Outside the Beltway

Republican chances to hold the Senate were boosted in West Virginia last night thanks to the fact that a fringe candidate was soundly defeated.

As expected, President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran. There was no rational basis for doing so.

Whether Don Blankenship wins or loses in West Virginia, his success is yet another example of how Donald Trump has changed the GOP for the worse.

National Republicans are increasingly concerned that an upstart, racist candidate who has unleashed personal attacks on Mitch McConnell’s family will sneak through and win tomorrow’s primary to decide who will face Joe Manchin in November.

Seven years after deactivation, the U.S. Second Fleet will be patrolling the North Atlantic again.

While the Trump Administration slowly tries to remake the Federal Judiciary, states are moving to pass radical new challenges to Roe v. Wade.

To paraphrase the late Dennis Green, he is who we thought he was. 

Republicans are worried about 2018, and they’re even more worried that they have a President who is refusing to acknowledge political reality.

A Federal Appeals Court has reversed a lower court ruling that struck down Texas’s Voter ID law as discriminatory against minority voters.

The White House is pushing back on the allegations of misconduct that were made against Ronny Jackson this week, and trying to use them in a high-profile Senate race in Montana.

The first estimate of economic growth in the first three months of 2018 beat expectations slightly, but it doesn’t bode well for the immediate future.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday in a case alleging that Texas’s Congressional and state legislative districts were drawn with the intent to discriminate based on race.

As expected, a Republican won the Special Election in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, but it’s not a win Republicans should really be celebrating.

Hillary Clinton isn’t running for anything in 2018, but that isn’t stopping Republicans from running against her.

Republicans are planning on pushing judicial nominees through the Senate in case they lose control in November. Meanwhile, the possibility of a Supreme Court vacancy raises the stakes.

Mitt Romney stumbled in his bid to become Utah’s next Senator but he’s still likely to win the nomination anyway.

With just over six months to go before the 2018 elections, the storm clouds are starting to gather for the Republican Party.

The Democratic National Committee has filed a lawsuit alleging a wide-ranging conspiracy to influence the 2016 election. As a legal document, it appears to be little more than a political stunt.

A longtime “Hillary Beat” reporter ruminates on what she and her candidate could have done differently in 2016.

Kyrsten Sinema, the likely Democratic nominee for the Senate in Arizona, is leading all three of her potential Republican challengers. This could spell trouble for the GOP.

The campaign-agnostic political science models predicted a toss-up in 2016 and again in 2020.

The first real poll of the Senate race in Texas shows Ted Cruz with a much thinner lead than might be expected in a state like Texas. That doesn’t mean we should expect a Democratic upset there, though.

Republicans are blaming the President for the fading popularity of the tax reform law passed in December. It’s more complicated than that.

Two months after the shooting in Parkland, Florida, support for gun control measures seems to be slipping.

Republicans have been hoping that the tax bill passed in December would help them in the midterms. That’s appearing to be less and less likely by the day.

New polling shows the Democrat’s lead in the Congressional ballot poll shrinking slightly, but enthusiasm is still on their side.

Some Republicans are suggesting that Paul Ryan should be pushed out as Speaker before the November elections.

Mark Zuckerberg’s second day before Congress was somewhat more contentious than the first, but at the end of the day it’s still unclear that more regulation is the answer to the issues raised by recent Facebook “scandals.”

Paul Ryan won’t be running for re-election this year, opening up both a Congressional seat and a leadership spot.

Republicans are raising the fear of impeachment to motivate a base that could become disaffected heading into November.

Governor Rick Scott has entered the race to challenge Bill Nelson in Florida, creating what is likely to be one of the most closely watched races of the year.

We’re set to return to the era of trillion dollar budget deficits, and Republicans won’t do a thing about it.

Trump’s tariff plan isn’t going over well in farm country, and that could cause problems for the GOP in November.

The great negotiator in the White House is likely underestimating the tools available to Xi.

Tim Pawlenty is attempting a comeback in Minnesota. It won’t be easy.

Former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen appears to be poised to give Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn a run for her money in the Volunteer State.

President Trump wants to send the military to the Mexican border. This is both unnecessary and a bad idea.

New York and nearly two dozen other jurisdictions have filed a lawsuit seeking to bar the Trump Administration from asking about citizenship in the 2020 Census.

News anchors at dozens of local stations owned by conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group were recently required to read a script mandated by corporate headquarters, and it’s leading to some bad media coverage for Sinclair.

The woman who lost the 2016 election is apparently not going to go away.

As expected, Russia has retaliated for the retaliation against it in connection with the attempted murder of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the United Kingdom.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the second partisan gerrymandering case of the term, and once again they appear to be divided.

John Dowd allegedly raised the possibility while the Mueller investigation was closing in on the two presidential advisors.

If you recall your grade school civics, you already knew this.

California has pushed back quickly against the Trump Administration’s decision to include a question regarding citizenship in the 2020 Census.

If the polls are any indication, Democrats may fall short in their bid to take back the House in November.

New polling shows that public support for several gun control proposals continue to increase in the wake of February’s shooting at a Parkland, Florida High School.

Like many Presidents before him, Donald Trump wants a line-item veto. Getting there won’t be easy, nor should it be.

Organizing protests was the easy part. The hard part for those who would seek to expand gun regulations is yet to come.

President Trump continues to obsequiously praise Russian President Vladimir Putin