Category Archives: political parties

“Will the Real G.O.P. Please Stand Up? A National Power Struggle Goes Local.”

January 24, 2023, 7:38 ampolitical partiesRick Hasen

NYT: Zach Scherer, a 20-year-old car salesman and Republican activist in Pennsylvania’s Butler County, decided to run for a seat on the county commission this year — a move that ordinarily would mean seeking the endorsement of local Republican Party… Continue reading

“The GOP’s great Trump reckoning begins at the state party level”

November 28, 2022, 8:24 ampolitical partiesRick Hasen

Politico: But underwhelming midterm performances across the board have already ignited a wave of intraparty conflagrations. And as a post-midterm power vacuum in Michigan, New Hampshire and other pivotal states threatens to weaken Trump’s vise grip on state party apparatuses,… Continue reading

The Limits of Federal Voting Rights Reform

November 28, 2022, 8:01 ampolitical parties, political polarizationTabatha Abu El-Haj

Voting rights are under attack, both by Republican state legislature and by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. Given Congress’s rejection of voting reforms in January 2022, Didi Kuo and I argue, in our new article, that it… Continue reading

“Associational Party-Building: A Path to Rebuilding Democracy”

November 21, 2022, 6:34 ampolitical parties, political polarization, UncategorizedNew ScholarshipTabatha Abu El-Haj

Didi Kuo (Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University) and I are excited to share our new article, Associational Party-Building: A Path to Rebuilding Democracy, which is out today in the Columbia Law Review Forum.… Continue reading

“A QAnon Democrat? Fierce 2022 Warfare Erupts in Deep-Blue California”

October 31, 2022, 7:36 ampolitical parties, primariesRick Hasen

NYT: The mailers and online ads vividly paint David Kim as a right-wing extremist, accusing him of running for a House seat in California “with QAnon-MAGA support” from “QAnon Republicans.”But Mr. Kim is not a Republican. He’s a progressive Democrat… Continue reading

“Ticket-splitting voters were going extinct. Now they may decide 2022’s biggest races.”

October 1, 2022, 1:40 pmpolitical parties, political polarizationFracturing PartiesTabatha Abu El-Haj

Fascinating new NBC report on polling: “In battleground states from Georgia to New Hampshire to Ohio, a potentially decisive slice of voters tell pollsters they’re supporting a Democrat for one high-profile office and a Republican for another. Nowhere is the… Continue reading

“Forget ‘polarization.’ The problem is right-wing extremism.”

September 29, 2022, 7:40 ampolitical parties, political polarizationTabatha Abu El-Haj

Jennifer Rubin makes a key point in this Opinion piece in the Washington Post, arguing that the problem in American politics today is not polarization but “right-wing extremism”: Democrats are not selecting extreme candidates. For example, as of July, in… Continue reading

With or without what kind of parties? And at what cost?

September 27, 2022, 7:04 pmpolitical parties, political polarizationTabatha Abu El-Haj

Today was the 10th Anniversary of the Mischief of Faction Blog, which started from the premise that “on balance, a nation is better off with parties than without them.” Seth Masket and Julie Azari took the opportunity to… Continue reading

Party Leaders Seek to Rein in Extremists through Spending–But Quietly

September 27, 2022, 6:13 ampolitical parties, primaries, UncategorizedTabatha Abu El-Haj

A new Washington Post report suggests that Kevin McCarthy and Liz Cheney, as party leaders, are both working to bringing order back to the Republican Party. It is only their methods and interests that differ. McCarthy’s interests appear to be… Continue reading

“After Sarah Palin’s election loss, Sen. Tom Cotton calls ranked choice voting ‘a scam'”

September 1, 2022, 7:28 amalternative voting systems, political partiesRick Hasen

NBC News: After Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Sarah Palin in Alaska’s special election Wednesday, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., discredited the voting system used by Alaska voters that they chose to implement in their state.Cotton tweeted that Alaska’s new ranked… Continue reading

“Two nonbinary candidates make history with election to Maryland’s Democratic Central Committee”

August 22, 2022, 6:53 ampolitical partiesRick Hasen

Baltimore Banner: Hopkins’ and Bowens’ strong showings in the July 19 primary has focused attention on the Democratic Party’s efforts to be more inclusive from a gender standpoint. The DCC voted in 2018 to allow nonbinary candidates to identify… Continue reading

Pildes: “It’s not just us. Western democracies are fragmenting.”

July 16, 2022, 6:12 ampolitical parties, political polarizationDan Tokaji

Rick Pildes, in the Wash Post: Three major elections on the same Sunday in June — in France, Colombia and Spain — tell the fundamental story of democracy in our era: the continuous disaffection with government, the collapse of… Continue reading

“The RNC’s Ground Game of Inches”

June 3, 2022, 5:56 ampolitical partiesTabatha Abu El-Haj

Alexander Sammon at The American Prospect has this extended piece on the RNC’s ground game focused on building support among nonwhite voters by establishing community centers across the country. Quite interested in this in light of my interest in associational … Continue reading

“How the Proud Boys Gripped the Miami-Dade Republican Party”

June 2, 2022, 5:51 ampolitical parties, political polarizationTabatha Abu El-Haj

The N.Y. Times is reporting on the Proud Boys’s successful efforts to join the leadership of the Miami-Dade Republican Party, once the locus of Jeb. Bush’s power. “[A]t least a half-dozen current and former Proud Boys who have secured seats… Continue reading