We all expected a nail-biter that would take a week to decide. In the end, it wasn’t even that close. The Democrats are going to have do some serious soul searching and here are some of the lessons, I think they need to learn. NB: one area I won’t focus on is the economy. It definitely cost the Democrats but is something that was less in their control (The Fed like the BOE was slow to raise rates when inflation…
WH 24 is now over, and the campaign teams are being wound down. Popping up in the campaign were various Brits seeking to give assistance to our transatlantic friends, Labour famously promised to send a troop of election helpers to the Democrats and Nigel Farage had job conflict between Clacton and Mar a Lago. The consensus of the British political class is that this is no big thing and campaigning across the pond is an established tradition. All well and…
I was wrong. Prior to the UK election I took the view that Starmer and Sunak were little different. The Blair settlement of the last 30 years would continue, and the UK would bob along in its sleep inducing political mediocrity. Then Labour came into power. Since 4 July a different Labour has emerged, one that is more socialist, aggressive to groups it doesn’t like such as farmers, or the old and who it targets for taxes. A Labour which…
We were out before 7am on polling day, putting one final leaflet out in my village. I’ve been at it for an hour, the fine drizzle is starting to get annoying, and then I cut a finger on someone’s gate. As I did my best not to bleed onto the leaflets, I did stop and ask – why do I keep doing this? On Thursday I stood as the Liberal Democrats candidate for the Central Buchan ward on Aberdeenshire council….
Another election, another failure for the Democratic party. Donald Trump is president elect and the whole world is crossing its fingers that we’re not heading for four years of turmoil and upheaval in the international order, particularly Ukraine. However, this is not the time to write about that, we don’t know enough yet about what Trump will do this time around to make an informed judgment, we can only hope that some of the rhetoric during and before the campaign…
So here we are, finally at election day. And as the comedian Emo Phillips said, ‘It’s hard to believe that this long, crazy election will finally be over in a few months.’ Because it’s that close. None of the models give either candidate much of a margin, from 538 having it 270-268 for Harris, to the 287-251 margins given by Nate Silver and RCP (note also that Nate’s Monte Carlo simulations disagree with his state y state model, giving Harris…
The House The US House of Representatives has 435 members. Each state is allocated 1 House member initially and then the remaining House members are allocated proportionally. The whole House is elected every 2 years. After every decennial census, the House undergoes a reapportionment process, where the allocation of seats for each state is adjusted in line with population changes. Each state (with more than one seat) then redraws the boundaries of its districts. This process is left up to…
Part I – The Senate The US Senate is the upper house of the United States Congress. Unlike the House of Representatives which is proportional by population, the Senate elects a flat 2 Senators per state (e.g. the most populous state California has 52 House members and 2 Senators, while the least populous Wyoming has 1 House member and 2 Senators) Control of the Senate is also important for the Supreme Court as it gets to sign off on appointments…