Recent News

Is voter anger behind the Trump and Sanders surges? Maybe yes.

Here, I think, is a common view of this year’s presidential primary, courtesy of the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker:

This has become the summer of the political outsider, as a cast of interlopers upend and dominate the presidential nominating process in both parties.

More Republicans See Donald Trump as a Winner, Poll Finds

Republicans increasingly think that Donald J. Trump has the best chance of winning the 2016 presidential election as their nominee as confidence fades in traditional politicians like Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

Why Joe Biden’s decision could make or break Hillary Clinton

Will Joe Biden run? It’s one of the biggest questions hanging over the Democratic presidential primary race right now, and a new Washington Post-ABC News poll illustrates one reason why.

Iowa and New Hampshire are apparently feeling the Bern. South Carolina, not so much.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders now leads his Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by double digits in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states where votes will be cast in 2016 to decide the party’s presidential nominee.

Poll: Hillary Clinton’s support falls by 21 points as Donald Trump gains

Hillary Clinton’s support has fallen by 21 percentage points since July, according to the latest national ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday.

Meanwhile, support for Donald Trump has surged to 33 percent, a 9-point jump during the same period and a further sign that the billionaire business mogul is in a commanding position in the Republican primary ahead of this week’s GOP debate.

On Sunday, Hillary Clinton stood at the pulpit of Foundry United Methodist Church, which she’d attended as first lady, and said she’d just gotten some excellent, Bible-based advice from her former minister, J. Philip Wogaman: In keeping with the reading of the day, from Romans 12, he told her, “You’ve got to be nicer to the press.”

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” —Hunter S. Thompson

The days when Labor Day marked the beginning of the electoral season have long gone. Thanks to information technology, money, and the Supreme Court, we live in the era of the permanent campaign. But the end of summer still feels like a significant marker, and it provides a good moment to take stock of a set of events that surely would have prompted the good Doctor, had he been alive to chronicle them, to send out for another bottle of Wild Turkey.