Updated April 11, 2014
Current outlook: Republicans net 5-8 House seats
Members in italics hold seats that the other party’s presidential candidate won in 2012. 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.
April 10th, 2014
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Two statewide southerners are seeing their fortunes move in opposite directions, while the weight of both a party label and a barrage of negative advertising look increasingly likely to sink one of the longest-serving members of the House. Here are this week’s Crystal Ball ratings changes in four gubernatorial, Senate and House contests.
Table 1: Crystal [...]
April 3rd, 2014
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Election Day 2014 is now almost exactly seven months away, which is both near and far.
On the one hand, more than half of the states — 29 of 50 — have passed their filing deadlines for major party candidates (the deadline in a 30th, Tennessee, is today). The late entries of Rep. Cory Gardner (R, [...]
April 3rd, 2014
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In addition to our new Crystal Ball Outlook for the House, Senate and gubernatorial races, we have a few tweaks to make to our ratings this week. To get our ratings changes as they happen, follow the Crystal Ball team on Twitter — @LarrySabato, @kkondik and @geoffreyvs — and check our website’s Ratings Changes page.
Table [...]
March 27th, 2014
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Barring significant changes in group voting habits, many commentators have argued that “The Coalition of the Ascendant” is positioned to give Democrats a notable edge in elections in the near future. There may be some truth to that supposition: The country is clearly getting more diverse, and nonwhite voters tend to vote strongly Democratic.
A key [...]
March 27th, 2014
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This year marks the centennial anniversary of the first class of popularly-elected U.S. Senators, as mandated by adoption of the 17th Amendment. A hundred years later, several current or former Republican members of Congress, including Todd Akin (MO), Paul Broun (GA), Pete Hoekstra (MI) and Jeff Flake (AZ), have indicated their support for returning the [...]
March 20th, 2014
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U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato is contributing a regular column to Politico Magazine. This week, he examines whether or not an improved economic picture could potentially help Democrats stave off trouble in November 2014. — The Editors
Last week’s special election in Florida’s 13th congressional district, where GOP Rep. David Jolly upset Democrat [...]
March 12th, 2014
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Rep.-elect David Jolly (R, FL-13) overcame money, some internal division among Republicans, and a name recognition and prestige deficit to defeat Alex Sink (D) in a much-watched special election in Florida’s Tampa-area 13th Congressional District Tuesday night.
Republicans are of course gleeful about the results, and Democrats, despite immediately pledging to fight for the district again [...]
March 6th, 2014
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“Our founders put the first amendment first for a reason. It protects all Americans’ right to free speech, regardless of political affiliation or views.” This statement was made by former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) in 2007, but it expresses a commonly cited view among lawyers, judges, politicians and pundits.
In fact, what we today know as [...]
March 6th, 2014
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In January, the release of the Census Bureau’s 2013 population estimates prompted the Crystal Ball to examine what the post-2020 projections for reapportionment might mean for the future shape of the U.S. House. While it’s fun to look at future projections, it’s also interesting to take a peek into the past to see how representation [...]
February 27th, 2014
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California is such a massive state — if it were an independent nation, it would have the eighth-largest economy in the world — that it has long been the subject of partitioning proposals. Now a new plan is calling for the Golden State to be dismembered into six new states. The proposal could possibly go [...]
February 13th, 2014
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The results of a simple but extremely accurate midterm election forecasting model indicate that the 2014 U.S. House elections are likely to result in minimal change in the party balance of power. The forecasting model uses three predictors — the current party balance of power in the House, the results of the last presidential election [...]
February 13th, 2014
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After the 2012 elections, there were only 26 members of the U.S. House who were elected from districts that their party’s presidential candidate didn’t win in the 2012 election. Nine Democrats were elected from districts Mitt Romney won, and 17 Republicans were elected from districts President Obama won. As we’ve previously mentioned, this is the [...]
February 13th, 2014
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Theodore Arrington wrote a short response/supplement to my earlier piece on the Voting Rights Act. I wrote this response mostly because I think he and I actually agree on most of the matters he discusses, suggesting that I was unclear at crucial points.
Dr. Arrington discusses my analysis with respect to all three prongs of Gingles, [...]
February 6th, 2014
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Sean Trende’s analysis in “The 2020 Reapportionment and The Voting Rights Act” is helpful, but I would like to supplement his analysis or present a slightly different take. His overall conclusion that it is becoming more difficult to maintain voting rights districts is accurate, although the problem is with the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of [...]
January 30th, 2014
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We’re pleased to announce that Sean Trende, the shrewd senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics, will be contributing regularly to the Crystal Ball. His first piece looks at the future of majority-minority House districts in northern states, and how in some instances it will be difficult to maintain these districts as some of these states lose [...]
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