Political Commentary

Most Recent Releases

July 2, 2026Presidential Approval on the Path to the Midterm: The Pattern is That There is No Pattern By Kyle Kondik
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE— One wouldn’t expect the president to get much of an approval boost from the nation’s 250th anniversary, particularly as he handles it in a highly partisan way.
— The president’s approval numbers, much like gas prices, are a little better lately, but still worse than they were before the attack on Iran.
— There is not a consistent pattern for postwar presidential approval from July 1 to the midterm, and in recent years a president’s approval hasn’t changed much over the last four months of the campaign.

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                            July 1, 2026Some Laws Kill By John Stossel
        Car accidents kill 100 Americans every day.

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                            July 1, 2026The Greatest Casualty of COVID Was Trust By Brian C. Joondeph, M.D.
During the Watergate hearings, Senator Howard Baker asked the question that came to define a generation: “What did the President know, and when did he know it?”

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                            June 30, 2026Bill Maher, Liberalism's Apostate By Daniel McCarthy
   Bill Maher is the perfect liberal, at least on paper -- yet despite his talk shows being nominated for Emmy awards more than 40 times, it's only in Donald Trump's Washington that Maher finally gets the recognition he craves.

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                            June 30, 2026What England Can Teach Us About 'Democratic Socialism' By Stephen Moore
        If you want to see modern-day socialism in action, look no further than to the other side of the pond at not-so-jolly old England. The story of Britain's decline is a warning signal to those here in the States who are thrilled by the warm embrace of socialism.

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                            June 26, 2026The Background That Made the Revolution Possible By Michael Barone
        As we inch toward the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, let me share a couple of reflections on the background of how this extraordinary, unprecedented and daring event succeeded.

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                            June 24, 2026Minimum Wage Fail  By John Stossel
        Not long ago, new kinds of jobs appeared: app-based gig work.

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                            June 23, 2026Democrats Declare War on School Choice By Stephen Moore
   Why are Democrats and their teachers union masters trying to shoot down parental choice in education even when we now have so many examples of these programs working?

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                            June 23, 2026Can Anyone Govern Britain -- or America? By Daniel McCarthy
As Britain gets ready for its seventh prime minister in just 10 years, it's time to ask whether the parliamentary system itself is broken.

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                            June 19, 2026Not Following the Example of President James K. Polk By Michael Barone
        A president orders the onset of hostilities -- war -- without authorization of Congress and without much in the way of making a case with the public. His troops win important victories and decapitate large parts of the government of the enemy. But in the enemy capital, no one surrenders or will even negotiate seriously.

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                            June 19, 2026America’s 250th Birthday and the Crisis of American Confidence By Brian C. Joondeph, M.D.
As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday next month, a surprising number of Americans are looking elsewhere. A new Elon University poll found that while most Americans would still choose the United States over any other country, a majority of Democrats say they would rather live somewhere else.
June 18, 2026If Democrats Get a 2006-Style Senate Result, It May be Because Trump Has a 2006-Style Approval Rating By Kyle Kondik
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE— While the 2018 midterm was generally a “blue wave,” Republicans still held the Senate. If Democrats want to flip the Senate, they’ll need a year that’s more like 2006.
— The Senate map was in some ways completely different heading into the 2006 election as opposed to the Senate map we have now, and it was less tied to presidential partisanship.
— However, there are some commonalities between the top Democratic Senate targets in 2006 and in 2026, although the comparisons require some stretching.
— But more important is President Trump’s approval rating, which probably needs to be more like George W. Bush’s in 2006 than Trump’s own approval in 2018 in order for Democrats to flip the Senate.

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                            June 17, 2026Magic Medicine? By John Stossel
        People are excited about peptides.

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                            June 16, 2026The Great Escape -- Let Young Workers Out of Social Security By Stephen Moore
   What cruel irony that we learned last week that Social Security is going broke even sooner than we thought. The Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2032, according to the latest Trustees Report. How odd that it is even referred to as a "trust fund," because there is no trust, and there is no fund.

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                            June 16, 2026University Professors Against Academic Freedom By Daniel McCarthy
        Does academic freedom have a greater enemy than the American Association of University Professors?

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                            June 12, 2026Gordon Wood and the Historians Who Told the Real Story of the Founders By Michael Barone
   The sudden death of the historian Gordon Wood, just weeks before the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, is one more mark of the closure of a golden age of the historiography of the Revolutionary era. It's an occasion to reflect on the uniqueness, indeed the idiosyncrasy, of the emergence of the primacy of this United States among the nations of the world.
June 11, 2026The Senate: The Race for the Majority is Not a Toss-up, But the Races That Will Decide It Are By Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE— We are making three Senate rating changes this week, all in favor of Democrats. North Carolina moves to Leans Democratic, and Alaska and Ohio are now Toss-ups.
— This makes the Democrats’ path to the majority clearer, but we still favor Republicans in the overall race for the Senate.
— Democrats need to win all four of our Toss-ups to get to a majority, while Republicans need just one to preserve a nominal 50-50 majority because they hold the vice presidential tiebreaker.
— Democrats also have their work cut out for them in the four Toss-ups, albeit for different reasons. In Maine and Michigan, there are questions about the quality of the Democratic candidates. In Alaska and Ohio, meanwhile, the questions are more about Democrats’ ability to overcome each state’s pronounced GOP lean.

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                            June 10, 2026Here to 'Help' By John Stossel
   Politicians promise they'll "help" us.

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                            June 9, 2026Trump's Critics Dead Wrong (Again) on the Economy By Stephen Moore
        Last week's blockbuster jobs report, with more than 265,000 jobs added when including upward employment revisions, was very welcome news to almost all Americans. The exception would be the economists of the left who throughout Donald Trump's now-five-and-a-half years in the White House keep getting the economy dead wrong.

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                            June 9, 2026Pope Leo Courts the Global Left By Daniel McCarthy
No pope can afford to be completely apolitical, but Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, is proving to be more political than most -- and he's siding with the left.