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House Exits Are Piling Up

January 5, 2026 at 2:16 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

We’re likely headed toward a wave election if an early warning sign is correct.

A staggering 44 House members have announced they are either retiring or running for another office. That’s more than at this point in any election cycle going back to 1974.

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Filed Under: 2026 Campaign, Members

Trump’s Fantasy of Control

January 5, 2026 at 7:24 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal was one of the great marketing successes of the 1980s.

Published in 1987, it transformed a middling New York real estate developer into a national brand. The book didn’t just burnish Trump’s image — it helped him raise money, attract lenders, and project the illusion of relentless success.

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Filed Under: Members

Why Is Trump Bragging About Passing a Cognitive Test?

January 4, 2026 at 2:21 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump is once again bragging that he “aced” a cognitive test — for the third straight time, no less.

Which, of course, raises a more important question: why is the president of the United States repeatedly taking a basic cognitive exam in the first place?

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Filed Under: Members, White House

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Some Thoughts on the U.S. Attack on Venezuela

January 3, 2026 at 11:48 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump announced early this morning that U.S. forces carried out what he described as a “large-scale strike against Venezuela,” resulting in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

Some early takeaways:

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Filed Under: Members

Politics in the New Year

January 2, 2026 at 6:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The latest episode of Trial Balloon is live for members.

Looking back and looking ahead.

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Filed Under: Members

Trump Crosses the Line in Venezuela

December 30, 2025 at 10:27 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump has spent weeks rattling sabers at Venezuela, openly floating the idea of military action and daring critics to stop him.

Now it turns out that action has already begun.

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Filed Under: Members

A Quiet Supreme Court Ruling Clips Trump’s Power

December 30, 2025 at 8:09 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Mostly overlooked during the Christmas lull in the news was a Supreme Court decision that handed President Trump a rare — and consequential — defeat.

In an emergency appeal pending since October, six justices ruled that Trump could not, for now, deploy National Guard troops to Chicago to assist federal authorities responding to protests over his immigration policies.

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Filed Under: Members

How Election Law Is Being Rewritten Ahead of 2026

December 29, 2025 at 2:15 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Just for members: The latest issue of Ballot Access News.

Washington, D.C. formally adopts ranked-choice voting, Congress introduces its most ambitious national RCV bills yet, and a wave of lawsuits and Supreme Court cases could reshape ballot access, campaign finance, and voting rights nationwide.

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Filed Under: Members

Holiday Mailbag

December 26, 2025 at 6:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The latest episode of Trial Balloon is live for members.

We take listener questions… and wish you a happy holiday season!

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Filed Under: Members

The Epstein Cover Up Enters a New Phase

December 22, 2025 at 10:36 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Department of Justice blew past a legally imposed Friday deadline to turn over the Epstein files to Congress — and did so with a familiar mix of opacity, shifting explanations, and vanishing records.

Despite the clear requirement, not all of the Epstein material was released.

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Filed Under: Members

Arguing With Voters About the Economy Never Works

December 22, 2025 at 9:48 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump is engaged in a familiar and usually futile exercise: trying to persuade voters that the economy is better than they think it is.

That argument never works.

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Filed Under: Economy, Members, Political History

Democrats Are Mistaking Momentum for a Mandate

December 19, 2025 at 7:52 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

DNC Chair Ken Martin says he doesn’t want to undercut the party’s momentum by releasing an autopsy report that took Democrats a full year to produce.

He points to wins in November’s off-year elections and a year of strong Democratic overperformance in special elections as proof the party is on the right track.

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Filed Under: Democrats, Members

What Was That?

December 19, 2025 at 6:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The latest episode of Trial Balloon is live for members.

Donald Trump yells at the nation.

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Filed Under: Members

Tar Heel Target

December 18, 2025 at 4:14 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Just for members: The latest Inside Elections.

This issue includes a deep dive into one of the most important U.S. Senate races in the entire country: North Carolina.

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Filed Under: Members

The Trump–Epstein Story Isn’t Going Away

December 18, 2025 at 11:27 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The New York Times published a deeply disturbing account of Donald Trump’s long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein — one that undercuts Trump’s repeated claims that he barely knew the disgraced financier and exposes a culture in which “chasing women was a game of ego and dominance” and “female bodies were currency.”

Here are some of the most alarming revelations:

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Filed Under: Members, Scandal

Trump’s ‘Malaise’ Moment

December 18, 2025 at 7:38 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jimmy Carter’s presidency is often remembered for a single speech.

In 1979, facing an energy crisis, Carter went on national television to talk about more than gas lines and oil prices. He warned of a deeper malaise — a country consumed by self-indulgence, fractured by cynicism, and adrift without a shared sense of purpose.

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Filed Under: Members, Political History

A Speaker in Name Only

December 17, 2025 at 12:19 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Four politically vulnerable House Republicans just crossed their leadership — again.

They joined Democrats on a discharge petition to force a House vote in 2026 on extending expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Those subsidies expire at the end of this year, and now GOP leaders can no longer avoid a politically toxic health care fight in the middle of an election cycle.

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Filed Under: House of Representatives, Members

A Familiar Chaos Returns to Trump’s Washington

December 17, 2025 at 10:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington is gripped by déjà vu.

As Donald Trump’s second term gets underway, it’s increasingly resembling his first — and that’s setting off alarm bells inside the Republican Party.

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Filed Under: Members

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Latest for Members

  • House Exits Are Piling Up
  • Trump’s Fantasy of Control
  • Why Is Trump Bragging About Passing a Cognitive Test?
  • Some Thoughts on the U.S. Attack on Venezuela
  • Politics in the New Year

Word of the Day

Honeymoon Period: A “honeymoon period” is a period of popularity enjoyed by a new leader.

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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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