Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited. micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): For your consideration today: Whatever happened to that Democratic wave? The Democratic advantage over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot is down to less than 6 percentage points: What’s going on? Is it time for Democrats to […]
New Jersey Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen’s retirement announcement this week wasn’t a game changer in the battle for control of the House of Representatives. Even before his announcement, Frelinghuysen, a Republican, was in danger of losing a re-election bid in the 11th Congressional District, which President Trump won by a mere 1 percentage point in 2016. […]
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. Today’s theme song is Sammy Davis Jr.’s rendition of “Chico and the Man” from the television show “Chico and the Man.” Poll of the week A new Quinnipiac University survey found that 32 percent of voters believe congressional Democrats were primarily responsible for the recent government shutdown; 31 […]
As politics in the U.S. has polarized along geographic and racial lines, drawing political maps has become a partisan arms race. Even the smallest decisions about where to draw district boundaries can alter the power dynamic in Congress — without a single voter switching parties or moving. It’s easy for opponents of gerrymandering — the […]
In most states, district maps — which define where the constituency of one representative ends and that of another begins — are drawn by the state’s lawmakers. Having politicians define their own districts has not gone entirely smoothly — and two cases involving political gerrymandering, or the drawing of districts (especially oddly shaped districts) to […]