Updated Dec. 11, 2013
Members in italics hold seats that the other party’s presidential candidate won in 2012. *Signifies that the member might not make it to the general election because of retirement or a primary challenge. A red-shaded seat in the Democratic column or a blue-shaded seat in the Republican column means that the incumbent party is an underdog to hold the seat.
December 5th, 2013
On Friday, Dec. 6, the University of Virginia Center for Politics will host the 15th annual American Democracy Conference. The conference, which will be held at Alumni Hall on the Grounds of the University of Virginia, will feature panels of leading journalists and political experts focused on the 2013 Virginia election outcome, the upcoming 2014 [...]
December 5th, 2013
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The last month has been, on the surface, great for the Republican Party’s electoral fortunes in 2014. President Obama’s signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act, has been a mess, and it remains persistently unpopular in polling. Obama’s approval rating has been on a steady decline for months, and the recent events have driven it increasingly [...]
December 5th, 2013
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For the first time in his presidency, Barack Obama finds his aggregate approval rating hovering right at 40%. In some polls, he has already fallen below it: According to Gallup, the president’s approval dropped to 39% three times in November. Currently, RealClearPolitics’ aggregation of approval polls finds the president’s approval right at 40.1% while HuffPost [...]
November 21st, 2013
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John F. Kennedy speaks at Granby High School in Norfolk, VA, on Nov. 4, 1960. Credit: Associated Press.
Choosing the topic of this article was easy for me, because it’s a personal story. No, it’s not your usual “Kennedy and me” tale. I never even shook hands with John F. Kennedy. But his presidential saga, tragic [...]
November 18th, 2013
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The JFK Half Century App, produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, is now available for download on Android and Apple devices. The app features the complete Dallas police recordings from Nov. 22, 1963, which the Center acquired from the National Archives and is available to the public in one easily accessible place [...]
November 14th, 2013
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“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises.”
– William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well
When the Bard of Avon wrote those words some four centuries ago, he wasn’t describing Republican Senate candidates in 2010 or 2012, although the quote works well to illustrate how great opportunities can be frittered away. But now [...]
November 14th, 2013
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With the 2013 government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis now behind us, one conclusion seems inescapable — this was a disaster for the Republican Party. While both major parties received negative reviews from the American public for their performance in the crisis, it was the GOP that took by far the bigger hit to its [...]
November 14th, 2013
2012 vs. 2013 Virginia vote shares quite close
In early October, the Crystal Ball discussed the election-to-election relationship of the percentage of the total statewide vote each Virginia locality casts. While the correlation between 2009 and 2012 vote shares was almost perfect (R = .996), there was noticeably large voter drop-off in a few cities and [...]
November 7th, 2013
A year ago, almost everyone who followed Virginia politics thought that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) had the inside track to winning the governorship. After all, it was in the 1880s when Virginia last gave a party just four consecutive years in the Governor’s Mansion. And Cuccinelli held one of the two positions that have [...]
October 24th, 2013
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We’ll save our Republican friends a recitation of all the damage they did to themselves during the recent battle over the government shutdown and the debt limit. Anyone who can read a poll knows what happened.
The shutdown kerfuffle has led to a significant improvement in the national political climate for Democrats. The House generic ballot, [...]
October 17th, 2013
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Earlier this week, University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato unveiled new information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as part of the release of his new book, The Kennedy Half Century. His findings, concerning a recording of the day’s events that some believe is proof of a conspiracy to [...]
October 10th, 2013
University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato will reveal a major new finding regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 15, and Crystal Ball readers will be able to watch it LIVE online here. For iPhone and iPad users, the press conference will be available [...]
October 3rd, 2013
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The great electoral question that comes with this week’s shenanigans in Washington is whether Republicans will hurt themselves so badly that the government shutdown, and events to come, will cost them the House. In this piece we look back on the Democrats’ passage of the Affordable Care Act in early 2010. Voting “no” on Obamacare [...]
October 3rd, 2013
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Redistricting for the U.S. House of Representatives is not a unified process, as is the case for most national legislatures. Rather, it’s the result of the cumulative actions of the states that have more than one representative. Nevertheless, it is useful to look at the entire House to see how the decisions in the states [...]
September 19th, 2013
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We are making many changes to the Crystal Ball’s U.S. House ratings, but the overall picture in the People’s House remains quite clear:
Neither Republicans nor Democrats are positioned to make major gains in the House next year.
Republicans are slightly likelier to net a tiny gain than Democrats are.
Ergo, the Republican majority in the House appears [...]
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