RealClearPolitics Articles

Donald Trump and Democrats agree on one thing: The midterm elections are about Donald Trump. The president seems to think this will work for Republicans – he keeps urging voters to pretend he is on the ballot. But this may be a serious miscalculation that will damage the GOP, Trump’s legacy, and ultimately our country. The polls suggest the midterms will be a Democratic rout. Republicans respond by pointing to flawed polls during this year’s primaries and observing that Trump always outperforms polls. They note that even modest errors could mean Republicans will fend off a...

Deputy Director Matt Quinn announced his resignation from the Secret Service in an internal agency email Friday amid questions about his conflicts of interest over the agency’s counter-drone technology. Quinn served 23 years as a Secret Service agent before retiring in 2021. He then went to work at drone-manufacturer Fortem Technologies, which sells the DroneHunter product, as a senior vice president for three years before returning to the agency last year to serve as deputy director. His last day will be Nov. 7. As RealClearPolitics first reported, Quinn was criticized by several...

Ever since 2017, Washington has used a new unit of time: a Scaramucci. It refers to the 11-day period that Anthony Scaramucci served as a communications director in the first Trump administration. This week, the president’s newest press secretary, Katie Zacharia, lasted just half a Scaramucci. From one short-lived administration official to another, he offered a message. “Speaking as the world’s leading expert on short White House tenures: turn off the news and go enjoy your family,” Scaramucci posted to X, tagging Zacharia’s account. “In time you’ll...

For all of our technological marvels, a No. 2 pencil and sheets of paper filled with oval boxes remain a key determinant of success. Sure, plenty of high achievers didn’t ace the SAT, ACT, MCAT, LSAT, and GMAT. But the vast majority of wealthy and influential Americans notched high scores in the alphabet soup of standardized tests, which are key gateways to the American dream. And yet, even as we invest these measures with tremendous power, we feel uneasy about them. Sifting and sorting, differentiating people by their abilities, may be crucial to a well-run society, but it also...

With less than three weeks until the midterm elections, affordability continues to rank as the most important issue for Americans. According to a new RealClearEnergy poll, 37% of likely voters say a candidate’s stance on affordability is most likely to influence their vote for Congress – more than double the 15% who cited immigration as a factor. It was the top issue for Democrats (43%), Republicans (32%), and independents (36%) alike. The poll, taken nationally Oct. 1-3 with 1,000 likely voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. A few demographic...

Since the introduction of party primaries at the beginning of the 20th century, they have formed the foundation of our election system. If a candidate can’t make it through a primary electorate, there is only the slightest of chances that she will end up holding elected office. The latest RCINI poll, in conjunction with Emerson Polling and sponsored by Unite America, explores this primary electorate. It finds that despite the critical importance of this electorate, only one in four registered voters says that they cast a ballot in this year’s primaries. Importantly, that group is...

Every two years, the primary season is treated like a national referendum. Turnout maps are parsed, winners and losers declared, and sweeping conclusions drawn about “where the country is headed.” But this ritual is built on a myth. The people who show up to vote in primaries are a small, unrepresentative fraction of America, and the elaborate theater we build around their choices obscures a much larger and more troubling story. For most of the country, the primary isn’t a preview of the real election. It is the election, and most were not invited to participate. Despite the...

On NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday, host Kristen Welker asked Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed if he would "set the record straight" on his alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. "No," El-Sayed quickly replied, before clarifying that neither he nor his family have any ties to the international Sunni Islamist network. El-Sayed is lying. The Democratic Senate hopeful is running as the most thinly veiled Trojan horse in American political history -- on behalf of the Brotherhood and the Islamism it embodies. The Washington Free Beacon helped expose that El-Sayed's...

One of the foundational ideals of a free nation is that all its citizens live under the same rules. Democrats know this. They've been lecturing us for years that "no one is above the law." So, what happens if a federal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) provides incontrovertible evidence that she obtained citizenship by lying? Should we ignore it? Should Omar be given an exemption from the law because she's in Congress? Or because she's a Democrat? Those on the left carping about the investigation into Omar being politically motivated can't be taken seriously. Not after they spent a...

A recently released Gallup poll shows that while 93% of respondents in China felt that AI would benefit their country, only 37% of Americans shared the same optimism. For comparison’s sake, the opinions of Chinese citizens are similar to those held by other Asian powerhouse economies, such as Vietnam and Singapore; public opinion in the U.S. is closer to that of Afghanistan. While it remains unclear whether U.S. anxiety over AI and the infrastructure required to support it stems from foreign influence or genuine grassroots concerns, domestic activists are exploiting that anxiety to...

Twenty years ago, Democrat politicians had a reason to be queasy over making an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." Back then, host Tim Russert asked pointed questions, often relying on research to bring up potentially embarrassing statements and actions. Even Barack Obama knew he was going to get a serious probe of his past statements and policy positions. The current host, Kristen Welker, is no Tim Russert. On Oct. 11, she interviewed Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. The first question was Russertesque, quoting El-Sayed from 2012 criticizing Obama, who is now about to join him on the...

When a member of Congress opens a legal defense fund, it usually makes national news. Reporters dig into the donors, and ethics experts ask whether federal rules allow the lawmaker to spend donor money to fight specific types of legal battles. Investigations into state legislators is hit or miss when it comes to media scrutiny. In California, where citizen journalists and federal probes have uncovered a series of high-profile fraud and corruption cases this year, Democratic state Sen. Susan Rubio’s defense fund has drawn virtually no public attention. The lack of scrutiny has continued...

The consequences are downstream, but responsibility begins upstream. Something deeply troubling is happening in the way we talk about immigration enforcement. After an ICE operation in New York City, the rush to condemn the agent has been striking. Before the facts were fully established, Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting an outrage, demanded an end to ICE enforcement in the city, and declared that ICE must be abolished. The use of force deserves scrutiny, but why are so many leaders so quick to condemn the agency before an investigation establishes what happened? What happened to due...

The American experiment in ordered liberty assumes that elections will come and go but that amid changing circumstances the nation’s fundamental principles will endure – providing continuity, ballast, and guidance – and citizens will persist in exercising their rights and performing their duties reasonably. Yet today’s left and right increasingly fear that the other’s victory in the next election spells doom for the nation. The partisans tend to overlook the role that restoring a shared appreciation of the nation’s founding dedication to blending liberty...

In our recent Bowling Green State University/YouGov poll my colleagues and I surveyed Americans on a number of issues. Like most polls, we asked whether respondents approve of the president, favor one party over another, or think the country is headed in the right direction. Like other polls, we found Americans are not particularly thrilled with President Donald Trump or many of his policies, Democrats currently hold an advantage on the generic congressional ballot heading into the midterms, and most believe the country is on the wrong track. But we also asked something different. We asked...

One month out, discerning consumers should be looking into the polls, not simply at them. When you do, a much more nuanced picture of November’s midterms emerges. While Democrats are undoubtedly leading, the landslide some outlets are headlining may not be coming. The broadest view of generic ballot polling (respondents being asked which party they prefer) less than a month away from Nov. 3 shows Democrats with a seemingly commanding lead. According to RealClearPolitics’ Oct. 6 average of national generic polls, Democrats lead 50.4%-42.2% – an 8.2-point...

Three in four registered voters sat out this year’s primaries, something analysts typically chalk up to voter apathy. It’s not a crazy assumption. In fact, that’s the most common reason non-voters gave for not voting in the latest RCINI/Emerson College Polling survey, sponsored by Unite America: They were busy or forgot. But this isn’t the entire story. Some 15% of non-voters, including 28% of independents who didn’t vote, gave a different answer: They said they weren’t eligible to participate. While this might seem like a relatively small number, it is...

Vice President JD Vance vowed Thursday to shut down a key pipeline immigrant workers use for permanent status. Flanked at a White House press conference by FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, Labor Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito, and senior adviser to the president Stephen Miller, Vance said the government will block major companies like Microsoft and Adobe from applying for permanent status for hundreds of thousands of workers in the country on H-1B visas. “The H-1B visa program is meant to allow companies to bring...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is challenging the popular perception that her state is unfriendly to business. On the campaign trail, the governor has pointed to a seemingly straightforward fact: She has not raised New York’s income or corporate tax rates since taking office in 2021 following Andrew Cuomo’s resignation, Spare us the talking point. Hochul was right to resist calls for another tax increase, including pressure from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. But avoiding a higher headline tax rate does not suddenly make New York a low-cost place to live, work, or build a...