Tag Archives: 2016 Election

Weekend Wrapup — October 23rd

Sometimes, a week is a long time in politics.  There are still 53 weeks to go to the 2016 general election, and three months to the Iowa Caucuses, but this week was a big week.  Three candidates out on the Democratic side, a probable new speaker, an old investigative committee, a new investigative committee, and two elections — one in Canada and one in Louisiana.

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2016 GE: Hillary Clinton vs. GOP Field, Part VII

Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton

HERE  is the 7th installation in a series that deeply examines ALL of the Clinton-vs.-GOP polling to-date. You can also find parts I-VI at my politics blog. It’s a true data-baseline.

By “all”, I mean 1,537 polling matchups to-date, and it’s not even election year yet. Continue Reading...

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Supreme Court by the Numbers and the 2016 Election

Wrapping up the 2014-15 Supreme Court Term, the most significant number is four.  That is the number of Justices who are over 75.  Justice Ginsburg is 82; Justices Scalia and Kennedy are 79; and Justice Breyer will turn 77 in August.  While Justice Stevens did not retire until he was 90, it is more likely than not that these four Justices will retire soon.  Given that this group of four is split 2-2 between the conservative wing of the Supreme Court and the liberal wing of the Supreme Court (and Justice Thomas, the next oldest Justice is ten years younger than Justice Breyer), control of the Supreme Court for the next decade may depend upon what happens in the 2016 election.

The next key number is 30 out of 66.  That is the number of cases that were decided by a 6-3 or a 5-4 vote.  With almost half of the cases from this term within two votes of swinging the other way, moving from a 5-4 Republican majority to a 7-2 Republican majority or a 6-3 Democratic majority could alter a lot of the decisions in these close cases or result in additional cases firming up the rule recognized this past term.

Next is 13 out of 19.  That is the number of 5-4 decisions in which Justice Kennedy was the deciding vote in what was otherwise a 4-4 split between the more conservative Justices and the more liberal Justices.  (Justice Kennedy went with the liberals 8 times and the conservatives 5 times.) Continue Reading...

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