Outside the Beltway

An unsurprising win in the Pelican State.

Alabama’s Jeff Sessions will become the nation’s top law enforcement officer. That’s not a good thing.

With the lone exception of Bill Clinton in 1996, Arizona hasn’t gone for a Democrat since 1948. That streak could end this year.

New polling from the states has good news for Hillary Clinton, and an even less plausible path to 270 for Donald Trump.

With Donald Trump now confirmed as the GOP nominee, some conservatives are suggesting that the Senate GOP should just give in on the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

There’s little doubt that Hillary Clinton will win today’s South Carolina Primary, the only question is how big a win she’s likely to score.

The My Pet Gloat Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

Democrat John Bel Edwards scored an easy victory over Senator David Vitter last night in Louisiana, and Vitter announced that he’d be leaving the Senate after his term is up.

Well this could be a game changer.

Paul Ryan has yet to say if he will run for Speaker of the House, but that hasn’t stopped the opposition on the hard right from forming already.

Erick Erickson has disinvited Donald Trump from the RedState Gathering. What finally pushed him over the edge?

Low costs and regulatory barriers are attracting people to red states–thus turning them purple and blue.

The Supreme Court accepted a case that will require the Justices to decide just what it meant when it established the “one person, one vote” rule for drawing legislative districts.

The House was set to vote on a ban on abortion after 20 weeks that never would have become law today but they pulled the bill. Conservatives are annoyed, but it was smart politics in the long run.

The State Of The Union Address was more of the same, and the same will be true of Washington going forward.

Tuesday’s Republican wave didn’t change the fundamentals.

What happened Tuesday? And what does it tell us about 2016?

The Republican wave extended even to Governor’s races that, in any other year, they should have lost.

Two Duke University academics make an incredibly weak, ultimately unpersuasive, argument in favor of eliminating midterm elections by changing the length of Congressional terms.

The odds say that the GOP will end up with a Senate majority in the 114th Congress when all the votes are counted, but if it doesn’t happen then there’s likely to be quite a battle inside the GOP.

The votes have been counted, the result is clear, but the battle between Senator Thad Cochran and Chris McDaniel continues to get stranger by the day.

The House leadership elections turned out about as expected, but we may be doing this all over again in five months.

Down to the wire in Mississippi.

Sooner than one might have expected, Republicans are starting to battle over the issue of marriage equality.

Can Rick Perry bounce back from the epic disaster of his 2012 campaign?

Another day, another delay

The likelihood of any action on gun control in 2014 is extremely limited

The PPACA has had a rough 2013, and 2014 could be even worse.

“Reality” TV star says something dumb about gay people, gets suspended, usual pointless outrage ensues.

Gun control has faded as a political issue as the memory of Newtown has faded, and that was entirely predictable.

The 7 seats most likely to switch parties are held by Democrats.

The GOP’s approval numbers have fallen like a stone, but it’s unclear whether this will matter in 2014.

Paul Ryan is back, and he has a plan his party ought to be paying attention to.

The One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

With just hours to go, the Republicans on Capitol Hill seem prepared to take a big political risk.

With key conservatives pushing for sanity, the grown-ups have a chance to take back the GOP.

The House GOP Leadership didn’t endear itself to the Tea Party today.

Low voter priorities and the natural tendency of the media to move on to the next big story meant that gun control was not going to be a top political issue for long.

Could Rick Perry recover from his disastrous 2012 campaign to become a viable candidate?

An empty threat.

There are risks to Republicans in blocking immigration reform, but there are also incentives for them to block immigration reform. Getting past that contradiction to passage isn’t going to be easy.

John Boehner clearly wants to see an immigration bill passed this year, but he has a very narrow path to victory.

The United States is as politically polarized as it was in 1865.