Outside the Beltway

A trip through comparative democratic reform.

It’s not nearly as far-fetched as most of us would like to believe.

It really is rife with problems.

The Electoral College is holding a nation of millions back.

Some thoughts on polling and the news since 2016.

The will of the majority can prevail even in a skewed system.

A surprising factoid in a bad election for the party.

Are plurality winners less legitimate than popular vote losers?

Assuming they had the votes, should Democrats carve out yet another exception?

They’re taking their eye off the ball.

A potentially more representative map that still underscores deep flaws in our system.

Senator Romney and the latest edition of the senatorial pro-filibuster op/ed.

The political calculus of Arizona’s senior Senator is unclear.

An interesting podcast conversation.

Yet another reminder about pathologies of US democracy.

America’s institutions are undemocratic but only some of them are a product of the Constitution.

Wherein I respond to a ridiculous comparison.

A shadowy flight into the realm of evidence that does not exist.

Arguments and analyses that are, well, turkeys.

More on why it isn’t going to happen.

Looking back on the last three decades of presidential elections. (Part 1: the popular vote).

All the major outlets are finally acknowledging the obvious.

We may be a little closer to ending the tyranny of the Electoral College.

He has the largest lead of any challenger since modern polling began in 1936.

Definitions are fun, right?

A long-winded and esoteric discussion about an elusive idea.

Is Trump really an outlier?

A defense of the indefensible.

A new poll shows meaningful shifts in public attitudes.

Ok, so what should change?

This is not even close to the worst it’s ever been.

It creates a veto gate that they are almost guaranteed to control when they need it.

Joementum.

The vagaries of our Presidential election mechanism gave us a surprising result in 2016. That’s unlikely this year.

A discussion of what #NeverTrump means, on Sanders v. Trump, and some about the philosophy of voting.

As doubts about the health of the economy start to mount, President Trump’s job approval is starting to suffer.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that states cannot punish electors who fail to follow the will of the majority of voters n their state or state laws purporting to direct how they should vote.

A new poll shows Donald Trump losing to top Democrats in head-to-head races.

Should the pundit class look more like America?

No, abolishing the EC would not turn farmers into serfs.

A new poll finds that a small majority of Americans support abolishing the Electoral College, but that’s not nearly enough to make any change in how we elect Presidents possible.

Massachusetts Democrat Seth Moulton makes an argument familiar to OTB readers.

A WaPo data analyst gives it a shot.

Some examples from 2018 of the problems with single seat districts.

The emergence of a silly talking point.

The 2018 midterms were mostly about Donald Trump. The results were idiosyncratic.

Minority rule and self-reinforcing cleavages are not a a healthy combination.

New polling seems to show a significant shift toward Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.

Forget the “republic v. a democracy” abstraction. The numbers show some serious flaws in translating popular will into government.

Eleven states plus DC, who have 172 of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect a President, are now part of the compact.