biden, 50.7% Donald Trump, 47.9% N/A 5,539,302
         
2024 Democratic Primary Joe Biden, 81.1% Marianne Williamson, 3.0% 13.3% 762,697
2024 Republican Primary Donald Trump, 68.2% Nikki Haley, 26.6% 3.0% 1,110,310
2024 General ? ? ? ?

Again, not a lot of data to work with, but you go with what you've got.

We'll start with the turnout, because that's easier. Clearly, there is no meaningful correlation between how many people vote in the primary and how many vote in the election. The lower-turnout party won twice (and was within a whisker of doing it three times). The only thing the turnout really tells us is that people are more likely to show up when they feel their vote makes a meaningful statement. So, the poorest turnout in the past four cycles was for the coronation of Barack Obama, while the highest turnout was for Joe vs. Bernie.

Keeping that in mind, the 2024 turnout numbers actually look pretty good for Joe Biden. Yes, 100,000 or so people were motivated enough to show up and vote "uncommitted," but 600,000 or so were motivated enough to show up and make clear they are with the president. Compare that to Obama's 2012 tally, and it's practically a Biden wave. Meanwhile, the Haley "making a statement" voters were a much larger group than the "uncommitted" Democratic voters, both as a total number, and as a percentage. If we assume that both presidential candidates have a ceiling of 2.5 million votes or so, then Trump needs more of the apostates to come home than Biden does. And we would guess the Haley voters are less likely to do so than the Democratic uncommitteds, because while both candidates will benefit from a "hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils" effect, Biden is also able to make progress on the Gaza situation. There's no obvious "fix" for Trump to pursue.

Moving on to the uncommitted voters, along with the subject of the Gaza situation, exit polls have made clear that the uncommitteds were heavily concentrated in the Dearborn area, which is the center of the state's Muslim and Arab-American populations. Biden also did more poorly than expected in college towns. Clearly, he does have a "Gaza problem." That said, let's not overstate it. Looking at the most comparable election, Barack Obama saw 10.7% of primary voters cast their ballots for uncommitted in 2012 (again, the wonky 2008 election can't really be used here, because of the squabbling over primaries). In other words, it sure looks like Biden inspired a larger-than-usual number of uncommitted votes, but not a huge number more (+2.5% or so). Arab Americans and other Muslims make up about 2% of the population of Michigan, so one might speculate that maybe 10% of Biden's uncommitted vote was the usual for an uncontested primary, 2% or so was Arab Americans and other Muslims, and 1% or so was students angry about Gaza.

Some of those folks will come home to the Democrats, even if Biden does nothing, simply because they view Trump as so much worse, either in general, or on the issue of Israel. Others will come home if Biden is able to improve the situation in Gaza, something that he knows well he needs to do, and is clearly working on. Some won't come home, no matter what. If Michigan is as close as it was in 2016, then those otherwise-Democratic voters could be decisive.

But will it be that close? Well, as you can see from the table, Donald Trump has his usual ceiling. He's going to get somewhere between 47.5% of the vote and 48% of the vote, and we don't believe anything is going to change that. That's his base, and that share of the vote is typical for him in swing states. That means the real question is whether Joe Biden will bleed roughly 3 points from his 2020 total, dropping him below Trump's 47.8% or so. It could happen, if he can't get back any of the Arab-Americans/Muslims and students he's currently struggling with. But that would be a pretty unusual outcome.

One last thing. The polls, which were admittedly limited in number, predicted that Biden would get about 77% of the primary vote in Michigan. They underestimated him by about 4 points. Meanwhile, as we already noted, the polls overestimated Trump's Michigan tally by 11 points. So, a net total of 15 points of error between the two certain nominees. That's... a lot. The polls will get more accurate as it becomes easier to separate likely voters from not likely voters. But nonetheless, when you hear that yet another Siena poll has Trump up 5 in the swing states and/or nationally (see below), you simply have to take that with several grains of salt, given the pollsters' performance so far this cycle. (Z)

New Polls: Trump Ahead Nationally by 4-5 Points

A new Siena College poll of registered voters has Donald Trump at 48% and Joe Biden at 43%. Democrats are wetting their pants and pleading for a new candidate. That is not going to happen. Biden is not going to drop out and if he did, the battle at the convention for his replacement would be ferocious. The winner would probably be Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) or Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI). Black women would be beyond furious over Kamala Harris being bypassed, many would not vote, and Trump would win.

Polls this early don't have a lot of value, but there are some warning signs. Only a quarter of the voters think the country is moving in the right direction. Nearly all Republicans think it's not because a Democrat is president. Many Democrats think it's not because they think Biden has done so little. It may not be his fault, but they are still unhappy.

Another warning sign is that 51% of the voters think the economy is poor and another 23% think it is only fair. Young voters are especially negative, with 59% of 18-29 year-olds saying this. These are voters Biden desperately needs. Latinos and noncollege voters also say it is bad. By traditional measures of the health of the economy, it is actually quite good, but the voters simply don't believe it. Biden needs to do something to fix this, but what? Maybe releasing a massive amount of oil from the strategic reserve in the summer in time for it to be refined and gas prices to drop in November would work. For many voters, the price of gas defines the economy.

The poll has another warning sign for Biden: Latinos now prefer Trump to Biden 46% to 40%. They make up 15% of the population, but in a close election every vote could matter. Apparently the Latinos have forgotten (or never knew) that Trump once called immigrants from Mexico rapists and criminals. For some Latino men, Trump's appeal is his oversize personality, which they admire, rather than what he says or the policies he wants. We have written pieces about this in the past.

There is one change in the methodology of this poll compared to previous ones. The poll is conducted on the phone, mostly cell phones these days, and takes 15 minutes. Some people get bored part way through and hang up. In the past, only completed surveys were counted. Starting with this poll, incomplete responses are being included. The reason is that Siena has learned that the people who drop off tend to be younger, noncollege, and more diverse. These people are difficult to poll so a decision has been made to keep and use their data, even if they don't get to the end.

One item in the crosstabs that is a red flag for us is that in the horse-race poll, Trump and Biden are running even at 46% each among women. Among likely voters, Trump is even ahead, 47% to 46%. That is very unusual. Normally there is a huge gender gap that favors the Democrats among women. This might be explained by the fact that the sample was 30% Republican, 29% Democratic, and 34% independent. That strikes us as having too many Republicans and too many Republican women in the poll.

A YouGov/CBS poll has a similar result with Trump at 52% and Biden at 48%. Some of the crosstabs are interesting. A lot of Biden's deficit is because many more Democrats are critical of Biden than Republicans are critical of Trump. Republicans say: "He's my candidate, flaws and all." Democrats say: "I wanted Biden to do [X] and he didn't do it, so I'm not voting for him." So Biden's job is not to pitch to swing voters, but to get Democrats to understand that while he didn't do everything he wanted, he nevertheless did a lot and if reelected with a working majority in the House and Senate, will do more of the things he originally wanted to do.

Some of the answers to specific questions are mind-boggling. For example, 55% of adults think Biden's policies will make prices go up but only 34% think Trump's policies will make prices go up? It is hard to think of anything Biden is doing or might do that raises prices, but Trump's plans to put tariffs on all imports will certainly raise many prices.

Another dilly: Forty-four percent of respondents think Trump tried to stay in office by illegal means, 35% think he tried to stay in office by legal means, and 21% think he did not plan to stay in office. It's that 21% that makes us think that one in five Americans never pays any attention to the news at all, in any form.

Also, 34% think that democracy will be safe only if Biden wins, 33% think democracy will be safe only if Trump wins, 13% think it will be safe either way, and 20% think it won't be safe no matter who wins. Huh?

One more, this time on which candidate has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president. Among all adults, 26% say only Biden is fit, 43% think only Trump is fit, 6% say both and 25% say neither. We understand the 43% saying only Trump is fit. That is precisely his base. But in effect, something like a third of the Democrats don't think Biden is fit. Have they all taken to watching Fox all day? On physical health, 17% think Biden has it, 45% think Trump has it, 9% say both, and 29% say neither.

A clear message here is that many Democrats have bought into the Republican talking points that Biden is a feeble, demented old man who didn't do anything as president and wouldn't do anything if reelected. DEMOCRATS!

It's a little hard to believe some of these numbers, and it's a little hard to believe Republican talking points have been THAT effective. So we don't put much faith in these polls despite Siena and YouGov being pretty good and not usually biased. Nevertheless, every time there is another poll with Trump ahead, Democrats panic and their fear Trump will win becomes a little more profound. (V)


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---The Votemaster and Zenger
Mar04 Haley Finally Notches a Win
Mar04 Supreme Court Will Issue an Order This Morning
Mar04 The Fourteenth Amendment, Part III: Was It Not Real?
Mar04 What Will Tanya Chutkan Do?
Mar04 Republican Activists Are Secretly Working to Remove Voters from the Rolls
Mar04 Eight States Have Passed Voter ID Laws Since 2020
Mar04 The Fallout from the Hamas Attack on Israel is Ongoing
Mar04 Democrats Lose a Big Case in Wisconsin
Mar04 Johnson Is Trying to Get Trump To Increase His Majority
Mar03 Idaho, Michigan, and Missouri Voted Yesterday
Mar03 Sunday Mailbag
Mar02 Saturday Q&A
Mar01 Shutdown?: Nope, Government Will Kick the Can Down the Road (Again)
Mar01 IVF Bill: Well, That Was Fast
Mar01 State of the Union: Britt Will Serve up This Year's Red Meat
Mar01 Un-Retirement: Once Your Foot Is in the Door...
Mar01 News From Across the Pond: Gaza War Is Wrecking British Politics
Mar01 I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Forged in Fire
Mar01 This Week in Schadenfreude: A Fool and Their Money?
Mar01 This Week in Freudenfreude: Strong Medicine
Feb29 McConnell Will Step Down as Party Leader in November
Feb29 Trump Got Mixed Legal News Yesterday
Feb29 Trump Seems to Be Underperforming the Polls So Far
Feb29 Why Won't Haley Drop Out?
Feb29 Wyoming's County Caucuses Start Saturday
Feb29 Russia Is the Dividing Line for Republicans
Feb29 DeSantis 2028?
Feb29 2020 Isn't Over Yet
Feb29 Demography is Destiny--But It Is Complicated
Feb29 AI Chatbots Are Already Giving Out Dangerous Misleading Information
Feb28 What's Good for the Goose Is What's Good for the Michigander
Feb28 One Last Look at South Carolina
Feb28 The Other Guy Is Out
Feb28 Story Behind AI Robocall Revealed
Feb28 Johnson Says He Doesn't Want a Shutdown
Feb28 IVF Fight Heads to Congress
Feb28 Looking Forward to 2024, Part IV: Reader Predictions, Donald Trump Edition
Feb27 Trump Legal News: Will Your Lawyer Talk to God?
Feb27 The Republicans Are The Nazis' Party
Feb27 Today in Republican Shenanigans
Feb27 Ronna Romney McDaniel Sticks to the Plan...
Feb27 ...And So Does the New York Legislature
Feb27 Biden Sits for an Interview with Seth Meyers
Feb27 Another Week, Another Useless Poll
Feb27 Looking Forward to 2024, Part III: Reader Predictions, Joe Biden Edition
Feb26 What Will Haley Voters Do?
Feb26 What Will Haley Do?
Feb26 Vice Presidential Candidates Exhibit Their Trumpiness at CPAC
Feb26 Nancy Mace Also Wants to Be Trump's Running Mate
Feb26 The Clock Is Ticking for Trump