Sabato's Crystal Ball

Let’s Not Overreact to the Judd Mutiny

May 10th, 2012

Kyle Kondik, Political Analyst

We would make a joke about President Obama only taking 59% of the West Virginia primary vote against a federal prison inmate named Keith Judd, but every possible one was exhausted on Twitter by Wednesday morning. Suffice it to say, it was an embarrassing performance for the president, albeit in a state he has no [...]

Do Independent Voters Matter?

May 10th, 2012

Todd Eberly, Guest Columnist

Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, recently wrote a report for the centrist group Third Way about independent voters. Crystal Ball senior columnist Alan Abramowitz addressed that report in a recent article, and Eberly asked to respond. His point of view differs from Abramowitz’s and the inclinations of the [...]

Readers React: Sloganeering on the Road to the White House

May 3rd, 2012

U.Va. Center for Politics

In 2008, Barack Obama used the phrase “Yes We Can” as part of his effort to energize millions of voters to support his presidential bid. On Monday, the Obama campaign revealed its 2012 slogan, “Forward,” at the conclusion of a seven-minute advertisement recapping the administration’s achievements. The one-word motto builds on the idea that some [...]

Obama and the Primaries: More Here Than Meets the Eye?

May 3rd, 2012

Rhodes Cook, Senior Columnist

At first glance, the vote from the March Democratic presidential primary in Oklahoma looked like a misprint. The tally from Dewey County showed 86 votes for Randall Terry, 59 votes for Jim Rogers and 47 votes for Barack Obama.
Terry is a lightly funded anti-abortion activist. Rogers is a frequent and largely unsuccessful candidate in [...]

Rommey’s Vp Selection: Hold Your Horses

May 3rd, 2012

Geoffrey Skelley, Political Analyst, U.Va. Center for Politics

Now that Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican nominee, attention has turned to his impending selection of a vice presidential choice. There has already been so much VeepWatch coverage one might think the deadline for Romney’s pick is measured in days or even hours. We here at the Crystal Ball are as guilty as anyone [...]

Plan of Attack: Obama, Romney and the Electoral College

April 26th, 2012

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley, U.Va. Center for Politics

The presidential election could very well come down to one state — which one? We offer our thoughts on the Electoral College, plus answer questions on House, Senate and gubernatorial races, in our latest Crystal Ball video:

The London Olympics isn’t the only venue for world-class sport this year. Political gold is waiting to be won [...]

Partisan Gender Gap Not Just About Women

April 26th, 2012

Alfred J. Tuchfarber, Guest Columnist

It’s interesting to hear politicians, political analysts and journalists use the term “gender gap.” They do so with great frequency, and it is almost always explicitly, implicitly or contextually focused on women. It is true, of course, that women usually vote 8% to 12% more Democratic than do men.
But, that misses three key points:
1. There [...]

Veepwatch: Readers React

April 19th, 2012

Kyle Kondik, Political Analyst, U.Va. Center for Politics

John Adams, the Founding Father who served as the nation’s first vice president, had this to say about the No. 2 job: “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”
Nowadays, few people — well, few politicians anyway — would [...]

Parsing Post-Nomination Primary Performance

April 19th, 2012

Geoffrey Skelley, Political Analyst, U.Va. Center for Politics

Now that Rick Santorum has suspended his campaign, Mitt Romney has essentially wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination. Although Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul remain in the GOP race, Santorum was Romney’s last major opponent, having won 11 states in the Midwest, the South and elsewhere.
However, as shown in Chart 1, 19 states still have [...]

It Can’t Be Done

A Brief Modern History of What Can’t Happen Presidentially

April 19th, 2012

Larry J. Sabato, Director, U.Va. Center for Politics

1948: To err is Truman. He’s so unpopular compared to Thomas E. Dewey that Election Day is just a formality.
1952: Twenty years of New Deal presidents proves Democrats have a lock on the Electoral College.
1960: No Roman Catholic, much less an inexperienced 43-year-old, is going to win the White House.
1968: Richard M. Nixon is a [...]

Veepwatch, Part 2: First, Do No Harm — Our Vp Contenders

April 12th, 2012

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

As part 2 of our Veepwatch series, we’re unveiling our VP possibilities chart. See our video and also our full Veepwatch contenders list, both below. Who might Mitt Romney pick as his running mate? Did we miss anyone? If you think we did, pass along your suggested VP possibility along with a few short pluses [...]

Are Independent Leaners Closet Partisans or True Independents?

April 12th, 2012

Alan I. Abramowitz, Senior Columnist

A recent report from Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, criticized my research and that of other political scientists who have concluded that independent leaners — voters who identify themselves as independents but indicate that they usually feel closer to one political party or the other — are really closet partisans. The Third Way [...]

Veepwatch, Part 1: The Swing State Selection Myth

April 5th, 2012

Joel K. Goldstein, Guest Columnist

With Mitt Romney pulling away in the Republican presidential race, we here at the Crystal Ball are ready to turn our attention to what will be one of the biggest political stories of the next few months: the Veepwatch. We’ll unveil our list of vice presidential possibilities next week, but first, we asked one of [...]

Notes on the State of Politics

April 5th, 2012

U.Va. Center for Politics

How Santorum can win by losing
April 3 was a one-two punch in favor of Mitt Romney. Wisconsin was Rick Santorum’s last, best chance to slow Romney’s inevitability train. And the Tuesday engine pulling the Romney train, oddly enough, was driven by Barack Obama. In front of America’s newspaper editors, he all but declared his November opponent [...]

Romney and Reagan: Electoral Parallels

April 2nd, 2012

Rhodes Cook, Senior Columnist

Note: This article is cross-posted from Rhodes Cook’s political blog.
Unlike some of his Republican rivals, Mitt Romney has spent little time this year comparing himself to Ronald Reagan. But when it comes to their pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, similarities abound.
Both lost their first full-throated bid for their party’s nomination – Reagan in 1976, [...]