Outside the Beltway

Susan Collins hasn’t officially announced her intentions for 2020 just yet, but she looks like she’s running for re-election. If she does, she appears to be facing some political headwinds.

The Congressional Budget Office assesses several reform proposals.

The government in Hong Kong keeps conceding ground to the protests that have taken hold in the city, but the protesters have more fundamental objections.

Joe Biden recently said that he’d consider nominating Merrick Garland again if there were a Supreme Court vacancy while he was President. Don’t count on it.

Should the pundit class look more like America?

We could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

Bernie Sanders is finding that the 2020 campaign is very different from 2016.

Is it possible, or even appropriate, to express pride in a country that is being led by a President who stands against everything this country stands for?

A convergence of OTB discussions.

The surging candidate seems to be trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Republican Party is ruining the country. But so are the Democrats?

A leading same-sex marriage advocate is pushing back on the trans movement.

A considerable number of Republican have effectively left our party over Donald Trump. Should we go all the way?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi suffered a major defeat on a signature issue.

WIth the top two candidates in the race on the same stage, the second night of the first Democratic debate was much feistier than the first night.

Is the Sanders-Warren position too extreme for the general election?

Democrats clashed, to some degree, in last night’s inaugural debate of the 2020 season but they clearly agreed far more than they disagreed.

Senators Warren and Sanders have both proposed plans to forgive student loan debt and make public colleges tuition-free. That’s easier said than done.

Do Uncle Joe’s steady poll numbers tell us anything meaningful about 2020?

Pete Butttigieg has spent the past week dealing with a crisis back in South Bend. How he handles it could have a significant impact on his campaign.

Another woman has accused President Trump of sexually assaulting her some 20 years ago.

Congress is considering a bill that would establish a commission to examine the issue of reparations for slavery.;

If Hong Kong’s leaders thought protesters would be satisfied with relatively minor concessions, they have significantly miscalculated the situation.

Four years ago, Donald Trump began his campaign for President. What has followed has been as bad as could have been predicted that day.

A trio of new polls shows Elizabeth Warren slipping past Bernie Sanders into second place in the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination

The participants for the two-night opening debate of the 2020 campaign season have been announced, and the candidates who were excluded aren’t happy.

For 2020, Kansas Democrats are making some interesting changes to how they will have a say in he race for the Democratic nomination.

Is it really such a bad thing when a politician changes a long-help position on a political issue?

The latest iteration of a benchmark Iowa poll shows Joe Biden leading, with Bernie Sanders sinking and looking at several candidates closing in on him.

At least some conservatives appear to finally be recognizing that their movement has been taken over by grifters and frauds. The only question is, what took them so long?

After coming under attack from within his own party, former Vice-President Joe Biden has changed his position on the Hyde Amendment.

Former Vice-President Biden has come under fire for his longtime support for the Hyde Amendment.

David Brooks joins the long line of commenters predicting the GOP’s demise.

Quietly, Elizabeth Warren has been campaigning and putting out policy proposals while also appearing to gain ground on her closest rival, Bernie Sanders.

Michigan Congressman Justin Amash doubled down on his assertion that the Attorney General was deliberately misleading Congress and the American public.

Michael Avenatti, the former attorney for Stormy Daniels who briefly flirted with the idea of running for President, has been charged with multiple counts of fraud and other charges, some of them in connection with his representation of Daniels herself.

More proportional than the GOP, but perhaps not as proportional as one might think.

The size of the Democratic Presidential field, combined with other things peculiar to the way Democrats pick their nominee, is leading some to wonder if we might see a brokered convention in 2020.

Jon Bel Edwards is a reminder that our divide is cultural, not just partisan.

Not surprisingly, Chelsea Manning is headed back to jail for her refusal to answer questions before a Federal Grand Jury investigating Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

Based on the early stages of the campaign for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination, it appears as though the party’s progressive wing has misread the signals being sent by the party’s voters.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has entered the race for the Democratic nomination for President, making him the 23rd candidate in an already crowded field.

A new poll indicates that at least some Democrats continue to hold Biden’s 2002 vote in favor of the Iraq War.

Passing up an opportunity that other Democrats are taking, Elizabeth Warren is declining to appear on Fox News Channel. This seems like an unwise decision.

More good news for Joe Biden, this time out of South Carolina.

Stacey Abrams, best known for losing the race for Governor of Georgia in 2018, is still apparently thinking of getting in the race. Her chances seem slim at best.

Two weeks into his campaign, Joe Biden continues to build an impressive lead in polling at the state and national levels.

A panel of three Federal Judges has found Ohio’s Congressional District map to be unconstitutional, but a case currently pending before the Supreme Court could mute the impact of this decision.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other firebrands aren’t steering the ship. Yet.

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet is the latest entrant into the race for the Democratic nomination for President, and the field isn’t done growing.