Are Voters Drifting Away?

For first time in 16 years, back-to-back cycles saw drops in raw turnout

For the first decade after Sept. 11, national elections showed a steady rise in voter turnout. The number of ballots cast in presidential elections jumped from 105 million in 2000 to a record 131 million in 2008, an increase of 25% in just eight years. Similarly, the midterm congressional turnout...

What a Drag

Why a party may well be better off losing the White House

U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato is contributing a regular column to Politico Magazine. This week, he examines the presidential party’s penalty for holding the White House: losing ground everywhere else. This article originally appeared in Politico Magazine on Dec. 1, 2014. Think of the billions the parties...

14 from ’14: Quick Takes on the Midterm

After going over the results from last week, we had a number of bite-sized observations to offer -- 14, to be exact: 1. The polls really were worse than usual This cycle featured the largest average miss by the two major poll aggregators, RealClearPolitics and HuffPost Pollster, in recent competitive...

Comparing Wave and Calm Elections

Is there something magical and mystical about the number five in elections? After the tsunami of 1994, there were five straight elections that were “calm elections” (1996-2004) and then five straight elections that could be considered wave elections. (A valid argument can be made that despite the size of the...

Yup, It Was a Wave

A version of this article originally appeared in Politico Magazine Wednesday evening. It might not have been 1994 or 2010, but 2014 was a wave all its own: A late-breaking surge that lifted Republicans to some surprisingly strong performances across the country. Notably, though, the argument for this election being...

2014 State Legislative Election Wrap

After a day of double checking partisan composition numbers in the more than 6,000 legislative races this year, the extent of Republican success in this year’s legislative and governor’s elections is mostly clear. Suffice it to say, it was a banner election for the GOP. Republicans ran the proverbial table,...

The Crystal Ball’s Final 2014 Picks

Who we favor in all 507 of Tuesday’s Senate, gubernatorial, and House races

If you’re in Charlottesville tonight, please join the Crystal Ball team -- Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley -- for a free presentation on the 2014 midterms at 7 p.m. in Wilson Hall, Room 402 on the Grounds of the University of Virginia. Visit the U.Va. Center for...

State Legislative Elections Provide Down-Ballot Drama

While the nation’s attention is fixated on the congressional and gubernatorial races, it’s important to remember that the vast majority of states this year will also decide their state legislative contests. Walking us through the state legislative picture once again this cycle is Tim Storey, one of the country’s top...

As Election Day Closes In, Tight Gubernatorial Races Abound

Bevy of new ratings but still many razor-thin contests

Can we be brutally frank? The governors’ races are really tough to call this year. As of Wednesday afternoon, 11 contests had margins of three points or less in either HuffPost Pollster or RealClearPolitics’ polling averages (nine were inside that mark in both). Of those 11 races, 10 feature incumbents...

Sizing up the Statehouses

Nov. 4 is rapidly approaching but a large number of gubernatorial contests remain up in the air. In fact, despite having some ratings changes this week, the Crystal Ball still has seven Toss-up races on the board, and most appear to be headed right down to the wire. The two...

The Kennedy Half Century Now Available in Paperback

MOOC also returns with new lessons

Available now: The Kennedy Half Century in paperback, featuring new interviews, scientific studies, and empirical data. Among the new material contained in the paperback edition: A well-placed CIA employee reveals what really happened inside agency headquarters on Nov. 22, 1963. New analysis that further demonstrates the unreliability of the police...

The State of the Governors

For many, it’s surprisingly poor

Governors frequently report on the state of their states, but what’s the state of the governors? To judge by many of the ongoing gubernatorial campaigns, it’s not great. Out of 36 contests, one governor (Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii) has already lost his primary, another is headed for almost-certain defeat...