The Associated Press just called the last outstanding Senate race for GOP incumbent Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski, who lost her primary to Tea Party favorite Joe Miller, ran an historic write in campaign — the first successful one since Strom Thurmond in 1954.
As I’ve written before, Murkowski benefited from a sense of panic in the …
On November 2, Democrats lost a net of 61+ seats in the House (a handful of races are still too close to call), costing them the majority in that chamber, and Senate Democrats lost six seats. Pundits called it a Category 5 storm, a seismic change. The President labeled it a “shellacking.” Embarrassed, Democrats returned to Washington …
Remember last summer when Republicans were warning about the scary lame duck? The ruling Democrats, warned GOP candidates and incumbents alike, are going to try and sneak through all manner of controversial bills against the will of the American people. House Republicans even introduced not one but two resolutions calling on Dems to not …
The Senate Republican conference’s looming vote has been portrayed as the first test of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell versus Tea Party leader Jim DeMint. House GOP leadership last week announced an agreement to ban earmarks for at least two years. But McConnell held out in the Senate while DeMint pressed for a conference vote on the …
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will run for minority leader in a statement today. It had been widely expected that Pelosi, 70, would retire. But, after she spent much of the last two days calling virtually every member of her shrunken caucus, she said she came to the conclusion that her “work is far from finished.” From her …
Michael Grunwald and I teamed up to write this week’s cover story, a profile of the speaker-in-waiting, John Boehner.
It was striking in trying to coax Boehner into speaking to us – he never did – how much he wanted to avoid the limelight. The victory, his staff said, was not about him, but about a movement and about Barack …
In 2006 and 2008 Democrats wiped out every New England House Republican and with the departure (from the Party and then the Senate) of Vermont’s Jim Jeffords, and John Sununu and Lincoln Chafee’s losses at the polls, GOP senators looked endangered as well. Pundits talked about how New England was turning permanently blue and how it …
Heading into the elections, John Boehner didn’t want to have a victory party. “This is not a time for celebration. Not when one in 10 of our fellow citizens are out of work. Not when we have buried our children under a mountain of debt. Not when our Congress is held in such low esteem,” he told the crowd tonight. “We can …
When I interviewed Chris Van Hollen last week he wrote down a name on a piece of paper and placed it at the back of my notebook. The name, said Hollen, who is in charge of electing Democrats to the House, was his dark horse candidate — someone he thought would defy all odds. I promised I wouldn’t look at the paper until today and I …
While the Democrats’ ’06 & ’08 classes – most of whom were elected in swing seats that voted for either George W. Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008 or both — will likely be decimated tonight, what makes this election more of a tsunami is the endangered Old Bulls. Remember, in 2006 networks weren’t calling the House flipping …
Both CNN and MSNBC are now projecting that House Republicans will gain at least 39 seats and control of the House. The crowd here at the GOP victory party, where Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele just spoke and predicted a 55 seat pick up in the House, is cheering as CNN analyzes the races.
Some significant pickups …
In the 1940’s and 50’s when Sam Rayburn ruled the House his famous motto was: “You’ve got to go along to get along.” Rayburn governed during such a volatile period of war (World War 2, Korean, the beginning of Vietnam) and economic upheaval that the House flipped six times in 21 years. He got along so well with his GOP …
This morning on TIME.com I have a look at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s fight for his political life in what is sure one of the wackiest races in what has been a weird and wonderful midterm election — certainly the most interesting I have covered. Interestingly, John Ralston, the desert guru of Nevada politics, thinks Reid will …
