“Republicans in Virginia and a handful of other battleground states are pushing for far-reaching changes to the electoral college in an attempt to counter recent success by Democrats,” the Washington Post reports.

“In the vast majority of states, the presidential candidate who wins receives all of that state’s electoral votes. The proposed changes would instead apportion electoral votes by congressional district, a setup far more favorable to Republicans. Under such a system in Virginia, for instance, President Obama would have claimed four of the state’s 13 electoral votes in the 2012 election, rather than all of them.”

“No state is moving quicker than Virginia, where state senators are likely to vote on the plan as soon as next week. If successful, Virginia would become the third state to adopt the congressional district system, after Nebraska and Maine.”

Nate Cohn: “But the GOP’s effort in Virginia, if it’s passed, is more cynical than
effective: Virginia is not one of the states where Republicans can
pursue this kind of electoral policy and reap big gains.”

Remember the analysis that found that long lines cost nearly 50,000 votes in Central Florida? Well, the Orlando Sentinel reports that if you extend that to the whole state, it’s more than 201,000.

“Analyzing data compiled by the Orlando Sentinel, Ohio State University professor Theodore Allen estimated last week that at least 201,000 voters likely gave up in frustration on Nov. 6, based on research Allen has been doing on voter behavior. His preliminary conclusion was based on the Sentinel’s analysis of voter patterns and precinct-closing times in Florida’s 25 largest counties, home to 86 percent of the state’s 11.9 million registered voters.”

Gallup: “During his fourth year in office, an average of 86% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans approved of the job Barack Obama did as president. That 76-percentage-point gap ties George W. Bush’s fourth year as the most polarized years in Gallup records.”

Suzi Parker: “Remember how Hillary Rodham Clinton’s critics said she faked her December stomach illness, which included a concussion and a subsequent blood clot, because she was scared to face scrutiny from Congress? As the kids say, whatevs. Hillary conquered Capitol Hill on Wednesday. She looked anything but frightened … Naturally, the right-wing media went into overdrive about Hillary not caring about four dead Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, because she said, ‘What difference, at this point, does it make?’ Of course, they must have missed her earlier testimony when her voice cracked with emotion as she described meeting the caskets at Andrews Air Force Base, President Obama by her side.”

“For Hillary, the testimony was a triumphant capstone on her term as the chief U.S. diplomat. If Hillary had not dealt with the Benghazi affair before she left office, she could have been viewed as a failure and a weakling. Instead, she came blazing onto Capitol Hill in true Hillary style, concluding the Libya drama on her terms and exiting the Washington stage to regroup for her next adventure — a new book, global speeches or a presidential run.”

The Week: Will Clinton’s testimony come back to haunt her?

A new Christopher Newport University poll shows a very tight race for Virginia governor with Terry McAuliffe (D) barely ahead of Ken Cuccinelli (R), 31% to 30%.

A three-way race is even tighter with McAuliffe and Cuccinelli tied at 27% and possible independent candidate Bill Bolling (I) way back at 9%.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) “will deliver a forceful denunciation of his party’s Washington-centric focus in a speech to the Republican National Committee on Thursday evening, arguing that the GOP is fighting the wrong fight as it seeks to rebuild from losses at the ballot box last November,” the Washington Post reports.

“Jindal’s speech — and his call to ‘recalibrate the compass of conservatism’ — is the latest shred of a growing amount of evidence that the Louisiana governor is positioning himself to not only run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 but do so in direct (or close to it) opposition to his party in the nation’s capital.”