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Federal Subpoena Demands Records on Andrew Gillum

May 30, 2019 at 12:48 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Andrew Gillum (D) is a focal point of a recently issued federal grand jury subpoena that demands information on the former Democratic candidate for governor, his campaign, his political committee, a wealthy donor, a charity he worked for and a former employer,” the Tampa Bay Times reports.

“Throughout his campaign last year, Gillum insisted that he was not a target of a sprawling FBI investigation of Tallahassee city hall, which has taken at least three years and resulted in three arrests… But the recent one does.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign Tagged With: Andrew Gillum, FL-Gov

Younger Voters Outvoted Older Generations In 2018

May 29, 2019 at 7:55 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Midterm voter turnout reached a modern high in 2018, and Generation Z, Millennials and Generation X accounted for a narrow majority of those voters,” according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

“The three younger generations – those ages 18 to 53 in 2018 – reported casting 62.2 million votes, compared with 60.1 million cast by Baby Boomers and older generations. It’s not the first time the younger generations outvoted their elders: The same pattern occurred in the 2016 presidential election.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign

O’Rourke Apologizes for Being a ‘Giant Asshole’

May 28, 2019 at 3:33 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The documentary Running With Beto will premiere tonight on HBO.

Daily Beast: “In the doc, Beto comes off as charismatic yet controlling—its most revealing moments being ones where he is seen dressing down his clearly overworked staff for their perceived lack of preparedness. The person on the receiving end of most of the scoldings is Cynthia Cano, his road manager. At several tense points in the film, Cano is criticized by Beto—in front of her campaign colleagues—for not leaving enough time in his schedule for media interviews, having him be late to campaign events, and not adequately prepping him for those events. (Cano views Beto’s penchant for going long in his speeches and wanting to speak with every single constituent and/or person with a microphone as the reason for his constant tardiness and lack of prep time, which appears to be the more likely culprit.)”

“After Beto was narrowly defeated by Cruz, he delivered a concession speech in front of thousands of supporters in his backyard of El Paso, where he exclaimed, ‘I’m so fucking proud of you guys.’ Just prior to that, in the backstage area of the venue, Modigliani’s cameras caught Beto and his top staffers (as well as his teary-eyed wife, Amy) in an intimate huddle, where the Senate candidate apologized to them for being ‘a giant asshole.'”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign, 2020 Campaign Tagged With: Beto O'Rourke


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508 State Legislative Seats Flipped In 2018

May 9, 2019 at 10:59 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Ballotpedia: “On November 6, 2018, elections were held for 6,073 state legislative seats across 87 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers. Five hundred and eight elections (8.3%) resulted in control of a seat changing to a new party. Of the 508 flips, 391 (77.0%) were Republican seats that flipped to Democrats and 93 (18.2%) were Democratic seats that flipped to Republicans.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign

Democrats Lose Their Enthusiasm Advantage

May 6, 2019 at 8:36 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

First Read: “In the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 75% of Republican registered voters say they have high interest in the 2020 presidential election – registering a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale – versus 73 percent of Democratic voters who say the same thing.”

“That’s quite a change from the 2018 cycle, when Democrats held a double-digit lead on this question until the last two months before the election, when the GOP closed the gap but still trailed the Dems in enthusiasm.”

“Overall enthusiasm for 2020 is sky-high, with 69% of all voters expressing a high level of interest in the upcoming election. That’s just 3 points shy of the 72 percent who said the same thing in October 2016. And we are still more than 500 days away from the 2020 general election. So, yeah, turnout in 2020 is going to be through the roof.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign, 2020 Campaign

High Midterm Turnout Extended Across Racial Groups

May 2, 2019 at 10:08 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“More than half of U.S. eligible voters cast a ballot in 2018, the highest turnout rate for a midterm election in recent history, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The increased turnout was particularly pronounced among Hispanics and Asians, making last year’s midterm voters the most racially and ethnically diverse ever.”

“This was a stark reversal from the previous midterm year, when turnout had decreased – from 45.5% in 2010 to 41.9% in 2014.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign, Race

New Data Reinforces Urgency of GOP’s Female Problem

April 26, 2019 at 9:12 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

David Wasserman: “It turns out the ‘blue wave’ of 2018 was just as much about subtraction as addition: President Trump’s best demographic, men without college degrees, was also the likeliest group to sit out the midterms. Their absence left behind an electorate skewed much more towards college-educated voters, particularly women, costing the GOP dozens of mostly suburban House seats and handing Democrats the majority.”

“According to survey data released by the Census Bureau this week, the total number of women with college degrees who voted fell just 2.4 percent between 2016 and 2018. In an October 2018 NBC/WSJ poll, Trump’s approval rating with this group was just 27 percent. Meanwhile, the total number of men without college degrees who voted fell 16.2 percent (this group had given Trump a much higher 64 percent rating).”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign, Republicans

2018 Turnout Fueled by Core Democratic Voters

April 24, 2019 at 11:56 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Census Bureau report finds that the 2018 midterm election turnout — the  highest-turnout in more than a century — “was driven by a surge of voters who ordinarily sit out those contests, and who disproportionately favor Democratic candidates,” The Hill reports.

“While turnout was up across the board, it rose most dramatically among groups that did not participate very much in the 2014 midterm elections — to the benefit of Democrats who took back the House majority.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign

Young Voters Turned Out In Record Numbers In 2018

April 23, 2019 at 4:03 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington Post: “Voter turnout spiked to a 100-year high in last year’s midterm congressional elections. Census Bureau data released Tuesday finds turnout rates jumped across nearly all groups, but the shift was particularly notable among young adults who typically stay home in non-presidential years.”

“The Census found that 36 percent of citizens ages 18-29 reported voting in last year’s midterm elections, jumping 16 percentage points since 2014 (when turnout was 20 percent) and easily surpassing any midterm election since the 1980s.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign

Tagging Democrats as Socialists Didn’t Work Last Year

April 12, 2019 at 4:05 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Politico: “In Pennsylvania last year, Republicans tagged Democrats up and down the ticket as socialists or sympathetic to socialism… The strategy was deliberate and coordinated, emanating from the state’s Republican Party chairman, Val DiGiorgio.”

“But come Election Day, Democrats flipped three House seats and 16 more in the state General Assembly. [Gov. Tom] Wolf easily won reelection, as did Democratic Sen. Bob Casey… The election in Pennsylvania serves as a case study of a campaign strategy that could prove critical to Trump’s reelection — or undoing — in 2020.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign Tagged With: Pennsylvania

Abrams Says Race Played Role In Beto’s Rise

March 27, 2019 at 5:12 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Stacey Abrams, the Democrat who narrowly lost the Georgia gubernatorial race in 2018, said she believes race may be playing a role in Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke’s rising popularity after his failed Senate run,” she told MSNBC.

“Abrams suggested that she and former Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum did not receive the same attention as the former Texas congressman, whose popularity skyrocketed after losing his 2018 Senate race.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign Tagged With: Andrew Gillum, Beto O'Rourke, Stacey Abrams

105 State Races Decided by Fewer Than 100 Votes

March 21, 2019 at 5:49 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Ballotpedia: “One-hundred and five of the 6,073 state legislative races in 2018 were decided by fewer than 100 votes. Ninety-eight of the 105 races were in state house chambers, rather than state senate chambers.”

“Partisan control changed in 54 of the 105 races. Thirty-six of the partisan changes (34.3% of the 105 races) were to Democrats, and 18 (17.1%) were to Republicans. Of the 51 seats that did not change partisan control, Democrats held 15 (14.3%) and Republicans held 36 (34.3%).”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign

Campaign Was Tough on Beto O’Rourke’s Family

March 10, 2019 at 3:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington Post: “Celebrity exacts a cost, one that the documentary showed was borne by O’Rourke’s three young children…. The result is a glimpse at a wrenching reality rarely seen in the sanitized, smiling images usually put forth by candidates.”

“In one scene … O’Rourke’s wife explained that the children started writing old-school letters to their father instead of video-chatting with him because ‘after they hung up on the phone … they were in tears and really upset.’ The O’Rourke children recounted watching two heavily armed gun-rights activists confront their father at a gun-control march. And on the night their father lost the election, the children discussed how it made them sad to watch others cry.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign Tagged With: Beto O'Rourke

Most Counties Have Seen Increased Democratic Support

March 5, 2019 at 5:05 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Brookings study finds that 83% of the voting population lived in counties where support for Democrats has improved since 2016.

“This increased Democratic support was not confined to traditional Democratic base counties. It occurred in suburbs, smaller metropolitan and rural counties, and most noticeably, in counties with concentrations of older, native-born and white residents without college degrees. Moreover, at the state level, enough states flipped from Republican majorities in the 2016 presidential election to Democratic majorities in the 2018 House elections to project a 2020 Democratic Electoral College win.”

“Trump won more than 270 Electoral College votes, based on winning support from states such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. All of those states registered Democratic advantages in their 2018 House elections.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign

Bonus Quote of the Day

March 3, 2019 at 11:29 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“There’s no one that could factually say there’s not plenty of evidence of collaboration or communications between Trump Organization and Russians.”

— Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), in an interview with NBC News.

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign

Cruz Says Lack of Border Wall Cost GOP the House

March 1, 2019 at 11:41 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) claimed that Republicans wouldn’t have lost the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections had Congress more aggressively pushed border wall funding earlier, adding that Democrats are only opposed to a barrier along the southern border because they “hate” President Trump, Politico reports.

Said Cruz: “If they had taken that advice, if we had had that fight, and you had seen Elizabeth Warren screaming on the Senate floor to stop it, Bernie Sanders pulling what little hair he has out of his head. In September, October, and it culminated with Republicans standing together funding and building the wall. I don’t think we would have lost the House of Representatives.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign, Immigration

GOP Operative Charged In North Carolina

February 27, 2019 at 11:58 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

McCrae Dowless, the political operative who emerged as a central figure in the investigation into irregularities in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, was arrested and charged with a series of charges related to his handling of absentee ballots in the 2016 general election and 2018 primary, WRAL reports.

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign Tagged With: NC-9

Hawley Used State-Owned Car for Campaign Travel

February 26, 2019 at 3:46 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“An employee of the Missouri attorney general’s office occasionally drove Josh Hawley to campaign-related events in a state-owned car, an arrangement that raises new questions about Hawley’s use of taxpayer-funded resources in the run up to his successful bid for U.S. Senate,” McClatchy reports.

“Hawley’s use of a state-owned car stands in contrast to how Missouri’s other statewide elected officials say they utilize such vehicles.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign Tagged With: Josh Hawley, MO-Sen

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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